Super-flight may make you a better person: study

Scientists studying whether pro-social video games make people behave better have found that people who played a Virtual Reality game where they could fly like Superman became more helpful.

"Studies show that computer games that induce the user to behave in prosocial ways can lead users to engage in helping behaviors in the real world after the game is over," the researchers wrote in the journal PloS One.

"In this vein, the current study sought to discover whether simply experiencing a virtual enhanced ability (like the power of flight), and the unstated but implicit concepts that go along with such an enhanced ability (for example a superpower) would lead participants subsequently to be more helpful," the researchers wrote.

In order to test this the researchers set up four simulations. Two of the simulations gave the player avatar the power of flight evocative of superheroes, another two put the player in the position of a helicopter pilot.

These were then each split with one having to deliver insulin to a sick child and the other having to take a tour of a virtual city.

"Thus, the study was a two-by-two design with assignment to one of four possible groups: Superpowered helper; helicopter helper; superpowered tourist; helicopter tourist," the researchers wrote.

"To sum up the results, flying participants were quicker to help than helicopter participants. In addition, there was a significant effect of number of pens picked up such that flyers picked up more pens than helicopter riders. In fact, six participants did not help at all, and these participants were all in the helicopter condition," the researchers said of their results.

The researchers believe that this may be due to one of two possible factors, "One hypothesized explanation for these results is that embodying the ability to fly in VR primes concepts and stereotypes related to superheroes in general or to Superman in particular, and thus facilitates subsequent helping behaviour in the real world. Similarly, it is possible that embodying this power may do more than prime such concepts; it may shift participants’ self-concept or identity in a powerful way as “someone who helps,” at least briefly."

The researchers do caution however that the participants who gained the ability to fly felt more immersed and thus may have been more helpful simply because they experienced the simulation in a more engaging way.

They concluded by calling for more research into this field, in the hopes of finding out if simulating other typical superpowers would have the same effect.