ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality in Industry
Enhancing Safety Education through Empathic VR Experiences: Influences of First-Person Perspective and Victim's Background Story
Provisionally accepted
- School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
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Virtual Reality (VR) holds significant potential for enhancing safety training in the construction industry, yet its capacity to foster empathy remains underexplored. This study examines the impact of a VR simulation of a fatal construction accident, manipulating perspective (first-person vs. third-person) and victim narrative (with vs. without a background story) on empathy, safety motivation, and attitudes. In a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 160 participants, measures included perceived closeness, empathy, embodiment, social presence, safety motivation, and attitudes. The results showed that a victim's background story increased perceived closeness and marginally increased empathy, with an indirect effect on safety motivation. While perspective alone did not directly influence empathy, the first-person perspective enhanced participants' sense of embodiment, which in turn increased motivation and fostered social presence, resulting in more positive attitudes toward safety. These findings underscore the significance of emotionally resonant narratives and embodiment in VR training for cultivating empathy and a commitment to safety. The study's results provide insights to inform the design of VR-based safety training programs in the construction industry, highlighting the potential benefits of narrative-driven, immersive experiences in fostering empathy and improving safety education outcomes.
Keywords: Construction Industry, Empathy, Safety training, virtual reality, Workers' safety
Received: 20 Oct 2025; Accepted: 06 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Chellappa, Ho and Luximon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jeffrey C. F. Ho
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