Bringing People Closer: The Prosocial Effects of Immersive Media on Users’ Attitudes and Behavior

Abstract

This experimental study examined how varying the degree of immersiveness of a short documentary about a remote health issue influenced users’ reported spatial presence, empathic parasocial interaction, and individual issue involvement. Higher-order responses, namely, the desire for information and willingness to donate to the cause, were also analyzed. The documentary was shown to 85 participants using three different technologies with varying degrees of immersiveness (high, moderate, and low). The results show that the level of the technology’s immersiveness gradually increases the spatial presence, empathic parasocial interaction, and issue involvement of the user. While participants of the highly immersive condition reported a higher desire for additional information, the results on donation behavior were less conclusive.

Keywords

spatial presence situational empathy virtual reality immersive videos charitable giving

Persuading people to care about topics and issues that appear geographically and emotionally distant is one of the major challenges facing charitable organizations (Orgad & Seu, 2014; Zheng & McKeever, 2016). Fundamental health issues, environmental and political problems, and social injustice often do not directly affect those people who might have the means to initiate change. Charities and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) must therefore persuade potential supporters to develop “intimate, mostly non-reciprocal bonding with far-away others” (Orgad & Seu, 2014, p. 917). New technological devices and immersive media content, however, can create the feeling of being physically present in a distant, troubled location, which could facilitate compassion and ultimately result in prosocial behavior (Ahn et al., 2013; Fonseca & Kraus, 2016; Rosenberg et al., 2013). Consequently, immersive technologies that simulate unmediated sensory experiences, such as virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality, are expected to play a key role in future fundraising practices (Milk, 2015; Suh & Prophet, 2018; Yoo & Drumwright, 2018). Numerous charities and NGOs such as the United Nations (UN), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Oxfam are already using immersive media to persuade possible donators to support their cause.

Immersive Videos

Organizations such as these are incorporating immersive videos (Fonseca & Kraus, 2016) into their charitable appeals using VR headsets (UN, 2016). The term immersive video refers to videos that are filmed by cameras that record a 360° view of the scene (e.g., Samsung’s Gear 360 (Prospero, 2017)). With the help of these tools, a user can look around freely and experience a 360° point of view during the media reception. Due to the limited interactivity provided by immersive video, they cannot be considered “real” VR, but the convergence of TV and VR (Passmore et al., 2016). While “real” VR applications have been shown to facilitate prosocial behavior and perspective taking (Herrera et al., 2018; Peck et al., 2013), these immersive virtual environments require additional hardware, such as tracking devices, and thus are more difficult to create and implement. Consequently, the handling requires relatively high effort compared to immersive videos and, thus, is less scalable, apparently resulting in the preference for 360° videos for fundraising campaigns. Numerous fundraising agencies have produced or cooperated with production companies to create short documentaries with 360° cameras, enabling viewers to experience pressing issues around the world, such as UNICEF’s immersive documentary Clouds over Sidra or the UN’s Waves of Grace. These immersive videos have already successfully been shown to possible donors via VR headsets during face-to-face fundraising campaigns and at larger gatherings (e.g., the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; UN, 2015). However, research on the impact of immersive videos on relevant constructs such as empathy, issue involvement, and donor behavior is scarce and inconclusive (Herrera et al., 2018; Van Damme et al., 2019; Yoo & Drumwright, 2018).

Theoretical Background

This section first highlights the psychological phenomenon of spatial presence in immersive media before introducing empathy and issue involvement as important precursors of prosocial behavior and charitable giving. Afterwards, theoretical explanations for the peculiar effectiveness of immersive media as persuasive tools will be highlighted. The latest research results concerning immersive media and effects on empathy as well as on positive attitude and behavioral change will complete the theoretical review.

Spatial Presence in Immersive Media

Generally, the concepts of immersiveness and spatial presence are closely linked but are separated by definition and perspective. Immersiveness describes the technological characteristics of a medium that can help media users feel they are actually in the depicted environment. Therefore, immersiveness stands for what the technology can deliver and can be assessed rather objectively (Slater, 2003). The “sense of being there” is ingrained in the psychological concept of spatial presence (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). This construct describes the subjective feeling of being in the media environment, in contrast to the recipient’s actual environment (Draper et al., 1998). Steuer (1992) identified vividness and interactivity as technological media factors that can enhance the subjective feeling of being present in the mediated environment. The concept of vividness describes the richness of the medium, meaning how many sensory impressions it can deliver (“sensory breadth”), and how good or realistic these sensory impressions are (“sensory depth”). The degree of interactivity describes the extent and realism of actions that can be performed in the virtual environment. One can assume that immersive videos are more vivid and interactive than regular videos. Additional senses (e.g., the perception of actually moving inside the environment) can be addressed, resulting in pronounced sensory breadth and depth (Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017; Yoo & Drumwright, 2018). Real-time interaction and the additional possibility of manipulation (e.g., real-time adjustment of the visual field) should increase the perceived interactivity (Yoo & Drumwright, 2018).

