Lots of lessons to be learned from children

From fairy tales to cartoons, for centuries, make-believe has been the preferred method of capturing the attention of children and critters have been the stars.

Dressed in clothes, walking on two legs, singing and talking — animals have been counted on as the characters that children respond to best.

Long before cartoons, anthropomorphism, the act of giving human characteristics to non-human entities, can be found rooted in ancient cultures, woven through fables, mythology and religion.

Considered a natural tendency, people like to project human thoughts, feelings and motivations on to the creatures around them, from interpreting the dog’s expressions through one’s own perspective to creating movies with forest creatures that sing and dance.

Magnetically drawn to animals and driven by unfettered imagination and creativity, it’s a logical leap to conclude that a fusion of human and animal characteristics would engage children — and decades of successful marketing to kids does seem proof that children do respond.

Many a child toddles off to bed only after they’ve scrubbed their teeth with a cartoon animal smiling from the brush handle, picked out their favorite cartoon-covered pajamas and tightly embraced a stuffed animal that talks when a button is pressed.

There’s little doubt kids are smitten and entertained by anthropomorphized characters; however, researchers wonder how much children actually learn from these animals with human characteristics — and recent findings may indicate there’s good reason to ask.

Education researchers with the University of Toronto recently put animal characters to the test with 4- to 6-year-old children in a study to see if animals with human characteristics or just plain old humans are better at teaching kids a moral lesson.

In the study, children were read stories that taught lessons about sharing, featuring animals that talked and wore human clothes and the same story using human characters. They were also read a third story about seeds with no reference to sharing to help gauge how the stories effected sharing behavior.

To measure the impact of the stories on behavior, each child was given 10 stickers and an opportunity to share those stickers with another child before and after each story was read.

Researchers found children shared more after being read a book with human-characters engaged in sharing lessons, and shared less stickers after reading a book with anthropomorphic animal characters.

Following the reading and sharing exercises, children were asked to categorize characteristics of humans, realistic animals and anthropomorphic animals. They were also asked questions to gain insight into their preferences and thought processes, according to a Thursday news release from the university.

Their questions revealed the children did not interpret the anthropomorphic animal characters as being similar to themselves, researchers reported. They also found those children who attribute more human characteristics to the animals in the stories were more likely to share.

For parents, researchers said, the study shows how much of an impact story books can have on child behavior but it also emphasizes the importance of carefully choosing stories and lessons children can relate to when trying to impart knowledge or behaviors.

It also serves as a reminder of something kids might just understand a little more than we realize — not everything is about us humans, and if we explore the animal world and nature with a fascination for their unique characteristics, who knows what lessons we might learn.

Sharna Johnson is always searching for ponies. Contact her at: [email protected]