Video games are one of the most popular media forms in today's society, but are often criticized for various reasons. For instance, mainstream video games do not incorporate enough racially diverse game characters or are often connected to adolescents’ levels of aggression and have thus been the focus of many debates. While the negative consequences of video games have been analyzed by many academic studies, research on the prosocial effects of video games is scarce. To address this research gap and support the ongoing call for more diverse video game characters, this study used a 3 × 1 between-subjects design (N = 86) to test the impact of racially diverse non-playable characters (NPCs). The parasocial contact hypothesis was used as the theoretical foundation, incorporating virtual reality technology as an intensifier of effects. The results showed that helping a Black NPC did not reduce implicit bias, but reduced explicit bias towards Black people. This improvement was stronger when the video game was played using virtual reality technology than when using a traditional two-dimensional gaming device.

中文翻译：

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通过与 VR 中不可玩的视频游戏角色的群际接触来减少外群偏见

电子游戏是当今社会最流行的媒体形式之一，但经常因各种原因受到批评。例如，主流视频游戏没有包含足够多的种族多样化游戏角色，或者通常与青少年的攻击性水平有关，因此成为许多辩论的焦点。虽然许多学术研究已经分析了电子游戏的负面影响，但关于电子游戏的亲社会影响的研究却很少。为了解决这一研究空白并支持对更多样化的视频游戏角色的持续呼吁，本研究使用了 3 × 1 的受试者间设计（N = 86）来测试种族多样化的不可玩角色（NPC）的影响。准社会接触假说被用作理论基础，将虚拟现实技术作为效果的增强器。结果表明，帮助黑人 NPC 并没有减少内隐偏见，而是减少了对黑人的显性偏见。当使用虚拟现实技术玩视频游戏时，这种改进比使用传统二维游戏设备时更强。