Embodied Empathy in VR: Sustained Pro-Animal Attitudes and Behaviors Induced by Simulating Stray Animal Lives

The growing population of stray animals presents pressing ethical and public concerns. We present an extended iStrayPaws, a Virtual Reality Perspective-Taking (VRPT) system combining first-person animal embodiment, shelter narratives, and a virtual behavioral assessment. In a longitudinal study, 48 university students were randomly assigned to VRPT, matched Desktop Perspective-Taking (DPT), or no-intervention Control conditions. State and trait empathy, animal-welfare attitudes, virtual-task performance, and attention were assessed before, immediately after, and one week after intervention. Significant Group × Time interactions emerged across all outcomes (ηp2=.12–0.21). Both VRPT and DPT improved empathy immediately, while VRPT additionally improved task performance and attention. At follow-up, VRPT retained advantages over Control in empathy, welfare attitudes, and task performance, and exceeded DPT in trait-empathy change and task performance. Greater presence was associated with immediate state empathy. Interviews indicated stronger narrative recall, emotional resonance, and welfare-oriented reflection in VRPT. Findings support immersive perspective-taking for sustained cross-species empathy and animal-welfare education.