Can a Video Game with a Fictional Minority Group Decrease Intergroup Biases towards Non-Fictional Minorities? A Social Neuroscience Study

Abstract

A critical scientific and societal challenge consists in developing and evaluating interventions that reduce prejudice towards outgroups. Video games appear to be a promising method but a number of falls in the current scientific literature prevents to fully understand the potential sizeable impact of video games on reducing prejudice. The present study investigated to what extent a video game designed to reduce prejudice towards minorities in a fictional society has the potential to reduce prejudice towards non-fictional minorities. Participants played either a recently developed game designed to reduce prejudice towards non-fictional minorities (hereafter referred to as the test game) or a control game. After playing at home, participants performed two tasks in a lab context. We observed overall a positive effect of playing the test game compared to the control game on attenuating prejudice towards an outgroup individual. We indeed observed that players of the control game had more midfrontal theta activity, reflecting more cognitive conflict, when they acted prosociality towards the outgroup participant and a lower neural response to the pain of the outgroup participant compared to the ingroup participant. These effects were attenuated for players of the test game. We also observed that players of the test game had a higher sense of agency when they decided to help the outgroup participant compared to when they did not help the outgroup participant, an effect not observable in players of the control game. These results are promising as they support evidence that using fictional characters in video games may induce positive changes towards non-fictional individuals.

Is video games' effect on attitudes universal? Results from an empirical study comparing video games' impact on the attitude change of players with different backgrounds

“…Furthermore, we investigated the effect of attitude importance on attitude changes. The key study finding, that is, that playing the test video game changed players' attitudes towards the depicted historical events supports the current literature (Cangas et al, 2017; Guillaume & Caspar, 2022; Kampf, 2016a; Mulak & Winiewski, 2022) which claims that video games affect our attitudes towards topics depicted in games. They can, therefore, shape how we think about the topics represented in them.…”

“…Several studies have suggested that video games can affect players' attitudes towards the topics that these video games depict. For instance, they can affect attitudes towards prejudice against minorities, as shown in Guillaume and Caspar (2022); attitudes towards food safety, as demonstrated in Quick et al (2013); attitudes towards mental health, as explored in Cangas et al (2017); attitudes towards historical events, as discussed in Kolek et al (2021); and attitudes towards protracted conflicts, as analysed in Kampf (2016a). However, it is important to note that other studies have yielded mixed results or failed to confirm such a video games' effect on attitudes (Barthel, 2013; Peña et al, 2018; Potter et al, 2021).…”

Understanding racial bias through electroencephalography

“…Recently, a few studies have tried to verify whether racial prejudices can be reduced, which could be of great relevance to society. In Pech and Caspar [ 107 ] conducted a study to investigate whether a video game designed to reduce prejudice against minorities in a fictional society has the potential to decrease prejudice against minorities in real life as well. A positive effect of the test game compared to the control game on the attenuation of prejudice against an out-group individual was observed.…”