Additional hardware is required to experience immersive videos at best, such as a head-mounted display (HMD)—a wraparound headset that prevents images and light from the physical world interfering with the virtual one. Generally, HMDs can be grouped into three categories of quality. The first category includes tethered devices such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. These HMDs are expensive, deliver high-quality images as well as full-body tracking, and require additional hardware (e.g., a personal computer (PC) with an adequate graphic card). The second category includes mobile HMDs that incorporate a user’s smartphone and thus have limited quality and tracking precision. After inserting the smartphone into the mobile device, games, shows, movies, and documentaries can be played without additional hardware. The third category includes mobile, but stand-alone HMDs, such as the Oculus Go (Oculus.com, 2018). These devices have only been introduced recently to the mass market and can be considered an intermediate category, featuring higher levels of quality but constrained tracking opportunities.

While different HMDs with varying levels of quality can be used to experience immersive media, no study to date has analyzed the impact of the quality of the HMD on supporting attitudes and prosocial behavior. Since fundraising agencies might prefer to integrate lower-quality mobile devices (e.g., cardboard headsets) into their street campaigns to show their immersive videos due to higher practicality and lower acquisition costs, it is of great relevance to decipher possible differences between persuasive effectiveness of high- or low-quality HMDs. While immersive videos experienced with HMDs should facilitate higher feelings of presence compared to regular videos, the quality of the HMDs should also be of relevance.

Hypothesis 1 (H1): The participants’ level of spatial presence should be higher when experiencing an immersive video compared to a regular video. This difference should be stronger if users employ high-quality HMDs compared to low-quality HMDs.

Immersive Media as Catalysts for Charitable Giving

This section begins by describing research on charitable giving and identifies empathy and issue involvement as the prevalent psychological drivers of prosocial behavior. Afterwards, the reasons for the enhanced persuasive effectiveness of immersive media are analyzed, and previous work is presented.

Current research on charitable giving

The decision to donate money and time, actively behave prosocially, or support fundraising campaigns in other ways is not usually made lightly but is based on the perception of the issue as highly involving (Bendapudi et al., 1996; Diamond & Iyer, 2007; Ford & Smith, 1991). Consequently, fundraising practitioners have to make evident how severe the issue truly is and employ different strategies to illustrate the importance, such as eliciting empathetic responses. Empathy can be understood as a multidimensional construct including affective (e.g., feelings of compassion) and cognitive (e.g., perspective taking) components (Reniers et al., 2011). Eveland and Crutchfield (2004) identified empathy as an inevitable factor in relation to charitable giving, advising charities and NGOs to “be intentional in evoking emotional empathy in the donor or potential donor” (p. 45). Similarly, Bae (2008) identified empathic responses as a catalyst for the personal relevance of a topic or issue. Situational empathy (empathy in response to a specific context in contrast to trait empathy, a relatively stable personality factor; Unger & Thumuluri, 1997) elicited by classical media content has been found to influence prosocial attitudes and behavior multiple times (Batson et al., 1997; Davis, 1994; Eisenberg et al., 2010).

Immersive media and empathic feelings

While immersive media forms such as VR have been labeled as empathy machines (Milk, 2015), the results of scientific research concerning VR and empathy are less definite (Herrera et al., 2018; Schutte & Stilinovic, 2017; Van Damme et al., 2019), which might be due to methodological issues, such as employing an unsuitable stimulus (Bindman et al., 2018; Van Damme et al., 2019). Studies that incorporated interactive virtual environments reported that participants were more likely to embody and take on the perspective of another living being due to higher levels of technological immersiveness (Herrera et al., 2018; Oh et al., 2016; Peck et al., 2013). Embodying another human or living organism should allow the media user to take on the perspective of the respective being, thus enabling feelings of self-other merging and inclusion (Ahn et al., 2016; Cialdini et al., 1997). A recent study by Herrera et al. (2018) showed that embodying and experiencing the story of a homeless person facilitated empathy directly after taking part in the study and improved attitudes toward homeless people over time, compared to a traditional perspective-taking task.

