Serious games for teaching conflict resolution: Modeling conflict dynamics

Abstract

Serious games have already found use in several non-leisure contexts including simulation, training, health and education. In this study we present a serious game designed for the purpose of enhancing the ability of children between the ages of 9 and 12 to cope with conflict situations. Inspired by theoretical models of human conflict and experiential learning, we designed a game through which players experience and try to resolve conflict situations themselves in a virtual environment. In our multiplayer game, Village Voices, each child plays the role of a villager and is asked to complete a number of conflict quests that require social interaction and resource management; the game allows anything from very aggressive behaviours (stealing resources and spreading negative rumors) to collaborative play (trading resources). To model conflict intensity in Village Voices and evaluate its ability to elicit strong emotions and conflict, we ran a game user survey in Portugal from 32 children. Data collected include demographic information and conflict profile types, as well as in-game behavioural data and self-reported notions of conflict and affect during play. The analysis presented in this paper shows that there appear to be strong effects between gender, age, conflict resolution strategy type, cultural tendency, reported emotions and perception about the other players, and reported conflict intensity. Indeed, Village Voices serves as an excellent vehicle for teaching conflict resolution as it is able to elicit bounded conflict situations of varying intensities, and, importantly, enables us to further understand conflict dynamics amongst students of this age group and beyond.