A Virtual Reality psychological intervention can reduce students' social anxiety (Gorinelli)

As a university student in Finland, you are frequently faced with social interaction situations, ranging from small group projects with peers to presentations in front of a teacher and a classroom full of other students. Learning social interaction skills can therefore be advantageous in addition to academic study. 

Simone Gorinelli first explored and noticed how higher levels of social interaction and public speaking anxiety are associated with lower levels of psychological flexibility and self-compassion. Psychological flexibility is the ability to be fully present in the moment and adjust one's actions according to personally chosen values. Self-compassion represents being kind and understanding to oneself when suffering or failing, seeing one's experiences as part of the greater human experience rather than isolating them, and holding up painful thoughts and feelings in mindful awareness rather than overidentifying with them. The sub-processes that significantly contributed to social interaction anxiety were a lack of openness to thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations, and having high levels of self-criticism or fixation on negative thoughts. 

As social anxiety and public speaking anxiety are common conditions that affect people, a great deal of research has been conducted to identify psychological interventions that may be effective in reducing these conditions. Simone Gorinelli investigated novel technological solutions to these common problems. 

University students were recruited from various faculties at the University of Jyväskylä and randomly assigned to either the 3-session intervention group or the waiting list control group. The intervention group wore a VR headset and experienced various virtual environments recorded from real-life situations, accompanied by an audio recording on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The ACT audio recording aimed to enhance psychological flexibility skills by providing training in accepting emotions and thoughts. 

The virtual environments included nature settings and social scenarios involving one person interactions, small group interactions, and a classroom setting. Students were subsequently required to deliver a speech discussing their strengths and weaknesses in front of a virtual audience. 

The virtual reality scenarios were able to elicit responses comparable to those one would have in a real-life setting while maintaining the safety and control of a laboratory setting. The findings revealed that after three VR ACT sessions, participants in the intervention group reported significantly decreased social interaction and public speaking anxiety, as well as significantly increased well-being, psychological flexibility, and self-compassion. No changes were observed in the control group during the waiting period. However, they experienced similar positive outcomes when given the intervention after waiting for three weeks. 

Additionally, a third and final study extended the previous findings to students' real-world contexts.  Simone Gorinelli discovered, through the use of a smartphone application to measure contextual daily psychological skills, that the VR ACT intervention increased the psychological flexibility of students over time and across contexts. However, when Gorinelli examined a small subset of students individually, he discovered that students' reactions to the intervention varied greatly, with different psychological processes explaining positive changes in anxiety.

Overall, the research showed how ACT training can be successfully delivered via VR as an additional therapeutic tool to help students face their fears in an immersive, controlled, and safe environment. This indicated that using brief VR psychological exposure could help students improve their psychological flexibility skills while simultaneously reducing their anxiety.

The dissertation has been funded by the Eino Jutikkala Fund, the Ellen ja Artturi Nyyssösen Foundation, and the Department of Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä.

MA (Clinical Psychology) Simone Gorinelli's psychology dissertation "ACTing Virtually - The Impact of Virtual Reality on Psychological Processes in the Context of Social and Communication Anxiety — A Comprehensive Study on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" session on 8 March 2024 at 12 noon. The language of the dissertation is English.

The dissertation can be read at https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/93201

Follow the dissertation event online: https://r.jyu.fi/dissertation-gorinelli-080324