A lost dog, a distressed boy and a virtual reality headset were enough to shift how people felt about helping others.

New research suggests virtual reality games can make players kinder by increasing their desire to help. The study found that VR games may raise a person’s sense of altruism and influence levels of empathy.

The American study followed participants as they played through a virtual reality scenario in which they helped a boy find his lost dog. The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality.

Researchers said immersive games can motivate people to help, even when they cannot directly relate to someone else’s emotions.

Study leader Dr Samantha Lorenzo is not a gamer, but she has widely studied the social and psychological impacts of different forms of communication. She has seen how narratives can play a big role in how people understand information.

When Dr Lorenzo came across research about the social and emotional benefits of games, she became curious. She wanted to know if narrative-driven games could influence emotional processes, including altruism and empathy.

Dr Lorenzo, from the University of Oregon, was particularly interested in VR because of how immersive the platform is. She believed VR could strengthen the emotional experience for players and lead to more positive outcomes and longer-lasting effects.

Dr Lorenzo said: “I had an idea that VR might be an effective tool to influence people’s ability to want to help others and better understand other people’s perspectives.

“I wanted to explore possible behavioral changes from immersive environments and the underlying mechanisms that foster altruistic engagement within, and beyond, the gaming world.”

She worked with Dr Danny Pimentel, who co-directs the Oregon Reality Lab, where students and researchers can develop virtual, augmented and mixed reality media.

The team created a narrative-driven VR game to immerse players in an emotional storyline and test if the experience changed levels of empathy and altruism.

In the game, called Empathy in Action, players enter a neighbourhood community and meet Alden, a young boy who has just lost his dog, Buddy. Players are given several tasks, including physical and emotional ones. They search for clues and decide if, and how, to comfort the upset child.

Dr Lorenzo said the team looked at a few possible narratives for the game but picked the lost dog scenario because it felt believable and like something that could happen in real life. The researchers thought a realistic narrative would be the most effective way to get people to consider how they would react in a similar situation.

Before and after the game, participants answered a series of questions so the researchers could measure how the experience affected empathy and altruism.

Dr Lorenzo said: “We wanted to see if the game shifted their motivation to help others and if it affected their ability to understand other people’s emotions.”

The team said they were surprised to find that empathy and altruism do not always rise together.

Dr Lorenzo said people’s sense of altruism increased during the study, but the results on empathy were more complicated.

The researchers found significantly higher ratings of “cognitive empathy”, which is the ability to recognise and understand someone else’s feelings.

At the same time, they found a decline in “affective empathy”, when a person actually feels the sadness that another person is feeling.

The findings suggested people might still feel moved to help, even if they do not feel greater empathy for those in need.

Dr Lorenzo said: “People knew that this was a sad situation and that’s why they wanted to help.”

As part of the study, participants suggested possible uses for immersive digital games like Empathy in Action. Their recommendations included classrooms and other learning environments, therapeutic or rehabilitation settings, and conflict-resolution training.

Dr Lorenzo said future research could examine if different storylines produce different findings. She also wants to explore how immersive, narrative-driven interventions could be used for understanding and coping with medical challenges.

Dr Lorenzo added: “This gaming technology is new and exciting, and there’s a lot of potential for researchers to keep exploring how immersive media can be leveraged for social good.”