Role plays are used in various situations, for example at school, at work or in psychotherapeutic sessions. In role play, you take on a given attitude and you have to consider a challenging situation with this attitude. Often you have to react differently in this role than you would with your own attitude. The aim is, among other things, to experience the situation through someone else's perception and thereby learn to understand other opinions.

Children are still on the path of self-discovery and are always in a state of absorbing and learning. Therefore, role play is usually easier for them than for adults. Role-playing at school helps children understand different concepts, achieve goals and master a situation in a leading role. If a child plays the role of a teacher, he or she must learn to understand how to handle a responsible position.

Many employers offer the possibility of role-playing seminars where participants take on the roles of administrators, coordinators, client staff or bosses. In this way, workers learn the complexity of the different tasks in a work team. 

Therapeutic sessions are about perceiving a situation from another person's point of view. In this way, one learns to understand the other person better and strengthens one's own position in society as well as one's relationship with other people. 

The good thing about a role play is that you have to step out of your comfort zone without taking any risks, because the situation is set. Putting yourself in another person's shoes is motivating, reduces interpersonal barriers and inspires creativity.

However, it can have the opposite results, especially for shy people. People who generally prefer to stay in the background may find a role-play situation in a group intimidating, scary and stressful. The course of the role play is not fixed and can get out of control. The outcome is not always as desirable as one would hope. 

In role-playing, you have to be prepared for both the best possible and the worst possible outcome of a situation. If the other person perceives the case differently than you thought, it can lead to riots, grief and further misunderstandings.