Article explores the changing stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis

New Media & Society had an article that explored the changing stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis through videogame play. In the experiment, 172 participants were randomly assigned to be either an Israeli or a Palestinian leader in a game called PeaceMaker. In PeaceMaker, it was a videogame simulation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Before and after playing the game for 20 minutes, each participant was assessed for explicit and implicit attitudes towards Israelis and Palestinians. The results from the game showed that by playing PeaceMaker, it changed participants’ explicit stereotypes of the two groups. Participants that were either the Palestinian President or the Israeli Prime Minister had a negative change in their evaluations of the other group. It was implicit bias that moderated stereotype change from PeaceMaker. The article helps explain the process and what the results meant.

For more information, please refer to: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/02/28/1461444814525010.abstract