Morality demonstrated in stories can alter judgement for early adolescents
Do children reading about particular moral characteristics absorb those traits as a building block for their own morality? The findings, which appear in the Journal of Media Psychology, suggest so, and further support how this indirect approach to socializing children's morality can supplement the direct teaching of moral principles kids might receive through formal instruction.
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"When parents are considering what media they might want to select for their children, they can take into account
- what particular moral value is being emphasized by the main character, and
- how the main character is treated because of those actions," she says.
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Hahn is first author of the new study, which adds critical nuance to a body of literature that explores how media content affects children. While many previous studies have focused on broad conceptualizations, like prosocial or antisocial effects that might be associated with specific content, Hahn's study looks at how exposure to content featuring specific moral values (care, fairness, loyalty and authority) might influence the weight kids place on those values.
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For the study, Hahn and her colleagues took the main character from a young adult novel and edited the content to reflect in each version the study's focus on one of four moral values. A fifth version was manipulated in a way that featured an amoral main character. Those narratives were shared with roughly 200 participants between the ages of 10 and 14. This is a favorable range for media research because it's more difficult to introduce narrative comprehension in younger kids, while equally challenging to hold the attention of older adolescents, who become bored with rudimentary storylines, according to Hahn.
