This should become the basis for a sound therapy that needs to be applied generally across the entire population at perhaps the teen age group in particular. It shakes loose accepted ideas that have been adapted without much introspection and likely resets the brain. Once resolved ,they will hardly recur.
Without question we are victims of earliest influences however obviously wrong they are. I was personally raised in a family setting that refused to accept any form of racial bias as a cultural thing in a time it was almost unique. My community was all white however and i recall one thing. I was unnecessarily uncomfortable when i met and socialized with my first black in University no less! Thus simple education is not good enough at all. Acculturation is also important and a virtual system allows it to be done in a controlled manner.
My upbringing was very useful for me to blow past these initial reactions whenever i met the different. Yet it never eliminated the instinctual bias. Thus planned virtual body swapping is an excellent road through.
Can Virtual Bodyswapping Make Us More Empathetic and Tolerant?
Alex Pietrowski, Staff
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/01/06/can-virtual-bodyswapping-make-us-empathetic-tolerant/
An empathetic person is able to connect with other beings, human or
other, on an emotional level, sometimes with such intensity that their
own emotional state is affected. Certain individuals are called empaths –
empathetic to such extreme that they feel or know another’s emotions
just by being in their presence. Some believe that strong empaths are
able to read other’s emotions because they have strong telepathic abilities, even if it’s unbeknownst to them, especially if they already have a strong personal bond.
At whatever level, empathy, similar to love, creates true bonds among
us humans, as well as between us and other living beings such as
animals. By cultivating your empathy
towards other beings, you are likely to improve the quality of your
life and the lives of the people around you. When you try to understand
another person’s perspective, and then adapt your actions to their
feelings, you will create more fulfilling and enduring relationships.
There are many methods one can use to expand their empathic
potential, such as increasing curiosity about others, challenging
personal prejudices, and learning to become a better listener. On a
collective scale, if we work on creating a more empathetic society, it
is possible that some of the injustices and anguish in this world will
cease, similar to the anti-slavery movement, during which abolitionists
helped people understand the true suffering of slaves. Indisputably,
human empathy is a much-needed component in changing today’s societal
problems such as racial and religious prejudices, brutal conditions of factory farms, chronic homelessness, drug addiction and crime, so forth.
Unfortunately, we grow up with prejudices so deeply engraved into our
psyches that we often carry them with us, unknowingly, through
adulthood. These biases are so instinctive and mechanical, and we are so
wrapped up in our own lifestyle, that it is very difficult to put
ourselves into someone else’s shoes. Could virtual bodyswapping help us
rise above strong stereotypes and prejudiced beliefs etched into our
minds?
New research recently published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences used
virtual bodyswapping experiments to examine the brain’s ability to let
go of negative attitudes towards others. In the experiment, conducted by
Professor Manos Tsakiris of the Royal Holloway University of London and
Professor Mel Slater of University College London and the University of
Barcelona, light-skinned Caucasian participants occupied either a white
or a black body in a virtual environment. The participants could see
their virtual body in first-person when they looked down and when they
were looking in a mirror. The participants’ racial biases were measured
before and after the embodiment experiment. The researchers reported
that participants who embodied a black virtual body showed a greater
decrease in their implicit biases against black persons, when compared
to participants who embodied a white virtual body.
“Our findings are important as they motivate a new research area into how self-identity is constructed and how the boundaries between ‘ingroups’ and ‘outgroups’ might be altered,” says Professor Tsakiris. “More importantly though, from a societal point of view, our methods and findings might help us understand how to approach phenomena such as racism, religious hatred, and gender inequality discrimination, since the methods offer the opportunity for people to experience the world from the perspective of someone different from themselves.” (Source)
There is no one method for erasing the biases that our childhood
experiences and mainstream society have programmed into our minds.
Cultivating empathy often means an individual journey of
self-reflection, tearing down misconceptions, and increasing social
tolerance. In the near future, virtual bodyswapping could be one of the
methods that we employ to help us along this journey, and the collective
journey towards a more peaceful humanity.
About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned
with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy
lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and an avid student of Yoga and life.
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