Where the Proteus effect stops – embodying fictional mafia criminals leads to paradoxical effects on implicit attitudes towards organized crime

Mafia-type criminal organizations depend on their ability to corrupt local communities and foster a climate of silence and indifference toward their crimes — a code of silence often referred to with the Italian word ‘omertà’. The media and entertainment industry often glorify the figure of the criminal mafia boss, potentially encouraging sympathy for criminal figures. In the present study we investigated if embodying the avatar of a real vs a fictional mafia criminal lead to changes in attitudes and behavioural intentions towards mafia-type organized crime. Eighty-three Italian participants were divided into three groups, each embodying a different character: a real-life mafia boss, Toto Riina (Mafia Group, N = 35); a fictional mafia figure, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather (Mafia Fictional Group, N = 23); or a neutral, non-specific avatar (Control Group, N = 25). While embodying the character, participants gave a neutral thank-you speech to a group of collaborators in an office-like room. Before and after the experience participants completed various tasks measuring their explicit and implicit attitudes towards mafia-type organized crime, and their intentions to oppose this kind of criminality. Additionally, immediately after the task, while still embodying their character they took part in an interpersonal distance task in which they were approached by avatars representing criminals, mafia criminals, and innocents, while we collected comfort ratings and physiological indices (HR and GSR). Our results indicate paradoxical effects of embodying a fictional mafia character, which were not observed in the Control group or Mafia group. Specifically, after the virtual experience, participants who embodied Don Vito Corleone retained higher levels of conflict when deciding whether they would take part in anti-mafia actions, showed greater implicit aversion towards neutral stimuli preceded by mafia-related primes and indicated greater discomfort in the interpersonal distance task when approached by mafia criminals compared to non-mafia criminals. Our study contributes to research investigating the effects of embodying morally loaded virtual characters and suggests that embodying negative role models in virtual environments does not promote complicity or admiration for those figures but may actually produce paradoxical effects.