Since viewers of immersive videos do not inhabit another body while watching, studies on 360° videos were more inclined to use spatial presence as an explanation for the presumed elevated effects on empathy (Bindman et al., 2018; Schutte & Stilinovic, 2017; Van Damme et al., 2019). Impressions delivered by immersive media are so close to real-life experiences that users perceive the media content as if it were real and happening to them (Breves & Heber, 2019; Schöne et al., 2019; Segovia & Bailenson, 2009). Participants’ ability to experience the narration as if they were actually at the scene should allow them to understand and share the depicted character’s emotional state, thus creating situational empathy (Bindman et al., 2018; Fonseca & Kraus, 2016; Formosa et al., 2018). Several researchers have proposed that participants’ elevated feelings of empathy are due to their sense of being there (Bindman et al., 2018; Schutte & Stilinovic, 2017; Van Loon et al., 2018). Consequently, devices that enable high levels of spatial presence should be better suited to generate situational empathy.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): The participants’ situational empathy should be higher after experiencing an immersive video compared to a regular video. This difference should be stronger if users employ high-quality HMDs compared to low-quality HMDs.

Hypothesis 3 (H3): The positive effect of immersive technology on situational empathy is mediated by the reported spatial presence of the participants.

Strong emotions can amplify persuasive effectiveness, which can be attributed to higher levels of involvement and elaborate cognitive processing (e.g., Bartsch et al., 2014; Nabi, 1999; Schwartz & Loewenstein, 2017). Situational empathy, generated through the reception of classical media, has repeatedly been validated as a catalyst of issue involvement (Batson et al., 1997; Cialdini et al., 1997; Davis, 1994; Eisenberg et al., 2010; Schutte & Stilinovic, 2017). Based on the stronger emotions elicited by the seemingly real media experience that is enabled through immersive videos, participants should perceive the issue as more involving.

Hypothesis 4 (H4): The participants should report higher issue involvement after experiencing an immersive video about the issue compared to a regular video. This difference should be stronger if users employ high-quality HMDs compared to low-quality HMDs.

Studies have manipulated the level of empathy using immersive devices (Bindman et al., 2018; Formosa et al., 2018; Herrera et al., 2018; Van Damme et al., 2019), employing empathy as an explanation for the effectiveness of immersive media on prosocial persuasion (e.g., Van Loon et al., 2018; Yoo & Drumwright, 2018), but the underlying mechanisms have not been validated empirically. In particular, the aforementioned impact of empathy on issue involvement is yet to be confirmed in the context of immersive media.

Hypothesis 5 (H5): The positive effect of immersive technology on issue involvement is mediated by the situational empathy of the participants.

Participants should be more interested in the topic and the fundraising campaign if they are involved emotionally and cognitively (Ahn et al., 2016; Dholakia, 2001; Stone, 1984). Researchers have shown that individuals in high-involvement situations are more likely to search for or request additional information and used this demand as an indicator for higher cognitive elaboration (Cho, 1999). The following hypothesis is proposed.

Hypothesis 6 (H6): The participants’ desire for further information should be higher after experiencing an immersive video about an issue compared to a regular video. This difference should be stronger if users employ high-quality HMDs compared to low-quality HMDs.

Immersive media and charitable giving

While several studies have analyzed the effects of immersive media on empathy and divergent forms of prosocial behavior, only a few studies have analyzed the impact of immersive technology on charitable giving so far. As already stated, Herrera et al. (2018) analyzed the impact of perspective taking concerning homeless people using an immersive virtual environment but did not find significant differences between conditions, based on a ceiling effect. Since participants were rewarded with money for taking part in the study, most of them were willing to donate at least some part, if not everything, to a homeless shelter. Yoo and Drumwright (2018) compared the impact of an immersive video on young people in South Korea. The researchers analyzed the effect of the technological manipulation (mobile HMD vs. tablet) on donation intentions. While they could empirically validate the positive effects on donation intentions, Yoo and Drumwright (2018) did not code the actual behavior of participants. Since Herrera et al. (2018) reported nonsignificant results due to a ceiling effect and Yoo and Drumwright (2018) only measured intentions to donate, verifying the following hypothesis still seems necessary.

Hypothesis 7 (H7): The participants’ willingness to donate to the cause should be higher after experiencing an immersive video about the issue compared to a regular video. This difference should be stronger if users employ high-quality HMDs compared to low-quality HMDs.

