Children Learn Interaction Lessons Better from Stories with Human Characters than Animals -Reasearch

Children learn social interaction lessons better from stories with humans as the main focus versus those with critter characters, according to a recent report published in the journal Developmental Science.

“Contrary to the common belief,

realistic stories, not anthropomorphic ones, are better for promoting young children’s prosocial behavior,” the authors noted in the report.

The Toronto-based study focused on 96 children, ages four to six, who were read a story about sharing. Some were read the story with human characters as the protagonists, while other children heard the same story but with animal characters.

Before story time, the children were asked to choose 10 stickers to take home, then told that another child their gender and age wasn’t chosen for the activity and therefore could not get any stickers. The kids were then given a chance to share their stickers with their peer in secret.

After the story, the children were given another 10 stickers and again told they could share them if they wanted.

Kids who’d heard the story featuring human characters shared their stickers more than the kids who heard the tale starring animal characters or a study control story about seeds.

“For stories with anthropomorphized animal characters, many children may find them not to be relatable and thus not act according to the moral of the story,” the study said.

In fact, the children who read the human story shared their second round of stickers more than they did the first round, while the kids who read the animal or seeds story shared significantly less. This could be because of the natural thought that they’d shared already.

“The human story clearly helped the children not only to overcome this general tendency to decrease prosocial giving the second time, but also to increase it significantly after having given prosocially once already,” the study stated.