After experiencing gender discrimination â a type of bias â in his own life, a teen developed a game to counter the problem.
PHOENIX, Ariz. â After one too many experiences with bias, Prerna Magon, 18, had had enough. The teen decided to do something about it. But directly confronting peopleâs intolerance usually doesnât make them change their ways. In fact, this often makes them defensive and angry. So Magon decided to disguise a new bias-busting program as a role-playing game. By having fun and telling a story, teens who play his game became a little less biased without even realizing it.
Magon just graduated from the Police DAV Public School in Jalandhar, India. He had always been interested in psychology, a study of the mind. But the inspiration for his project came when he switched high schools.
Magon's physical traits meant he was labeled a girl at birth. But Magon realized that he was a boy. In an attempt to fit in, this transgender student had attended school as a girl. Only a couple of students knew that Magon identified as a boy.
Gender: When the body and brain disagree
Then, he says, âSomebody outed me when I became head of the student council.â When members of the council found out that Magon was transgender, he notes, âThey took my post away.â The council members told him âI could not represent their school.â
Magon transferred to a new school for his senior year. And it was here that he started to design a game to see if he could change peopleâs implicit biases. These are prejudices that people hold without knowing it. For example, someone might implicitly associate nursing or teaching with women. But both men and women can be teachers or nurses.
The challenge in dealing with implicit biases is that people donât tend to know they hold them. Yet âthey come up in your day-to-day decision-making,â Magon says. âYou donât even realize youâre making a biased decision a lot of the time.â People might automatically assume a scientist is a man, or an artist is a woman.
Magon didnât want to just tell people they were being biased. After all, everyone wants to think they are fair. Confronting them about bias, he notes, âcan lead to resentment.â But if people are just playing a game or telling a story, Magon reasoned, they might change their biases without realizing it.
Game on
Magon invented a role-playing game called âTell Tall Tales.â Itâs based on a deck of cards. Each player draws cards, including a card that begins the game â and a card that can end and win the game. Each player also draws a character card, which will give them some superpower. It might be healing, for example. Or they might become a natural leader â someone able to convince anyone to do anything. Character cards also have sexes listed on them â male, female or no sex at all. But each characterâs superpower comes with a side effect. A woman who is a leader, for example, might be seen as bossy.
Each player in the game gets a character with a super power (second card from left). But all the super powers have side effects. CREDIT: B. Brookshire/SSP
Once everyone gets their character, they have to tell a story. Each player has to develop their own character and interact with the others. Players try to take over the story so that they can play their ending card first. This will bring their own story to an end, allowing them to win the game. But if they make mistakes, they have to draw challenge cards. These describe actions they will have to add into the story. A quiet, artistic male character who can draw anything, for instance, might now have to do something quite out of his character, such as give a difficult public speech. The player with that character had better start twisting the story to make it happen.
Magon slipped six different ideas from psychology into his game that make players think about their biases. The first is âperspective taking.â By handing out cards with characters, the game makes players step into someone elseâs shoes. Then thereâs counter-stereotyping. A stereotype is an idea that is widely held, but isnât always true â such as the idea that only men are scientists. By giving his characters traits that run counter to stereotypes, Magon hopes the game will make players think of stereotypes in new ways.
Through role-playing, players can make their characters grow. This helps players view their characters as real, complex people, not just some âfemale doctor,â or âmale nurse.â Imagination also is important. Studying how the characters play out the game can help lessen someoneâs initial bias, Magon says.
Different situations in the game encourage players to talk about implicit biases. But it doesnât force them to. Magon hopes players will feel more comfortable about bringing it up as part of the storytelling. Finally, by playing together in a group, players canât act on their bias. They need to work together. In the end, Magon says, âThereâs no us and them; that reduces your bias.â











