PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR
US experiments in the study
had the college students play prosocial, violent, or neutral game for 20 minutes then, measured their helping behavior in a puzzle task ...the students that played the prosocial game helped more than the other two with the puzzle
what might negate the effectiveness of the show in regards to prosocial behavior
if a show tries to teach prosocial behavior but there is also a lot of antisocial behavior being depicted (like what you saw within Coop and Cami), this might negate the effects of the prosocial content
can it be prosocial content but not educational content
CARS! ...not educational TV show but it shows behavior that is prosocial one of the cars gets pushed off the race track and gets hurt and then Lightning McQueen has the chance to finish first but he stops to help the car that got 'hurt' to cross the finish line loses the race to help someone else
Coop and Cami example
Cami has a lovie (stuffed animal that she sleeps with and always has) and her rival has it Cami goes up and talks about what makes a good leader and then rival starts making fun of her by waving it around saying "who would ever want to vote for you" THEN, Coop (her brother) stands up to defend her and says that he also has a love and will vote for Cami ...a bunch of people start to stand up and support by sharing how they have weird lovies
example of a show with positive effects being negated
Power Rangers! producers may argue that it shows prosocial behavior such as teamwork BUT! kids don't remember that...they remember the violence and aggression
examples of prosocial behavior
accepting/respecting others' feelings; verbally/physically comforting others; expressing strong emotions in acceptable ways; helping and cooperating with others in play and cleanup time; sharing toys and materials; showing concern
adult mediation
adult mediation has been show to increase positive effects and learning parents can provide a background of information (deal with unfamiliar info) or restructure information to make it more understandable ie. Boy Meets World aired on Fridays with the intent to watch it together as a family
why were these findings the case?
because people had their phone, they felt more socially connected and so their need to seek out social contact elsewhere was lessened
what does this study show
by showing kids positive prosocial content, you can affect kids prosocial behavior
what is prosocial content
content designed to affect children's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in socially valued ways often lumped into educational content (it teaches prosocial content)
two additional variables
context adult mediation
main findings
converging evidence that prosocial video game play promotes prosocial behavior
video games/internet
effects are very similar to television where if you play prosocial games, you are more likely to behave in a prosocial way limited to more concrete behaviors of sharing, cooperation, and helping
limitations
for the cross sectional: it was a self-reported survey SO, there could be bias and they rated them as prosocial or not for the longitudinal: 3-4 months isn't very long and self-reported problems still apply ...findings were that prosocial video game play at time 1 influenced prosocial behavior at time 2 BUT prosocial behavior at time 1 influenced how much prosocial games they played at time 2 SO, causal direction questions for the experiment: playing video games in a lab...not very representative when kids go to play video games and can choose what they play, developmental differences in cognition that might influence whether or not video games will affect kids BUT they used college students not children
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
lesson of taking turns and getting along with others ...pretty typical prosocial lesson showing good behavior of kids taking turns the episode goes on to show the kids trying to figure out how to take turns and the positive effects they get from doing so
effects of prosocial TV in general
majority of research on preschool-age children (much of the prosocial content is geared towards this age range) effects vary by age (increase from age 3-7 and decrease at 7-12) definition of prosocial content an issue (how you define prosocial content and what behaviors you accept as prosocial behaviors can vary)
complexity to prosocial content
may be contradicting what a parent teaches a child to be important or contradicting what may be valued in a particular culture or society
Mares and Woodward (2005)
meta-analysis of 34 studies of prosocial content looked at positive interaction, altruism, stereotyping, and aggression (can prosocial content reduce aggressive behavior)
strategies used by producers to develop prosocial content (Johnson and Ettema)
model desired behavior (Daniel Tiger) present models who encounter difficulties and resolve them (Coop and Cami) present models who encounter difficulties and leave them unresolved (Boy Meets World...the problem of the weird teacher and Cory pushing the teacher but don't address the sexual harassment issue that is raised in the episode)
why is it easier to teach prosocial lessons to preschool age children
much of the lessons that are taught for these kids are very concrete that kids can observe and do rather than complex lessons for older kids THUS, it's easier to do for younger kids because its harder to teach abstract concepts
Gentile, Anderson, et al (2009)
multi-methods with international sample cross-sectional survey in Singapore with 7th and 8th graders longitudinal survey in Japan with 8th and 11th graders AND experiment in US with college students
prosocial content effects on kids
positive effect!
