Fostering Empathy Through Inclusive Interactive Digital Narratives
摘要
This Late-Breaking Work explores the potential of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) to foster empathy and promote positive social change, particularly towards marginalized groups. Recent controversies in the gaming industry underscore the challenges of balancing narrative freedom with authentic representation. This project investigates whether IDN can meaningfully engage with the complexities of diversity and inclusion. Our research centers on a game created and developed by undergraduate and graduate students, featuring a Honduran immigrant facing discrimination in her new role as hiring manager. Two studies are designed to assess the game’s effectiveness in fostering empathy for this character and its potential to influence players’ long-term attitudes toward immigrants. The dual goals of this project are to create a compelling, empathy-driven narrative that can be utilized in educational settings and to study whether IDN can successfully increase empathy and reduce bias toward marginalized groups. This research contributes to a growing body of work on the prosocial effects of IDN and its potential to drive real-world attitude change.