Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present a Serious Game with the main purpose of inducing attitude changes as a way to prevent bullying, in a target audience of young people between 10 and 12 years old.

The rationale for prevention is: first, to help victims of these aggressive episodes to acquire or improve competencies in avoiding or dealing with future real bullying situations; and second, to promote empathy toward the victims in bystanders. A back office application complements the game, providing substantial assistance to psychologists while using the game with patients in therapy or in research work.

Both components, the game and the back office, were evaluated with volunteers. The user study leads the authors to the conclusion that the current version of the game holds good potential in bullying prevention: the young people that played the game in a continuous time span, at the end of this testing process, have expressed improvements in their bullying prevention strategies. The back office application, a distinctive feature of the solution when compared to other similar bullying prevention solutions, was positively assessed by the psychologists who tested it.

The game deals with strong social features, such as number of friends and invitations to social events (e.g. a birthday party), to which young people give much importance. Additionally, it offers a variability of scenarios and consequences of actions, taking into account the user’s performance in the game. The main factors that makes the presented solution stand out in comparison with other similar bullying prevention solutions are mainly the following: It includes a back office application to assist therapists with data management features; the role of the player in the game can be chosen according to his own profile; it is possible to play even outside a therapy session (e.g. at home); and it is a portable solution.

Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men’s leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let alone appreciate, the equivalent patterns of women’s leadership and the future contributions that women could potentially make as leaders. What could and are women bringing to society as global leaders? Why at this moment in history is there such a marked increase in the number of women leaders? Are we entering an era in which both male and female leaders will shape history, both symbolically and in reality? And if so, will we discover that women, on average, lead in different ways than men, or will we learn that role (global leader) explains more than gender? This chapter reveals the accelerating trends of women joining men in senior leadership positions, establishes the relationship of women leaders to our overall understanding of global leadership, and sets forth an agenda to accomplish much needed research and understanding.