Virtual Reality, Mindfulness and Their Associations to Personality Traits
Abstract
Mindfulness, conceptualized as actively noticing and engaging with oneself and one’s surroundings with a nonjudgmental mind, is associated with many positive outcomes such as healthy relationships, stress reduction, performance engagement, and increased well-being. Virtual reality (VR) technologies offer people immersive experiences to engage with novel environments for entertaining and therapeutic purposes. While in any VR environment, participants may perceive themselves as if they are in the scenes, that is, they experience moment-to-moment awareness and immersion in these virtual environments. Thus, practicing mindfulness meditation with technologies like smartphones and VR has become increasingly popular over the past decade. However, little research has examined VR and mindfulness separate from meditation. Meditation does not appeal to everyone and may even be an adverse experience for people with traumatic histories, thus research examining other ways to cultivate mindfulness is necessary. The current research examined 654 self-report responses regarding people’s VR experiences, personality, and well-being to determine if general VR use was associated with increased mindfulness, and explored if specific personality traits such as openness, empathy, and immersive tendencies was associated with increased VR use and mindfulness. Our results indicated that increased use was not associated with mindfulness, but participants who rated high on their subjective VR experiences (e.g., feelings of self-expansion, presence, enjoyment) scored high on mindfulness as well. Mindfulness itself predicted well-being, but VR use did not and there was no interaction between VR use and mindfulness. Suggestions for how to guide future VR research on mindfulness are provided.