Empowering Emerging Adults through Compassion and Enhanced Social Connection: Co-creating a Compassionate Connection Oasis VR Toolkit (ccOasisVR)

Emerging adult­hood (18−25) is a crit­i­cal devel­op­men­tal phase, a tumul­tuous tran­si­tion marked by height­ened dis­tress, and, unfor­tu­nately, a decreased like­li­hood that Emerging Adults (EAs) will seek sup­port. The COVID-19 pan­demic fur­ther exposed the urgent need for inno­v­a­tive, acces­si­ble well-being sup­port for this pop­u­la­tion, under­scor­ing the lim­ited resources avail­able for those expe­ri­enc­ing dis­tress with­out clin­i­cal diag­noses. Compassion is key to fos­ter­ing resilience and gen­uine social con­nec­tion, which can lead to enhanced well-being and proso­cial out­comes. Compassion train­ing trans­forms adver­sity into growth oppor­tu­ni­ties, and when nur­tured during for­ma­tive years, paves the way for life­long pos­i­tive pat­terns of well-being that ripple into com­mu­ni­ties. Despite the pos­i­tive ben­e­fits of com­pas­sion train­ing, research shows that EAs are resis­tant to prac­tic­ing in part due to stigma. Moreover, devel­op­ing com­pas­sion is dif­fi­cult because it requires prac­tice in mean­ing­ful emo­tion­ally laden social sit­u­a­tions with real-time feed­back of inter­nal psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­o­log­i­cal states.

To address these chal­lenges, our research goal is to explore how we can sup­port emerg­ing adults (EAs) to cul­ti­vate com­pas­sion and social con­nec­tion, which will help us under­stand how to design effec­tive VR expe­ri­ences that sup­port well-being. Our goal builds on prior inno­v­a­tive research in vir­tual real­ity (VR) includ­ing our own, which have shown that VR’s unique affor­dances of 3D embod­ied expe­ri­ences, multi-sensory feed­back, and social inter­ac­tion can foster agency, trans­for­ma­tive emo­tions, and social con­nect­ed­ness. As such, VR has great poten­tial for enhanc­ing EA com­pas­sion train­ing by plac­ing EAs in real­is­tic emo­tion­ally laden vir­tual envi­ron­ments that pro­vide real-time multi-sensory feed­back where they can prac­tice com­pas­sion with­out stigma.

To achieve our goal, we will take a research-through-design (RtD) approach to co-create a novel VR toolkit, ‘Compassionate Connection Oasis VR Toolkit’ (ccOa­sisVR) with EAs and com­mu­nity stake­hold­ers as co-designers. Co-creating solu­tions will yield both a prac­ti­cal toolkit and deeper psy­cho­log­i­cal insights into EA expe­ri­ences, needs, and bar­ri­ers to self-compassion and social sup­port. Another out­come of our project is a compassion-based VR frame­work that will con­tribute to the­o­ret­i­cal advance­ments in under­stand­ing the role of embod­ied learn­ing in VR for self-compassion and social connection.

This inno­v­a­tive work will make impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the fields of social psy­chol­ogy, inter­ac­tion design, and dig­i­tal health by work­ing across inter­dis­ci­pli­nary divides to com­bine insights from par­tic­i­pa­tory design and empir­i­cal field stud­ies. ccOa­sisVR has the poten­tial to help undi­ag­nosed EAs expe­ri­enc­ing dis­tress gain acces­si­ble resources to alle­vi­ate suf­fer­ing. Knowledge mobi­liza­tion will con­tribute the design of effec­tive dig­i­tal com­pas­sion tools, which may be deployed in edu­ca­tional set­tings such as uni­ver­si­ties and com­mu­nity cen­ters. Research out­comes may be trans­fer­able to other user groups includ­ing teens, adults, and clin­i­cal populations.

Overall, this project will bring together cre­ative prac­tices from RtD with com­mu­nity engage­ment and col­lab­o­ra­tion and empir­i­cal research in mixed meth­ods field stud­ies to explore how we can cul­ti­vate EA com­pas­sion and social con­nec­tion through a VR toolkit. Implementing ccOa­sisVR cre­ates a safe space for prac­tic­ing com­pas­sion and social sup­port, poten­tially reduc­ing stigma and increas­ing help-seeking of EAs, ulti­mately con­tribut­ing to a more com­pas­sion­ate and con­nected society.

Related publications and exhibits

Related Projects

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Support & Acknowledgement

This project is sup­ported by a SSHRC Insight Grant