results of the study
positive effects of prosocial content similar effect sizes to aggressive content (important!) effects largest for altruism (helping behavior)
effects of prosocial TV for children
positive effects overall prior research finds effects vary (methodology used, complexity of behavior depicted in program...viewing simple behaviors that could be modeled and imitated like sharing or helping are more likely to find effects, similarity between behavior viewed and behavior tested)
priming theory and effects of prosocial media content
priming theory=you can activate networks by activating a kids prosocial network, they may behave in a more prosocial way ...can be activated through words they read or TV content they see prime a child way to behave in a prosocial way if they are ever confronted to situations that would need this
argument that kids will have one schema for prosocial behavior in general
probably not true will have different schemas for sharing behavior or helping behavior
comprehension of complex messages for older children
prosocial lessons more complex than violence or aggression values are often abstract (ie. Boy Meets World is a very abstract lesson about sexual harassment and handling feelings about things that are unjust and unfair...this makes it more difficult to teach) comprehension varies by age (difficult to show lessons to pre-operational children who don't understand other people's point of view...teaching empathy requires the ability to understand other points of view) kids can't understand certain lessons so it is harder to teach lessons quality of shows varies (if the prosocial message is embedded in antisocial behavior like girls being mean to each other, it might negate the effects)
schema theory and effects of prosocial media content
repeated exposure to prosocial content over time will help children develop schemas for such behavior that influences their attitudes and behavior kids will learn prosocial schemas kids will behave in prosocial ways
context
shows like Hannah Montana may have mean girls that negate the prosocial effects BUT, you also need to think about violence! shows with aggressive or violent content and prosocial content will have no effect on prosocial behavior ie. Power Rangers
how do you define prosocial content
shows that teach a social or emotional lesson that is designed to target kids' attitudes and behaviors and beliefs and change them in positive ways not talking about the other content that is out there
three theories that are used to explain the effects of prosocial content and prosocial behavior
social learning theory schema theory priming theory ...the first two are more important
aggressive content
some people argue that exposure to violent content will have more effect on aggressive behavior than prosocial content would have on your prosocial behavior NOT TRUE...they found that exposing kids to prosocial content was as likely to make them behave pro-socially as viewing violent content would make them behave aggressively
other digital media: online communication
studies have found some positive effects but also some negative effects as it relates to prosocial behavior LOT of concern about what online communication (social media sites) can do to positive behavior ...social media may make us less empathetic BUT! development of friendships and other relationships online communication can increase feelings of closeness with friends and stay more connected to people (positive effects)
prosocial behavior (altruism) and cell phones
study by Abramson (?) asked people their willingness to volunteer for community service or to donate to charity people divided into three groups: did not have their phone, had their phone with them (not using it), didn't have their phone but drew a photo of it and were told to think about it
how does Coop and Cami show prosocial behavior
the kids standing up for Cami is prosocial behavior trying to help her by not letting her keep getting behavior BUT! note that there is also antisocial behavior being shown
idea of the rich get richer
the problem is that people who have good offline social networks and good relationships will get much more benefit from online communications than those with less of an offline network
social learning theory and effects of prosocial media content
the theory that is most predominantly used seeing behavior and consequences and then imitating behavior that is rewarded then you perform that behavior with the hope you will get rewarded as well whether you perform that action depends on your perceptions of your ability to perform it and your perception of the action having unfavorable results BUT this all assumes that kids learn through observation
does research care about examples like Cars
they don't really look into it instead they are looking at shows that are intended to teach a social or emotional lesson (ie. Mr. Rogers or Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood)
how do children perceive prosocial content
they don't see it as educational content (and neither do parents) they think educational content is only academic learning such as ABCs, math, etc different groups can think of programming content in different ways
Singapore and Japan surveys in the study
used self-reports reports of favorite games and hours per game spent playing and those games being rated as prosocial, amount of time with these prosocial games, AND self-reported rating of prosocial behavior
findings of the study
using the cell phone made people less likely to be willing to engage in community and less likely to give money to charity people with their phones engaged less altruistically relationship between altruistic behavior and cell phones
prosocial behavior/content and culture
what is a socially valued attitude or behavior can vary by culture
other media and prosocial behavior
when you look at websites and games ...many of the TV shows that teach a prosocial lesson have websites with games for academic lessons ie. Arthur teaches prosocial lessons but the games on the website teaching counting, letter recognition, or word recognition
vulnerability with being online
you can be vulnerable online to enable yourself to reveal yourself more than you would want to in person so it makes you closer to people
