ITMI: The use of Immersive Technologies to promote Moral Intuitions

Introduction

New technologies represent one of the main tools for learning skills and knowledge, especially because they can be used to recreate interactive and experiential learning environments. In this sense, in recent years, several studies have tried to identify technological interventions and tools to promote moral development, since morality cannot evolve through the mere transmission of a predefined value model. On the contrary, people need situations in which they can exercise decision making and develop critical and empathic thinking.

Previous research on video games, for example, has shown that people can take “moral stances” in narrative-rich virtual environments (e.g., preferences for evil/good characters/choices) and that such preferences are correlated with personality traits and also influence the development of social skills important for moral reasoning (e.g., empathy). ¹ The recent review by Limone and Toto ² confirms, through the analysis of several studies, that although in humans moral sense is an “innate” factor, it matures over time through exposure to constructive and interactive social relationships and environments. The continuous development of morality throughout life in relation to environmental influences supports the design of morality-focused educational interventions that take advantage of immersive technologies to recreate constructive and interactive learning environments.

Today, most psychologists and educators would agree that moral education and tools to improve moral reasoning are critical to the development of functional personalities, healthy social lives, and an active contribution to society. The development of strong morals at an early age could help prevent bullying, isolation, depression, and criminal behavior. Morality, however, represents a very complex field involving a vast system of values, practices, beliefs, norms, and psychological mechanisms that enable people to overcome selfishness and make social life possible.

In general, moral cognition can be defined as those cognitive processes aimed at regulating behaviors that impact others. Classical conceptions (Kohlberg) described morality in terms of incremental access to levels of moral reasoning, whereby morality gradually becomes more sophisticated with age and cognitive development. Later, other authors considered not only the cognitive components but also the affective and motivational components involved in moral reasoning and behavior. In particular, the theory of moral foundations identified five foundations underlying the development of each individual's morality: care/harm, fairness/betrayal, loyalty/loyalty, authority/subalternity, and sanctity/degradation.

This theory has influenced research on moral intuitions and moral emotions in relation to their role in making moral judgments. According to Jonathan Haidt, moral intuitions would derive from an apparently innate ability to access moral values considered essentially universal (the moral foundations): moral reasoning would result from a post hoc rationalization of such intuitions. Based on such conceptions, it is interesting to develop and test technological tools able to improve moral intuitions salience as well as their ability to guide prosocial behavior.

The Advanced Human-Technology Interaction Laboratory at the Milan headquarters of Pegaso University, Italy, is engaged in a research project (ITMI) focused on designing and testing new technologies for promoting moral intuition. Specifically, the project has two aims: (a) to research the psychological mechanisms and experiences that influence the development of morality features and behavior and which could be conveyed by immersive technologies, and (b) to propose guidelines for designing interventions to promote specific components of morality through new technologies.

To this end, as a first step, a scoping review was conducted with the aim of mapping all interventions in the past decade in which technology has been used for the purpose of enhancing various components of morality, such as moral cognition, moral behavior, and/or moral attitudes. The review found that digital technologies offer significant opportunities to enhance moral development through the presentation of various moral materials and dilemmas, simulating the possibility of making choices and reflecting on the consequences of those choices.

Consistent with the literature, the most effective interventions have been found to be those that go beyond simply conveying information about moral rules or value systems. In other words, interventions using video games, serious games, or virtual environments in which the subject can actively experience moral situations appear to be particularly effective. It also emerged that technologies could be used as a means of eliciting “transformative emotions” to promote moral behavior. Their positive results support the idea that experiencing certain emotions can facilitate access to moral insights and, consequently, influence prosocial behavior.

Can Transformative Emotions Improve Access to Moral Intuitions?

As pointed out above, it had already been hypothesized that moral intuitions might become more salient following the experience of specific emotions that respond to moral violations or motivate moral behavior, which include disgust, anger, and contempt, as well as guilt, awe, and elevation. Moreover, neuroscientific studies support the link between emotions and moral intuitions, revealing that the neural areas activated when subjects report moral intuitions appear to be the same areas involved in the more automatic processes of social cognition such as empathy, recognition of others' emotions, and one's own visceral feelings. In other words, the brain areas involved in moral intuitions involve both cognitive and emotional processes.