Method

Sample

A statistical power analysis was performed using GPower 3.1 for sample size estimation based on data from the studies published by Yoo and Drumwright (2018) as well as Schutte and Stilinovic (2017), both respectively comparing 360° videos to regular videos, while focusing on donation intentions and reported empathy. The effect sizes reported in these studies can be considered to be large using Cohen’s (1988) criteria. With an alpha = 0.05 and power = 0.90, the projected sample size needed with this effect size is approximately N = 84. Ninety undergraduate and graduate students of a medium-sized German university were recruited and received course credit for participating. Since the original English documentary was chosen as the stimulus, the participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point Likert-type scale how well they had understood the video. In addition, participants were asked eight right or wrong questions about the content afterwards and thus a scale was created, ranging from 0 to 8 correct answers. Five participants who indicated that they had problems understanding the video (score of 3 or less on the Likert-type scale or only answered half or less of the correct answers) were excluded from the analysis, resulting in a sample of 85 participants with “good” (n = 32) or “very good” (n = 53) understanding, who answered most of the items correctly (M = 6.39, SD = 1.30).

The mean age of the final sample was 21.73 (SD = 2.34), and 64 of the participants were female (75.29%). All participants identified as white and about one fourth of the sample (n = 21) indicated that they had donated money during the last 12 months to charitable organizations. No significant differences were found between the distribution of gender (χ² [2] = 1.95, p = .38) and age (F[2, 82] = .19, p = .83) on the three conditions.

Design and Stimulus

The study incorporated a three group between-subjects experiment with the level of immersiveness as an independent variable. The participants either watched the stimulus passively on a computer desktop (low immersiveness, “LI”; n = 27) or two different HMDs. The desktop condition can be understood as a control group in which participants passively watched the video and did not interact with the 360° technology. A cardboard-style HMD with a Samsung Galaxy S5 was used in the moderate immersiveness condition (“MI”; n = 29), and the HTC Vive was employed in the high immersiveness condition (“HI”; n = 29). The differences between cardboard and HTC Vive have been discussed widely (Anthes et al., 2016; VR Bound, 2019), and it is broadly agreed that the HTC Vive is superior in terms of quality (e.g., larger field of view). Technological specifications are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1.

Technological Specifications.

Media device	Field of view	Resolution	Latency	Frame rate
Computer screen (Dell, 24.1" inches)	—	1.920 × 1.200	6 m	56 Hz
Cardboard HMD (with Samsung S5)	90°	1080 × 1920	46 m	60 Hz
HTC Vive	110°	1080 × 1200 per eye	Under 20 m	90 Hz

The short documentary Under the Net was selected as the stimulus. The video tells the story of Amisa, a girl who lives in the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania and is exposed to the grave danger of malaria after escaping from the violence in the Congo. The United Nation Foundation asks viewers to send money at the end of the video to prevent the disease from spreading. The documentary was selected because it was named “Best VR Documentary” and has raised impressive funds but has not been previously shown in Germany (United Nations Foundation, 2017; Prweb.com, 2017).

Measures

The Spatial Presence Experience Scale was used to measure the spatial presence of the participants (Hartmann et al., 2016). The scale consists of eight items measuring two dimensions: self-location (e.g., “I felt like I was actually there in the environment of the presentation”) and possible actions (e.g., “I had the impression that I could be active in the environment of the presentation.”). The participants indicated their level of agreement on a 7-point Likert-type Scale (with a score of 1 corresponding to totally disagree and 7 to totally agree). The reliability of the scale was satisfactory (Cronbach’s α = .93; M = 4.32, SD = 1.26).

Six items from the affective subdimensions empathy and emotional contagion of the parasocial interaction (PSI) process scales were used to measure participants’ empathy (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008). The PSI process scales consist of 112 items that can be group into 14 different subdimensions. Six items were chosen from the empathy and the emotional contagion subdimensions of the PSI scales. The chosen items seemed appropriate to capture the situational empathy with the human protagonist during the one-sided interaction, as it incorporated divergent dimensions of empathy, such as compassion (e.g., “I always felt compassion for Amisa.”), emotion contagion (e.g., “When Amisa was doing badly, I was also doing badly; when Amisa was doing well, I was also doing well.”), and cognitive empathy (e.g., “I could easily have determined how Amisa felt in various situations.”). One item had to be removed¹ after item analysis, resulting in an overall scale reliability of α = .88. Reported empathy scores were generally high, with a mean of 5.04 (SD = 1.11) on a 7-point Likert-type scale.

