Immersive virtual environments and gaming are highly popular media formats that have been suggested to wield a powerful influence over real-world social behavior. The traits and motivations of virtual avatars might prime or encourage players to act in specific ways after navigating a simulated space.
To investigate this, psychologists recruited 64 undergraduate students (aged 18 to 30 years old). The participants were randomly allocated to one of two conditions in a virtual reality simulation:
After 20 minutes of gameplay, participants completed the session and were given 5 silver tokens as compensation for their time. On their way out of the laboratory, they passed a clearly labelled food bank donation box where they could optionally drop any number of their tokens. Researchers recorded whether participants donated any of their tokens (prosocial act) or kept all of them (selfish/neutral act).
Explain how useful social learning theory could be in accounting for the findings of the "Rescue Ranger vs Loot Bandit" study.
Practise Edexcel A Level Psychology Content with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 1,059 questions covering Biological explanations of crime, Social explanations of crime, Cognitive and ethical interview techniques, Psychological formulation of offending, Cognitive-behavioural treatment for offenders, Biological treatment for offenders, Factors influencing eye-witness testimony, Factors influencing jury decision-making, Individual differences, and Developmental psychology, matched to the Edexcel A Level Psychology (9PS0) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
