Individuals in a Romantic Relationship Express Guilt and Devaluate Attractive Alternatives after Flirting with a Virtual Bartender

Abstract

Interactions with virtual agents may have psychological and behavioral implications, even if the participants know that they are interacting with a virtual entity. As virtual agents are gradually becoming part of human society, it is important to understand the extent to which virtual encounters can affect our daily lives, and whether engaging in a specific behavior with virtual humans affects the way that individuals perceive and asses real humans in their surroundings. We examined the effect that seductive interplays might have on individuals in committed relationships and their way of managing a virtual threat to their relationship. One hundred and thirty heterosexual participants conversed with an opposite-sex virtual human in a virtual reality (VR) setup in either a seductive or neutral way. Shortly after, participants were interviewed by an attractive opposite-sex confederate. Results revealed that participants in the seductive condition felt increased feelings of guilt, and that participants in the seductive condition were more prone to devaluate the sexual and intellectual attractiveness of the confederate than participants in the neutral condition. This study thus demonstrates, for the first time, that flirting with a virtual human may influence real-life attitudes towards real people.