Participants’ individual issue involvement was measured using six 7-point bipolar items by Ahn et al. (2016). For instance, participants had to indicate how “irrelevant” or “relevant” the issue of malaria was to them personally (α = .87, M = 5.07; SD = 1.06).

After completing the questionnaire, participants were offered additional information about the United Nation Foundation’s campaign. They were asked to provide their email address if they wanted to receive further information. The dependent variable “desire for information” was coded dichotomously (request for further information: yes/no), as was the willingness to donate (donation: yes/no). The amount of donated money was additionally recorded (M = 0.38, SD = 1.10), with all reported numbers referring to the currency of Euro. Naturally, all of the money that was gathered during this study was donated to the campaign Under the Net. All employed items are displayed in Table 2, and the intercorrelations can be found in Table 3.

Table 2.

Items and Scales.

Spatial presence (Hartmann et al., 2016)

I felt like I was actually there in the environment of the presentation.

It seemed as though I actually took part in the action of the presentation.

It was as though my true location had shifted to the environment in the presentation.

I felt as though I was physically present in the environment of the presentation.

The objects in the presentation gave me the feeling that I could do things with them.

I had the impression that I could act in the environment of the presentation.

I felt like I could move around among the objects in the presentation.

It seemed to me that I could do whatever I wanted in the environment of the presentation.

Empathic parasocial interaction (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008)

I always felt compassion for Amisa^a.

When Amisa^a was doing badly, I was also doing badly; when Amisa^a was doing well, I was also doing well.

I could easily have determined how Amisa^a felt in various situations.

In some situations it seemed to me as if I felt the same emotions as Amisa^a.

Amisa’s^a feelings were sometimes contagious.

When Amisa^a showed up, I forgot my own feelings and adopted her mood.^b

Issue involvement (Ahn et al., 2016)

Unimportant—important

Irrelevant—relevant

Not of concern—of concern

Not meaningful—meaningful

Of no matter—of matter

Uninvolving—involving

Note. ^aAmisa was the name of the refugee girl who was the protagonist of the fundraising video. ^bItem was removed to improve reliability.

Table 3.

Intercorrelations.

Sl. no.	Variable	1	2	3	4	5
1	Spatial presence	—
2	Empathic PSI	.52*	—
3	Issue involvement	.22*	.31*	—
4	Request for information	.30*	.33*	−.03	—
5	Willingness to donate	.01	.05	.09	.15	—
6	Amount of money donated	.05	.07	.07	.17	.72*

Note. PSI = parasocial interaction.

p < .05.

Procedure

The study took place in a university laboratory at a medium-sized German university. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions and took part in the study one at a time. After entering the laboratory, the research assistant welcomed and instructed the participant accordingly. After providing consent, participants were told that they would take part in a study on video perception to conceal the true purpose of the study. The research assistant carefully hid the technologies that were not needed for the respective participant so that the participants were not aware of the other experimental conditions.

Participants watched the immersive video either on the computer desktop or with the low- or high-quality HMD. Afterwards, they filled out the online questionnaire. They first reported their feeling of spatial presence, followed by their level of empathic PSI, how involved they were with the issue, and how well they understood the English video. Demographic details were recorded afterwards, and the participants were offered the chance to enter their email address to receive additional information about the campaign.

Once the participants had completed the online survey, the final page asked them to donate to the campaign. It was stressed that donations were optional and that they could leave a donation in a savings box if they wanted to contribute. The box was laminated with the logo of the campaign and was placed behind a dividing wall to enable privacy. After the participant left the laboratory, the research assistant opened the savings box and recorded the amount of donated money.

Results

A between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare the effects of different levels of immersiveness on spatial presence. There was a significant effect of varying levels of immersiveness on spatial presence (F(2, 82) = 22.04, p < .001, η² = .35). As expected, the level of spatial presence increased with the immersiveness of the technology (see Table 4). Simple contrasts were conducted to compare the three groups (see Table 5). The HI condition (M = 5.02; SD = .85) had a significantly higher mean score than the LI (M = 3.25; SD = 1.26) condition. The MI condition (M = 4.56; SD = .95) also differed significantly from the LI condition. These results suggest that more immersive technologies can facilitate higher subjective feelings of spatial presence (H1), consistent with earlier studies and theories (Cummings & Bailenson, 2016; Steuer, 1992).

Table 4.

Means and Standard Deviations.

