The use of immersive stories to influence college students’ attitudes and intentions related to drinking and driving

Abstract

Objective

College students are at risk of drinking and driving. The current study examines the use of immersive stories to prevent college students from drinking and driving.

Participants

107 college students participated in the study.

Methods

Participants were randomly assigned to watch an immersive 360° video, which featured a story of a young female driver who caused a fatal car crash due to impaired driving, either in head-mounted displays (HMDs) or in tablets.

Results

The story viewed through HMDs (vs. tablets) led to lower intentions to drink and drive only among female participants. Moreover, female participants’ perceived similarity to the protagonist mediated the effect of modality on their intentions to drink and drive.

Conclusions

360° video stories experienced through high immersion (via HMDs) have the potential to prevent risky behavior. It is important to consider the protagonist’s gender when adopting immersive stories in alcohol education programs on college campuses.

Keywords:

• Drinking and driving
• Immersive storytelling
• risky behavior prevention
• 360° video
• virtual reality

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of United State of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of University of Maryland.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.

Notes

1 This section and H3-5 were added based on the reviewers’ suggestions during the peer-review process. Although the hypotheses were added post-hoc, they were based on going back to the literature, but not on the results themselves.

2 In the HMDs condition (N = 55), the mean age of participants is 19.18. The sample consisted of 50.9% White, 23.6% Asian, 9.1% Black or African American, 12.7% Hispanic, and 3.6% other. There were more female participants (61.8%) than male participants (38.2%). In the tablets condition (N = 52), the mean age of participants is 18.92. The sample consisted of 50.0% White, 25.0% Asian, 17.3% Black or African American, 1.9% Hispanic, and 5.8% other. There were slightly more female participants (51.9%) than male participants (48.1%).