Landmark Study Shows Doll Play Nurtures Empathy

by Richard Dickson View Bio

Richard Dickson

As President and Chief Operating Officer, Richard Dickson leads brand and innovation strategy, design and development, marketing, global operations and franchise management, which includes licensing, content creation and distribution, live events and digital gaming, for Mattel’s portfolio of global brands.

A global leader in brand development, Richard drives Mattel brands to the forefront of culture, making them more relevant and valuable to kids and families. During his tenure, Mattel has grown some of the world’s most powerful and purpose-driven brands. Among these are Barbie®, the most diverse line of fashion dolls and the brand that inspires the limitless potential in every girl, and Hot Wheels®, an ever-changing line of vehicles that encourages the challenger spirit in every child.

Previously, Richard was President and CEO of Branded Businesses for The Jones Group, Inc., a leading portfolio of fashion brands. He led global wholesale, retail and ecommerce for the Jones portfolio, reinvigorating dated fashion labels into powerful fashion brands and acquiring and developing new brands which he then sold to private equity. Prior to this, Richard spent a decade at Mattel, where he was General Manager and Senior Vice President for Barbie. In this role, he drove a global revitalization of the iconic Barbie brand, including a new identity, product innovation, designer collaborations, content, global events and distinctive retail. As Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Media and Entertainment for Mattel, Richard was responsible for building franchise approaches for Mattel properties, creating multi-year deals with leading entertainment companies, including CAA and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, and evolving Hot Wheels® and Fisher-Price® beyond toys into lifestyle brands.

Prior to joining Mattel in 2000, Richard spent more than a decade in various roles at Bloomingdales before co-founding Gloss.com, the first online retailer dedicated to high-end cosmetics. Gloss.com was acquired by Estee Lauder Companies in 2000 and Richard was appointed Vice President of Brand Management and Merchandising for Estee Lauder Companies’ new online business.

Richard received a bachelor’s degree from University of Maryland and completed the UCLA Anderson School of Management executive program. He is a member of the Board of Directors at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital and serves on the Board of Advisors for The Robert H. Smith School of Business at The University of Maryland.

At Mattel, we’ve long believed that play has the power to change the world. As the world’s leading toy company, we feel a profound responsibility to continuously learn how to show the world the value of play to kids and families across all genders, races, abilities, and cultures.

I’m not surprised that more and more parents are telling us that they want their kids to learn the skills that will help them succeed in our ever more complicated world. In fact, nine out of ten parents worldwide now say that empathy is the social skill they most want their kids to develop.

If you’ve ever watched a child play with dolls or experienced the fun of playing along, you see the joy and creativity happening in the moment. All sorts of situations and human interactions are being tried on, played out and worked through - and important skills are being learned.

How kids interact with dolls has been researched for a long time. I’m particularly inspired by one landmark study using dolls that helped demonstrate the negative effects of segregation on black children in the US, leading the Supreme Court to declare segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The powerful legacy of this and other early research into the importance of doll play on child development led Mattel to field an innovative and ongoing new study in partnership with Cardiff University, a leading academic institution. This study employs neuroscience for the first time to examine how today’s kids learn from doll play, developing skills with lifetime value.

This month, we’re sharing the first important findings from this groundbreaking global research. Particularly exciting is that empathy, so meaningful to parents everywhere, is developed through play with dolls like Barbie – and that this holds true across genders, races, and cultures worldwide. You can read more about this study on the benefits of doll play and its findings here.

As an advocate for purposeful play, we believe that play should always be both fun in the moment and valuable for a lifetime. And that skills best learned in childhood today offer enormous potential for global good tomorrow – empathy being just one example. It makes me so proud to work in an industry that not only brings so much joy to the world but is helping improve it through play.

So, amidst all the disruption and day-to-day challenges we’re all experiencing, I encourage you to keep playing. Now more than ever, Mattel wants to remind you to play together as a family, rediscover your inner child and share some fun. You won’t simply be relieving some of the stress of these extraordinary times – you’ll be helping to shape the skills of the future generation from your living room.

Visit Barbie.com/Benefits for ideas on how to make play more purposeful for your family.

• Print
• |
• Share