Dependent variable	Condition	N	M	SD
Spatial presence	Low level of immersiveness^{a, b}	27	3.25	1.26
	Moderate level of immersiveness^a	29	4.56	0.95
	High level of immersiveness^b	29	5.02	0.85
Empathic PSI	Low level of immersiveness^a	27	4.73	1.28
	Moderate level of immersiveness	29	5.01	1.15
	High level of immersiveness^a	29	5.37	0.81
Issue involvement	Low level of immersiveness^a	27	4.64	1.13
	Moderate level of immersiveness	29	5.18	0.98
	High level of immersiveness^a	29	5.29	0.98
Average amount of donated money (in Euro)	Low level of immersiveness	27	0.25	1.02
	Moderate level of immersiveness^a	29	0.13	0.56
	High level of immersiveness^a	29	0.75	1.45

Note. Conditions that include the same letter differ significantly (p < .05). PSI = parasocial interaction.

Table 5.

Simple Contrasts Concerning Spatial Presence (H1), Empathy (H2), Issue Involvement (H4), and the Average Amount of Donated Money (H7).

Group 1		Group 2	Contrasts	SE	p	t	r
Spatial presence
MI	vs.	LI	1.32	.28	<.001	4.37	.53
HI	vs.	LI	1.77	.28	<.001	6.11	.67
MI	vs.	HI	0.46	.27	.095	1.92	.25
Empathy
MI	vs.	LI	0.29	.29	.328	0.88	.35
HI	vs.	LI	0.64	.29	.032	2.22	.36
MI	vs.	HI	0.35	.29	.224	1.35	.19
Issue involvement
MI	vs.	LI	0.54	.28	.052	1.97	.21
HI	vs.	LI	0.65	.28	.021	2.35	.25
MI	vs.	HI	0.10	.27	.702	0.38	.05
Average amount of donated money
MI	vs.	LI	0.12	.29	.676	0.42	.07
HI	vs.	LI	0.50	.29	.086	1.74	.24
MI	vs.	HI	0.62	.28	.031	2.20	.34

Note. LI = low level of immersiveness; MI = moderate level of immersiveness; HI = high level of immersiveness.

A second one-way ANOVA was calculated to compare the effects of varying levels of immersiveness on the empathic PSI. There was a significant difference in reported empathy between the three conditions (F(2, 82) = 2.88, p = .048, η² = .06). Simple contrasts indicated that the mean of the HI condition (M = 5.37; SD = .81) was significantly higher than the LI condition (M = 4.73; SD = 1.28). However, the MI condition (M = 5.01; SD = 1.15) did not significantly differ from the LI condition. Nonetheless, the mean scores of the three conditions increased with the level of immersiveness offered by the technology. Therefore, H2 was supported.

A simple mediation analysis was performed to analyze the third hypothesis. The PROCESS path-analysis macro for SPSS based on Hayes (2018) and the bootstrapping method (m = 5.000) were used. Since the three conditions were meant to be compared and could not be treated as a continuous variable, the LI group was used as a baseline while the MI and HI groups were dummy coded accordingly. This approach followed the recommendations of Hayes (2018). Consequently, the PROCESS tool calculated regression coefficients for both groups, and the relative indirect effects for MI and HI groups could be reported (see Figure 1). The level of immersiveness of the video had a significant influence on spatial presence, and presence in turn had a positive effect on situational empathy. The presumed indirect effects were positive and significant (H3). The mediation model explained 29% of the variance in situational empathy.

Figure 1.

H3: Simple mediation analysis with unstandardized regression coefficients and bootstrapping (m = 5.000) (Hayes, 2018).

The fourth hypothesis assumed a positive impact of higher levels of immersiveness on participants’ issue involvement. The one-way ANOVA results indicated a significant effect of the independent variable on perceived issue involvement (F(2, 82) = 3.15, p = .024, η² = .07). The results of the simple contrasts (see Table 5) indicated that only the mean score of the HI condition (M = 5.29; SD = .98) was significantly higher than the LI condition (M = 4.64; SD = 1.13). The participants of the MI condition (M = 5.18, SD = 0.98) did not report significantly higher levels of issue involvement. In accordance with the prediction, higher levels of immersiveness led to the issue being perceived as more involving. Therefore, although the differences in mean scores were not all significant, H4 was supported.

A second simple mediation analysis was performed to analyze the fifth hypothesis (see Figure 2). Again, the process tool and the bootstrapping method (m = 5.000) were employed. While the high immersiveness manipulation significantly affected the level of situational empathy, there was no significant effect concerning the moderate level of immersiveness. Situational empathy in turn had a positive effect on issue involvement. While both indirect effects were positive, only the presumed indirect effect of the high immersiveness condition was significant, thus partially supporting H5. The mediation model explained 14% of the variance in issue involvement.

