Pre-schoolers are more likely to apply social lessons learnt from human characters

Teaching young children social skills is seen as important to their future wellbeing. A Canadian study has found that moral lessons in stories have the biggest impact on pre-schoolers when the characters are human, rather than animals. This research was carried out by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, with 96 children aged four to six. Children were randomly assigned to read one of three books: a prosocial book with a human main character, the same prosocial book with an anthropomorphic animal character that speaks and wears clothes, and a control book about seeds. Sharing with others was the focus of the stories and children were assessed before and after the reading based on how well they were able to share 10 stickers with another child. The children who either listened to, or read, the book with a human character shared more after reading their book, unlike the children in the group with the animal character who shared less. The study concluded that many children do not recognise anthropomorphic animal characters as comparable to themselves and, therefore, such stories are less likely to influence their behaviour. Additionally, the more human characteristics that were placed onto non-human characters, the more the child shared after reading the book. Read more here.