Intervention 3 - Questions (scaled up)

Paired up players:

Player1 (19) - Player2 (33) (Strangers)

Player3 (21) - Player4 (22) (Sisters)

Player5 (20) - Player6 (36) - Player7 (19) (P6 is a stranger, other two are friends)

Player8 (21) - Player9 (52) (Son and Mother)

Player10 (19) - Player11 (23) (Met once before.)

Player12 (18) - Player13 (24) (Student and University admin)

My influence as a researcher: Most of the players are known to me at different levels. This familiarity made the players more comfortable with being paired up with strangers as the trust they had in me translated into trusting my interventions would not cause them any harm.

Further improving on the questions done in Intervention 1, the objective is to remove any preconceived opinions, discover a new layer in their thought process, to remove humanise the 'labels', and to create a new bond. They were all asked to write down what they think of the other person before the task, and what they think of each other after the task.

Results:

Within the strangers they based their initial opinion based off the other person's look and their behaviour before the activity began. It was short and spoke of the other person's hair, make up, or general observations such as 'looks pretty cool', 'looks nice', 'seems intelligent', etc. In the families, they write longer description at the beginning talking about how they see their family member.

In both categories, the end comments had more emotional answers such as 'I see a lot of myself in (P5)' - P6, 'I relate to her (P6) emotionally - P5. P12 initial made statements such as 'Social and fun', 'diligent and hardworking', and 'understanding and trustworthy' about P13, but the end statements such as 'someone who is just stepping into adulthood', and 'trying to figure it out' - showing that there was an understanding made from the younger player about the older person too (Even P2 who appears as an 'man child' at first was understood as 'he might not seem like it, but he very knowledgeable' and 'he looks tough but is actually soft'). From the perspective on P13, as an official admin of P12's university, she based the initial observations on P12's behaviour at the university. Even though the questions didn't relate to those specific incidents, P13's understanding of P12 went beyond the questions.

For the sisters (P3 and P4) and mother and son (P8 and P9), they claimed that nothing much changed with the questions as they knew these things about each other and are very close. However, a bit more depth was discovered. After the activity, both parties said that even though they're close, it has been years since they've spent this much time together. So that was interesting to sit together and do an activity that allowed them to know each other more.

Conclusion: There was definite and evidence closeness created within the players with the nature of the questions. I believe that that the questions had the right intensity and helped not being too intrusive to have a positive impact. However, to breakdown more layers, more intrusive questions can be introduced. There were justifications given to the less intense questions such as why their favourite colour is their favourite colour, showcasing that even the basic questions can allow a person to open up. As my project is mainly aimed to equip late adolescents, it was a positive result to see the young players humanising the adult players.