Figure 2.

H5: Simple mediation analysis with unstandardized regression coefficients and bootstrapping (m = 5.000) (Hayes, 2018).

The sixth hypothesis predicted that participants who experienced the short documentary with more immersive technologies would desire further information. Because the dependent variable was dichotomous, a contingency table was used to test the hypothesis (see Table 6). Fisher’s Exact Test was used instead of asymptotic tests because the expected values in some of the cells were lower than five. There was a significant association between the level of immersiveness and the number of participants who requested more information by email (χ² (2) = 5.70, p = .029, V = .28). The distribution of the numbers showed no difference between the LI and MI conditions. Consequently, H6 was only partially supported.

Table 6.

Number of Participants Requesting Further Information in Each Condition (H6).

	Condition			Total
	Low level of immersiveness	Moderate level of immersiveness	High level of immersiveness	Total
Requested further information via email
Yes	2 (7%)	2 (7%)	8 (28%)	12 (14%)
No	25 (93%)	27 (93%)	21 (72%)	73 (86%)
Total	27	29	29	85

Note. χ² (2) = 5.70, p = .03, V = .28.

Hypothesis seven predicted more generous donation behavior after experiencing the immersive video, using the two dependent variables of willingness to donate (dichotom) and donated amount. Contingency tables showed that there were no significant differences in the distribution among the three groups (χ² [2] = 4.36, p = .056, V = .23; see Table 7). However, a one-way ANOVA indicated that the amount that was donated differed between groups (F(2, 82) = 2.70, p = .036, η² = .06; see, Table 4 and 5) indicating that while the number of donators did not increase significantly, the amount (in Euro) donated by those willing does. Simple contrasts showed that only the means of the MI (M = 0.13, SD = 0.56) and the HI condition (M = 0.75, SD = 1.45) differed significantly. Thus, H7 was not supported.

Table 7.

Number of Participants Willing to Donate in Each Condition (H7).

	Condition			Total
Dependent variable	Low level of immersiveness	Moderate level of immersiveness	High level of immersiveness	Total
Participant donated
Yes	3 (11%)	4 (14%)	9 (31%)	16 (19%)
No	24 (89%)	25 (86%)	20 (69%)	69 (81%)
Total	27	29	29	85

Note. χ² (2) = 4.36, p = .06, V = .23.

Discussion

This study analyzed how the degree of immersiveness of a video affects recipients’ spatial presence, empathic PSI, issue involvement, desire for information, and willingness to donate. Furthermore, mediation mechanisms were proposed and verified. The following section summarizes the overall findings and specifies the practical implications for fundraising organizations.

Technologies that offered medium and high levels of immersion were both able to elicit higher spatial presence than regular videos. The HTC Vive (HI condition) facilitated the highest levels of spatial presence, followed by the cardboard headset (MI condition). This gradation supports earlier research concerning the formation of spatial presence (Cummings & Bailenson, 2016; Wirth et al., 2007). Although participants in both the MI and HI conditions reported higher spatial presence than those in the LI condition, only those who experienced the documentary using the HTC Vive reported significantly higher empathic PSI and issue involvement. These recipients were also more willing to provide their email addresses to receive further information. While the willingness to donate differed only marginally between groups, participants in the HI condition donated significantly larger amounts of money. However, simple contrasts revealed that only the MI and the HI conditions differed significantly, contradicting the assumptions and thus leading to the rejection of the hypothesis.

These results should be of great interest for NGOs and charities aiming to incorporate immersive technologies into their fundraising campaigns. People who experience a highly immersive video feel greater empathic PSI and perceive the issue to be more involving and consequently are more interested in the overall campaign compared to people who experience less immersive videos. Therefore, even though cardboard headsets might seem like the easiest and most practical option, devices that support higher levels of spatial presence are preferable. Admittedly, it might be impractical to use tethered devices such as the HTC Vive during face-to-face fundraising campaigns in a pedestrian zone. Recently, with the introduction of Oculus Go (Oculus.com, 2018), an intermediate category has emerged that offers the advantages of nontethered devices but does not employ a smartphone and maximizes quality. Since 360° video does not require broad options for interactivity compared to immersive virtual environments (e.g., tracking of hand movements and walking), this intermediate category might be the perfect tradeoff for fundraising agencies. Unfortunately, the Oculus Go was not yet commercially available at the time this experiment was conducted, but further studies should include and validate the effectiveness of the intermediate category. NGOs and charities should closely watch these technological innovations because, despite their relative expense, the overall campaign results should be more profitable.

