# Impact VR: Building Socioemotional Resilience in Youth with Conduct Disorder

## TL;DR

A VR intervention called Impact VR improved emotion recognition and social relationships in teens with conduct disorder.

## Contribution

Impact VR is a novel, immersive intervention that shows promise for improving socioemotional functioning in youth with conduct disorder.

## Key findings

- Impact VR significantly improved emotion recognition accuracy for fear, sadness, and anger.
- Participants reported stronger peer and parental relationships after the intervention.
- Social stress was reduced in Impact VR participants at the 3-month follow-up.

## Abstract

Adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) often exhibit deficits in emotion recognition, strained parent and peer relationships, and elevated social stress. This randomized controlled trial tested Impact VR, a brief, immersive socioemotional intervention, with the aim of building protective factors and improving socioemotional functioning among youth with CD. A total of 110 adolescents with CD (Mage = 13.79; 58% male) were randomized to either the Impact VR intervention or an active control. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up, including emotion recognition accuracy (ER40 total and subscales: fear, sadness, anger, happy, neutral), self-reported peer relationships, parent relationships, and social stress. Mixed-effects models controlled for baseline scores. Impact VR produced significant improvements in ER40 total accuracy (d = 0.74, p < .001), with specific gains for fear (d = 0.54, p < .001), sadness (d = 0.75, p < .001), and anger (d = 0.50, p = .014). No group differences emerged for happy (p = .126) or neutral (p = .050). Impact VR participants also reported stronger peer relationships (d = 0.58, p = .002) and parental relationships (d = 0.54, p < .001), and reductions in social stress at the 3-month follow-up (d = 0.53, p < .001). Findings demonstrate that even brief, scalable interventions delivered through immersive virtual experiences can yield meaningful improvements in socioemotional functioning for adolescents with CD. Impact VR represents a promising, engaging, and developmentally sensitive addition to the prevention science toolbox.