Poverty is a hugely complex topic that is ripe for misunderstanding, both among policy makers and the general public, with this misunderstanding leading to bungled attempts to tackle it successfully.  New research from Simon Fraser University highlights the potential for games to improve matters.

The game, called SPENT, aims to improve our understanding of the causes of poverty and economic inequality, and the research highlights how just ten minutes spent playing the game can create a meaningful and lasting impact on the beliefs players have about poverty.

The findings emerge from a study of around 30,000 people, of which several hundred played the game in a lab environment.  The game requires players to engage in a poverty simulation experience, where they live a month in the life of an impoverished person, making the difficult financial decisions they have to engage in each day.

When the participants were contacted over the following months, it emerged that those who had played the game had developed a stronger recognition of the various situational causes of poverty, with reduced support for economic inequality.  What’s more, this change persisted for around five months after they had played the game.

“How people understand the causes of poverty influences their willingness to address inequality and help the poor,” the researchers say.

The researchers hope that their findings are sufficiently robust to warrant a wider roll-out in classrooms across Canada so that pupils gain a better understanding of poverty, and its causes.

“Our dream is to partner with the Vancouver School Board and classrooms around the city to investigate if we see similar long-lasting results using these interventions during these impressionable periods,” they conclude.