This experimental study also validated the presumed effect mechanism. Participants who felt like they were actually in the virtual environment reported higher situational empathic PSI with the protagonist. Consequently, they deemed the issue of malaria to be more engaging. The results are consistent with earlier research on empathic responses (Eisenberg et al., 2010).

Limitations and Future Directions

One of the limitations of this experimental study was the use of a student sample. Young people without a steady income are not the usual target group of fundraising campaigns (Van Slyke & Brooks, 2005), and only one fourth of participants donated to a charity during the previous year. Furthermore, university students are generally well educated and likely to be more aware of distant issues than the overall population. Age is often found to influence the use and effects of new media forms (Venkatesh et al., 2003; Yoo & Drumwright, 2018), so students may already be familiar with immersive media and expect higher levels of image quality than those who are less technologically adept. It would be interesting to repeat this study with a different and more diverse sample to generalize the effects of immersive videos. Furthermore, since the student sample only received course credit in exchange for their participation in contrast to the study conducted by Herrera et al. (2018), they might not have been carrying cash during the experiment, which could explain the low donation rates. Another issue can be found in the use of the PSI scales (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008) to measure the levels of empathic responses to the protagonist. While the items seemed fitting to capture the interaction with a specific media character, they incorporate different dimensions of the empathy construct (e.g., compassion and contagion; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990). While exploratory factor analyses yielded a one-factor solution, future studies should nonetheless use a more specific measurement instrument to capture different dimensions of empathy. This should be especially relevant because the association between levels of empathy and prosocial behavior can vary based on the employed empathy scale (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). Furthermore, the use of the passive control condition has to be reflected critically. The 360° video was produced specifically for the interactive viewing experience and thus, participants of the control group might not have received the same information as the interactive conditions (e.g., passive viewers cannot see the long line waiting to receive the boxes of supplies). Consequently, some of the differences between the control group and the 360° conditions might be due to this aspect.

A more general threat to the validity of this and comparable studies on the impact of VR can be found in experimental demand effects (Orne, 1962). This study attempted to reduce the risk by disguising the true purpose of the study, as well as making sure that participants did not know about the two other experimental conditions. Nevertheless, demand effects might explain some of the differences between the 360° and regular video conditions. In line with this issue, another limitation was the laboratory setting of this study. Generally, laboratory experiments offer high internal validity but limited external validity (Roe & Just, 2009). It would be interesting to conduct this experiment in a more realistic setting. A field experiment in a pedestrian precinct would ensure both a more diverse sample, higher external validity, and reduced experimental demand effects.

Different topics and issues should also be considered in future research. The topic of malaria in Africa was the focus in this study, which was rather specific for the German sample and distant both psychologically and geographically (Trope & Liberman, 2010). The effects of immersive videos on other pressing issues that are located in the respective country of participants, such as the refugee crisis, global warming, animal cruelty, or marine pollution, could also be analyzed. The perceived importance of proximal issues could also be increased through immersive media, showing more imminent risks that might directly affect participants.

Participants’ personalities should also be incorporated in future research. Empathy was understood as a situational factor in this study but can also be considered a permanent trait (Unger & Thumuluri, 1997). It might be possible that people who are generally not considered empathetic or low in imagination report higher situational empathy after being exposed to immersive media, as the depicted problems might seem more tangible. Research concerning personality factors and the effectiveness of immersive media are, to date, scarce as well as inconclusive and should be intensified (Ahn et al., 2013, 2016; Yoo & Drumwright, 2018). Other personality dimensions (e.g., need for affect/cognition) and demographics (e.g., age, gender, and education) might also influence the effects of immersive technologies. Further insights into personality dimensions and demographics could help NGOs and charities to specify the segments that can be addressed most effectively by immersive technologies.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Nicola Dodel, Annika Kunze, and Thai Thao Nguyen for their help during data collection.

Author’s Note

This manuscript has not been published elsewhere and has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Priska Breves

Notes

Author Biography

Priska Breves, MSc, University of Wuerzburg, studied Media Communication at the University of Wuerzburg and Columbia University in New York City. She is a research fellow and PhD student at the Institute of Human-Computer-Media in the Department of Media and Business Communication at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany. Her interests are strategic and persuasive communication.

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