Being able to strengthen bonds with people you already know is a powerful ability. Starting to see the entire world around you as full of potential allies is another superpower altogether.

      Sometimes, to get more support in our lives, we have to be willing to look in the most unlikely places. And games can help us do that—by opening up our minds to friendship with people we would ordinarily overlook. One of my favorite game studies in recent years explains how.

      Social scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have been studying the real-life impacts of video games for more than a decade—and recently they made a major breakthrough. They discovered that playing the Nintendo game Wii Bowling with a stranger not only makes you like that person more—something you’d expect from almost any enjoyable activity two people perform together—but also makes you like more everyone else in the world who you perceive to be like your game partner. Let me explain.

      One of the biggest social problems in Singapore today is alienation between young people and senior citizens. According to national surveys, they don’t like each other very much, and they avoid spending time together. The result is that seniors in Singapore are often socially isolated, which is terrible for their mental and physical health. Meanwhile, young people miss out on significant opportunities to be mentored and cared for by seniors.

      Could games help solve this widespread social problem? The NTU researchers set up a pilot study to find out. They paired up college students and senior citizens for weekly video game dates lasting thirty minutes each. After six weeks of playing Nintendo Wii Bowling together, the seniors and the young people not only considered each other friends, they had dramatically revised their opinion of the entire other group.

      The young people decided they liked senior citizens, in general, a whole lot more. Meanwhile the seniors were much less anxious about interacting with young people. Both groups said they were more likely to seek out social interaction with someone from the other group in the future. This represented a huge psychological shift. They didn’t just make one new friend; they started to see all seniors or young people as potential friends.

      Crucially, this powerful change did not occur in the study’s control group, in which young people and seniors spent the same exact amount of time together making conversation, watching TV, or working on arts and crafts together. The individuals liked each other more after six weeks of hanging out, but they continued to dislike other seniors or young people in general. In short, they changed their mind about just one person, not the whole group. They remained, unfortunately, psychologically closed off from a whole world of potential allies.

      By now, you can probably guess how the Wii Bowling video game accomplished what other common social interactions could not: deep synchronization was surely at play. And one particular outcome of synchronization—increased empathy—makes all the difference when it comes to reversing prejudice or healing social tension.

      Empathy is the ability to imagine and relate to what someone else is feeling—and fortunately, a little bit of empathy goes a long way. Research shows that increasing our empathy for just one person in a group will improve our opinions about the entire group in general.¹⁶ However, if we simply like one person in a group without increasing our empathy for them, our opinions about the group as a whole will remain the same.

      This is exactly what happens when we play a game with someone we think we won’t like, by virtue of their age or any other prejudicial factor. By increasing our empathy for our fellow player, we increase our empathy for everyone who reminds us of that player.

      To feel more empathy with others, people have to have positive social interactions in safe environments. Synchronization can’t happen if you’re preoccupied with negative thoughts or feelings. In fact, research shows that strong prejudice and dislike for someone else’s group can actually prevent us from experiencing neurological linkage.¹⁷ But games have an advantage here as well. The NTU researchers theorize that the equalizing nature of games makes it easier to connect in spite of existing social tension, anxiety, or mistrust.

      When we play a game, we come together on equal terms and equal footing. We agree and trust each other to follow the same rules, to pursue the same goal, and to treat each other fairly. We accept each other as worthy teammates or competitors, regardless of our outside social status.

      The equal status and trust that we experience in games, as temporary and as limited as they may be, makes it feel safer to explore social interactions with people we might ordinarily be anxious around or avoid altogether. And it’s not just the NTU researchers who have figured this out. Groups around the world are starting to harness the power of play to make allies across cultural borders and boundaries. The Middle East Gaming Challenge, for example, brings tens of thousands of children in the Middle East together to play cooperative video games, online and in person. The organizers’ goal is to promote dialogue and confront prejudices that currently exist between Arab and Jewish schoolchildren in Israel. They explain:

      Despite being neighbors, these children are all too often exposed to atmospheres of negative stereotypes that, unfortunately, are exacerbated by the two communities’ separate education systems. Without a doubt, for many of them the gaming challenge will be a first positive experience shared with someone their own age, in the same corner of the globe, but from an entirely different religious or ethnic background.¹⁸

      When you look at the possible stakes of events like the Middle East Gaming Challenge, it becomes clear why research like the Wii Bowling study matters. When we understand how games change relationships, we can see more clearly what it takes to overcome our own biases and prejudices. And we discover just how important it is to synchronize our minds and bodies whenever we want to change someone else’s opinion of us from negative to positive.

      Surprisingly, and wonderfully, this kind of