Abstract:

Bullying is a type of aggressive behavior carried out by an individual or a group, involving an observed or perceived imbalance of power that is very likely to be repeated (Olweus, 1994). According to UNESCO, bullying affects about 30% of adolescents worldwide (UNESCO, 2018). This social phenomenon involves different participants, who have been grouped into three main categories: victims, bullies or aggressors, and bystanders. This problem produces different short, medium, and long-term consequences. Some of the consequences for the victims might be emotional effects and poor school performance (Rigby, 2003). Moreover, in the case of the bullies, it can lead to problematic social relationships (Gutiérrez Ángel, 2019) as well as an early criminal escalation (Rigby, 2003).

Organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO, and OECD have highlighted the urgent need to incorporate strategies to mitigate the effects of bullying and, according to Kowalsky (2012), the most effective ones are to inform and sensitize actors, as well as some others related to psychological and psychiatric care, and those directed by educational institutions that range from specific strategies to comprehensive prevention programs. In a broad sense, what any strategy for the prevention of bullying seeks is a change of attitude in the people involved. In the aggressor a transformation is expected that goes from aggression to empathy; in the victim, the expected evolution is a transit from submission to dignity and in the bystander, the transition from apathy to conciliation is sought.

In a natural way, persuasion can detonate the attitude change in people (Calvo Gutiérrez, 2016, p. 52); at the same time, ludology and particularly video games have become the main allies for the theory of persuasion. However, to date no guidelines or methodologies targeted to design persuasive video games aimed to prevent bullying have been found.

As part of the general design process, it is necessary to know and understand the profile of potential users. (Ambrose and Harris, 2010 ). Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of the roles involved in the bullying phenomenon. Also, the use of role-based analogies is proposed in order to contribute to the understanding of the bullying phenomenon, and it is exemplified through what we called "the snowball effect" analogy. Broadly speaking, the bullies offense becomes the snowball that increases in size in proportion to the amount of snow in the ground (bystanders) it finds on its way to impacting a target (victim).
This analogy was evaluated through an experimental study carried out among university students, to determine its representativeness, as well as the potential as a persuasive strategy for understanding the phenomenon and for changing students' attitudes towards bullying.

Keywords:

Bullying prevention, persuasive strategies, role-based analogies.