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Children's books with humans have greater moral impact than animals, study finds
- user982 9y agoI have an inchoate theory that early moral indoctrination through children's books is basically a way of hardwiring the just-world fallacy into the broader populace such that a minority of individuals who resist this worldview grow up primed to embrace sociopathic realpolitik and advance to positions of power over the majority who accept it at face value.
- vanderZwan 9y agoAs tempting as it is to just write "k" in response to this, I'll try to be constructive: so what do you suggest we do instead?
- user982 9y agoI don't know; this is observational rather than prescriptive. "Don't be institutionally hypocritical as a society" is inviting, but has problems whichever of the views is chosen. The sociopaths seem necessary so long as geopolitics is simply gang warfare on a global scale.
- icebraining 9y agoWhat about teaching everyone non-sociopathic realpolitik instead?
- Retric 9y agoLikely to reduce overall efficiency.
- gasof 9y agoSeems like a great idea. I'd love to have been educated re: the importance of history, and the following topics: the lead-up to WW2, Communist Russia, the formation of Israel, the formation of the EU, NATO, and UN, the world banking system, the last 100 years of Middle-Eastern conflict and perhaps the American Civil War. I now consider these some of the most relevant historical events to the current Dutch political situation and also to most other Western countries, but I never learnt about them in high school (which is from 12-18 here, I did the variant that prepars you for university). What we need to achieve that is a realization in the counter-culture that education is important and that what people considered counter-culture in the 70's, 80's and 90's has been coopted by now, or perhaps has been "controlled opposition" from the start. Conservatism and protecting the people of your country from international realpolitik is the real counter-culture now. I think Switzerland and Poland got a lot of this right.
- wolfgke 9y ago> What about teaching everyone non-sociopathic realpolitik instead? Teaching about an oxymoron?
- icebraining 9y agoIt's not an oxymoron, it's in fact the definition of realpolitik, as coined by Ludwig von Rochau. It means having a principled position, while viewing the world as it is, without silly idealisms like the aforementioned just-world fallacy. The view of realpolitik as just a name for gaining power at any cost came later, and it's more prevalent in the English world. I can recommend John Bew's Realpolitik: A History, it's quite interesting if one enjoys the history of political thought.
- ianai 9y agoIdentify that the only acceptable way to treat a human is as an end to her/himself and anyone who does not acts immorally.
- wolfgke 9y agoJust a thought: Perhaps lessons about scientific fallacies that impact real life and to always think about experiments that challenge hidden assumptions. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (http://www.hpmor.com/ http://www.hpmor.com/) could give an idea how this might look like.
- kingkawn 9y agoI'm already bored
- jimmaswell 9y agoI really do wish more fiction was like HPMoR. I think it would work out great in a school setting.
- foxhedgehog 9y agoI cover this very point in my pamphlet, "Cucked by Narnia."
- Fricken 9y agoBooks that had a big impact on me as a young kid were 'The Giving Tree', 'The Lorax', and 'The Velveteen Rabbit'. They were hard lessons. None of them taught a just world. I think those books left such an impression on me because they were tragic and unresolved. There were dozens of other more simplistic moral tales that went in one ear and out the other, I'm sure.
- foxhedgehog 9y agoGeorge Orwell disagrees.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- crummy 9y agoThat's a good point - I think when it comes to stories for adults, using a narrative tool like replacing the humans with animals or setting it in a fantasy or scifi setting can help people appreciate it more honestly. Kind of like how Battlestar Galactica can openly discuss the morality of violence against an occupying force, while if it was set in Iraq viewers would have been much less open minded to examining the concept. Perhaps its adults books which should replace humans with animals?
- foxhedgehog 9y agoSee also: Game of Thrones (nuclear weapons, Iraq occupation, global warming, etc.)
- icebraining 9y agoAs in the example you pointed out, this is a very common trope in SF. Often aliens are used, rather than animals; a recent well known example is District 9. Or my favorite example (in film), They Live.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoWhere did BG do that? (Not disagreeing, just not remembering/catching the particular reference).
- aaron695 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_(Battlestar_Galactica) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_(Battlestar_Galacti... I disagree with OP RE BSG. It was not about morality in general it was directly referencing our current views on morality, specifically the Iraq war. But do agree subbing in animals/zombies/aliens for humans allows movies to get away with more.
- maaaats 9y agoIt's harder when using humans, though. How do you depict a slow person, two enemies etc? With animals, the turtle and the hare you instantly know have a difference in speed. The mouse removing something from the lions paw portraits two natural enemies etc.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoNot all children know a rabbit is faster than a turtle, nor that x and x are an enemy of a lion. If we can teach this layer, why can't we do the other? A simple thing like one kid being known to be fast, getting trophies, or the slower one having some sort of handicap would do the same. The second is easily strange kids at a new school, kids that look different or eat differently (with the one being helped having been unsure of it), and so on. After all, it isn't like the animals are natural enemies, but one happens to eat the other. In other words, simply have the story tell the lesson outright, with people, rather than expecting them to learn from the animal metaphors.
- infinite8s 9y agoTrue, but you lose the instant recognition of differences (which come to think of it might be a good thing).
