Reducing Bias Through Gaming

Abstract

How can games be used to reduce biases and biased behavior toward those people with special needs—if at all? In this paper I contextualize biases toward people with special needs, and also investigate possible intervention to encourage bias reduction. I also provide particular attention to educator biases around students with special needs, and how games may support interventions and professional development to reduce biases and biased behavior. Based on this, and the limited research on games, empathy, perspective-taking and bias reduction, I describe five possible strengths and four possible limitations of using games for these purposes.

Keywords

• games
• design
• bias
• special needs
• empathy
• video games