Embodied Experiences in Immersive Virtual Enviornments: Effects on Pro-environmental Self- Efficacy and Behavior

This study explored whether sensorimotor experiences of cutting down a tree in a virtual forest would be more effective compared to mentally simulating the same experience in terms of increasing pro-environmental self-efficacy and behavior in the physical, non-mediated world. Two modalities for embodying the tree-cutting experience were compared: immersive virtual environment and mental simulation. Results demonstrated that embodied experiences presented with immersive virtual environments lead to significantly greater pro-environmental selfefficacy and actual pro-environmental behavior compared to mentally simulating the experience. Presence – the perception that the mediated environment is real – was explored as an underlying mechanism of embodied experiences, and individual disposition for presence perception was investigated as a possible moderator.