Does Embodying a Divine Avatar Influence Moral Decisions? An Immersive Virtual Reality Study.

The term Proteus effect refers to the changes in attitudes and behavior induced by the characteristics of an embodied virtual agent. Whether the effect can extend to the moral sphere is currently unknown. To deal with this issue, we investigated if embodying virtual agents (i.

Attitudes towards Italian Mafias Scale (AIMS): development and validation.

In two studies we aimed at developing the Attitude towards Italian Mafias Scale (AIMS). In study 1 ( = 292) we used an Exploratory Factor Analysis to reduce the number of the items and explore their latent constructs. In study 2 ( = 393) we performed a Confirmatory Factor Analysis on the resulting 18-item questionnaire, whose latent structure was best identified by a general factor Mafia Attitude and three specific factors related to Behaviors, Cognitions and Emotions-Cognitions towards mafias.

Embodying the avatar of an omnipotent agent modulates the perception of one's own abilities and enhances feelings of invulnerability.

Immersive virtual reality can give people the illusion of owning artificial bodies (i.e., avatars) and controlling their actions.

Bringing social interaction at the core of organizational neuroscience.

Organizations are composed of individuals working together for achieving specific goals, and interpersonal dynamics do exert a strong influence on workplace behaviour. Nevertheless, the dual and multiple perspective of interactions has been scarcely considered by Organizational Neuroscience (ON), the emerging field of study that aims at incorporating findings from cognitive and brain sciences into the investigation of organizational behaviour. This perspective article aims to highlight the potential benefits of adopting experimental settings involving two or more participants (the so-called "second person" approach) for studying the neural bases of organizational behaviour.