However, the exact mechanisms that determine the transition from emotional experience to moral intuition remain unclear. In particular, transformative emotions are intense emotions that emerge from complex and unexpected stimuli that deviate from the observer's expectations and require adaptation of preexisting mental schemas. ³ According to the literature, two transformative emotions may be particularly interesting for moral promotion or behavior: elevation, which is the feeling of emotion one experiences when witnessing acts of remarkable moral virtue (e.g., a personal sacrifice to save the life of another) and awe, which is a feeling of overwhelming wonder (e.g., when contemplating beautiful panoramas).

But how do transformative emotions promote prosocial behavior? One hypothesis emphasizes negative emotional valence and states that a person might be driven to be moral after experiencing elevation because he or she feels morally inferior to the observed model, so that prosocial behavior would be the result of an unpleasant social comparison. In Schnall and Roper's ⁴ experiment, however, participants who experienced elevation showed helping behavior after self-affirmation priming, suggesting that elevation does not pose a threat to moral self-esteem. Consistently, the authors noted that elevation appears to “transform core values into action.”

According to the project's opinion, ⁵ it is possible that transformative emotions increase the likelihood of enacting moral behavior because they naturally make moral intuitions salient. In other words, when we experience transformative emotions, we are prompted to focus our attention internally and on moral values. Specifically, upliftment amplifies feelings of inspiration, a positive attitude toward humanity, a greater desire for social relationships and gathering, and motivation to behave prosocially. In this sense, the increased ability to access moral insights would be enabled as an integral part of the elevation appraisal.

The viewer must consider their own moral values to understand why the model behaves as it does (stimulus appraisal). Second, one must consider why they experience that specific type of arousal (emotion appraisal). In other words, one cannot understand an act of moral virtue or the personal meaning of extraordinary beauty, as well as one's own visceral response, without referring to some kind of description or intuition of virtues and values. So, when a person is driven to focus on moral values to understand what he or she feels, he or she is also eager to keep those values active to guide subsequent behavior.

Based on these premises, the objective of the ITMI project is to verify whether new technologies can be used to promote transformative emotions that impact moral development. Indeed, transversal research is currently underway on the use of media by adults and adolescents (video games in particular), on their more or less frequent experience of transformative emotions, and on their effect on moral cognition and prosociality. Subsequently, the project involves the structuring of laboratory experiments to evaluate whether the experience of narrative-based immersive virtual environments can promote prosocial behaviors through the elicitation of transformative emotions.

Maria Luisa Iavarone, PhD, is full professor of experimental pedagogy and director of the RESET Lab (Research Educational on Embodied Transdisciplinary Teaching) at the Parthenope University of Naples (Italy). When asked about the ITMI research effort, she said, “There is a strong interest in the application of new technologies to cognitive but especially emotional and moral development processes. Indeed, the vision of the present project traces the aims and purposes of research activities aimed at supporting ‘educationally effective solutions' using new technologies. Innovative tools for the development of morality can be integrated within educational processes and practices of responsible and prosocial citizenship.”

Further Steps for Moral Education in Digital Environments

Moral intuitions are influenced by social and cultural context and external factors. It is therefore possible to educate people in moral intuitions by designing tools that make them more salient. Previous literature has pointed out that immersion in interactive narratives allows users to experience complex emotions and emotional scenarios, understanding characters' intentions and behavior, and thus supporting emotion regulation. ⁶ In particular, several studies have tested the possibility of promoting computer-mediated self-transcendence experiences (CMST) that invoke the use of interactive technologies (virtual reality, video games) to promote, facilitate, or enhance transformative experiences and emotions. ⁷ However, it is possible that the effect of transformative emotions on prosociality and moral behavior would not last in the long term. ⁸ In fact, the results are not consistent across the literature.

Beyond transformative emotions, another possibility that the project is exploring is the usage of narrative-based immersive environments to make moral intuitions salient and explicit. For example, learners could assist or participate in interactions between digital characters involved in moral dilemmas. Then, moral intuitions guiding actions and choices could be made explicit by means of specific digital cues (e.g., symbols, comic-like balloons appearing next to characters). Trained educators would use such stimuli to drive learners' reflection, aiming to improve moral cognition. By exploring both affective and cognitive aspects of immersive technologies, the ITMI project plans to develop innovative tools that could support the development of moral reasoning and ultimately prosocial behavior.