Me Too! (“Eu também!”): Cultivating Empathy through Play

Extended Abstract

Objective

This project aimed to explore the potential of game design in promoting empathy among school-age children. The project involved the development of guidelines for designing games that stimulate empathic behaviors, and through creating a game prototype and testing it with children, sought to assess the effectiveness of these design guidelines in fostering empathic behaviors.

Design Process

The design process involved collaboration with specialists in design and psychology to develop guidelines tailored to foster empathy in school-age children. Through action research, the team formulated guidelines encompassing various aspects of game design, including thematic elements, gameplay dynamics, and material attributes. These guidelines were informed by theoretical concepts of empathy and childhood development. The guidelines were then applied in the development of “Me too!”, a board game designed to embody empathic experiences and encourage social interaction among players. Based on participatory observations, the game was tested with 28 children in the initial three years of school at a public school in Southern Brazil.

Results

Guidelines: (1) Focus on school-age children: The game is designed for children in the first three years of school-age, considering their developmental stage. (2) Adopt gender-neutral stimuli: The game’s design avoids reinforcing gender stereotypes, with a color palette, contents, and images that appeal to all genders. (3) Promote engagement with game dynamics: The game is played in pairs, organized into rounds where children impersonate characters and engage in dramatization. Playfulness is infused into all aspects of the game, including activities, images, and props. (4) Adopt ludic and fantastic themes: The game is set in familiar “worlds” such as the city, forest, and beach, with magical elements incorporated, especially in the fantastical world. (5) Adopt characters: Characters are represented through visual cues like hats, amulets, cards, and miniatures. (6) Stimulate children to change perspectives: Children can choose different characters in each play session, allowing them to experience different perspectives. (7) Explore reasons behind responses: Activities encourage children to discuss predetermined topics and explore the motivations behind characters’ actions. (8) Adopt different complexity levels: The game offers activities of varying complexity, from simple tasks to exploring complex emotions. (9) Promote verbalization about emotions and feelings: Activities require children to express and discuss emotions and their underlying reasons. (10) Facilitate self-revelation: The final round of the game revolves around self-disclosure, encouraging children to share their thoughts and feelings. (11) Promote collaboration: Collaboration is essential for progressing in the game, requiring children to work together during various activities and decisions, such as choosing and sharing character miniatures. 

Game design: These guidelines were applied in the creation of “Me too!”, a board game specifically designed to promote empathic behaviors among school-age children. The game is comprised of five main components: a game board with five distinct worlds, various elements representing characters (such as cards, miniatures, amulets, and hats), a dice with different actions, decks of cards for each world, and individual boards for each player. The game requires four participants divided into pairs to play, with the central dynamic being divination. The game begins with each pair selecting a character and wearing the character’s hat while choosing a miniature to represent their duo. Players draw cards from decks, placing them face up on the board to reveal unique traits and preferences of each character. The game board is then set up, starting with the Forest World and ending with the Fantastic World, with pairs commencing in the Forest. Players take turns guessing cards, utilizing dice prompts to provide clues while their partner attempts to guess the corresponding card. Once both members of a pair correctly guess all cards in a world, their miniatures advance. The use of cards in the game facilitates emotional expression and self-disclosure among players, providing a safe space for sharing subjective material. The final challenge, “me too (not)!”, is undertaken by the pair who guesses all cards, where they choose cards to relate to or not, explaining their feelings and reasons. The game continues in rounds until all characters in the forest have won their amulets. Testing the game with children revealed the effectiveness of the design guidelines in eliciting empathic behaviors. Content analysis of gameplay sessions highlighted the game’s ability to evoke affective responses, cognitive processes, and empathic attitudes among players. These findings underscore the potential of game design as a tool for fostering empathy and social skills development in childhood.

Discussion

The project developed effective guidelines for designing games that stimulate empathic behaviors. By creating a game prototype and testing it with children, the project assessed the effectiveness of the design guidelines in fostering empathic behaviors. The results show that game design may enhance empathy among school age children. Despite challenges such as children’s varying levels of literacy and the need for further longitudinal studies, the project underscores the importance of integrating empathy-promoting elements into game design.

Conclusion

This project represents a significant contribution to the field of game design for social skill development, emphasizing the importance of empathy in childhood and exploring innovative approaches to promote empathic behaviors. By integrating theoretical insights with practical game design principles, the project demonstrates how games can serve as powerful tools for nurturing empathy.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the valuable contributions of all specialists involved in the development of guidelines and the design of “Me too!” namely Bruno Lorenz, Guilherme Meyer, and Angela Marin. Special thanks to the children who participated in the game testing sessions and the school for their support and cooperation throughout the project. No assistance from AI tools was used in project development.

Awards

• Prêmio Bornancini is the award issued by the Association of Professionals in Design of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Dr. Mandelli was a graduate student under the supervision of Prof. Leandro M. Tonetto when she developed the product awarded in 2020 with the prize “Scientific Research of the Year.” 
• 32º Prêmio Design – Museu da Casa Brasileira. This project was selected for exhibition at the 32nd ‘Design Award of the Brazilian Home Museum.’