Digital Peacemaking In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

PeaceMaker is a computerized simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This study investigated the influence of presentation mode afforded by different media on attitudes and willingness to help the "other' side in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. 150 Israeli-Jews participated in the study. The first experiment demonstrated that playing the PeaceMaker game resulted in more complex viewpoint regarding the conflict and greater willingness to help Palestinians than reading a text conveying the same information. The second experiment added a game watching condition. Similar results were found such that game playing resulted in a more complex viewpoint regarding the conflict and willingness to help Palestinians than game watching and text reading conditions. This study provides empirical evidence that interactive digital games are more effective than non-interactive presentation modes in influencing people’s attitudes and empathic reactions to ethno-political issues.