- throwaway_345 9y agoAs a parent with a child on Autism spectrum, it makes me mad to no end to try and shoehorn Animals everywhere. Like - Rabbit and Tiger going to school and doing things. Tiger going to "boys room". How do you explain that tiger is a boy? I am not saying - to not have Animals in the stories. Turtle and the rabbit in their role make sense. Thirsty crow story won't be same without a crow or some other kind of flying Animal. So as Lion and the mouse. But it doesn't stop there. We have Animals doing shopping, pigs buying ham (it comes quite close to that sometimes). In my experience of working with my child, he understands and retells stories that he can relate to. Contexts that I can explain without calling for helpful dose of fantasy. He and I still try and love books where use of Animals is out of place. Such as - Elephant & Piggy stories. But I believe, he will get so much more out of those books if they used Humans. Then again, I may not be their target audience...
- hownottowrite 9y agoIn animal intelligence studies, researchers have observed that species are more keen to learn from members of their own kind. There's a great chapter in Frans de Waal's "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?"[0] which discusses the difference between wolves and dogs. Many people believe dogs are smarter than wolves because they are more keen to listen/observe humans. However when the tests are arranged so that wolves can learn from other wolves it becomes clear that wolves are far more intelligent. It's a matter of wolves not caring a bit about humans. de Waal goes on to discuss similar testing biases inherent in comparing chimpanzees and human children, with human children getting a one-up on chimps because the testing administrators are members of their own species. If you're interested in diving into the motivation behind storytelling and how it effects us, I'd recommend reading The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall[1]. It's one of the most approachable book on the subject. [0] Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are by Frans de Waal: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/06/are-we-smart-enough-to-know-how-smart-animals-are-frans-de-waal-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/06/are-we-smart-e... [1] The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-storytelling-animal-by-jonathan-gottschall.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-storytell...
- gallerdude 9y agoWe need neutral octopuses to be the judge.
- eat_veggies 9y agoBut what will judge the octopi?
- lucideer 9y agoMore octopodes
- JetSpiegel 9y agoDolphins.
- type-2 9y agoI remember the animals from my children's book just as well as the humans
- appleflaxen 9y agoI may be missing it, but where is the discussion of blinding? If the person reading the story is the one who gives directions about sharing, then how do we know whether or not the effect was due to the experimenter? The original journal publication is at least linked in the article [1] but this is a very fundamental experimental design concept. I don't understand how this experiment can be run this way, let alone reviewed by peers and published. 1. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12590/epdf?shared_access_token=pe47nFMA_K4-5DuHH3I2d4ta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC6748z_qEzyWjpKevlijCSNZqgMtKQWoecQi1JomdGjs2zXZ4BBmtV3ULQacZfVUsyCUHU74tThtq9R3osjgNiWG-ek7hYaAJINhD0wfJowkFQ%3D%3D http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12590/epdf?s...
- macintux 9y agoI remember covering Jonathan Livingston Seagull in grade school. Absolutely loved the story and the message, but what I remember most clearly was the girl who stated: who cares, it's just a story about a bird.
- Razengan 9y agoI think that using animals to impart moral lessons tends to imbue a child with the subconscious connotation that morality/ethics belong in "fairy tales", and not in the actual world of the "grownups" of their own kind.
- jameslk 9y agoThe article interviews a few author's reactions at the end of the article which seem to indicate they either don't believe the scientific research, don't get it or don't care: > Kes Gray, the author of the bestselling rhyming animal series Oi Frog and Friends, was unperturbed by the researchers’ findings. “Authors and illustrators have no need to panic here, as long as we keep all of the animal protagonists in all of their future stories unreservedly cuddly. Big hair, big eyes and pink twitchy noses should pretty much nail it,” he said. Perhaps there might be a problem with these type of authors influencing large portions of the young population.
- arkitaip 9y agoMy nieces are 2 and 4 so I get to read the books and surprisingly often the books are awfully written with zero educational value. So the authors' sentiments don't really surprise me; if you don't bother with the quality of your craft, why should you bother with the scientific underpinnings of teaching/learning.
- watwut 9y agoThe moral education is only one of reasons why we read to kids and why kids read. I would even say that it is not the most important one. However, author thinking that it is enough to show cuddly animal and nice picture does not surprise me. Most nchildren books, especially those with shiny appealing pics are awfully written. Kids want to buy them, but they rarely wants them to be read or care while you read. On unrelated news, kids don't read or read less and less every day. I would not worry about children books not teaching right morality. They are being read less and less.
- rossdavidh 9y agoFor decades, statistical experts have explained, again and again, to coaches and players that there is no such thing as a player with the 'hot hand'. The coaches and players have mostly ignored such advice, believing that their lifetime of following the sport matters more than researchers dipping into the field for a study or two. And eventually, of course, it turned out that the statisticians are probably wrong, and the "hot hand" is real (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-real/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-r...). Perhaps the child authors think they know more about how children and stories interact than the researchers, because they've got a lot more experience with the topic.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoHere are some advantages animal characters can have: They provide enough psychological distance to allow dangerous situations or bad things to happen. They allow stereotypes more easily without creating human prejudice. So as the article supports, human characters may provide more immediate context, but animal characters probably allow more complex/difficult situations to be explored.
- stevenwoo 9y agoOne of my friends kids had James and the Giant Peach lying around and it's really thin and I had never read it so I read it during a car drive. SPOILERS - It's hard to get darker than having your parents die while you are a child, or empathizing with a character and being happy when his evil aunts are killed.
- eli_gottlieb 9y agoOne of the big advantages of children's literature is that it can portray things too dark for adult literature.
- dyarosla 9y agoThe findings are interesting but perhaps the reason authors choose to include anomorphic characters is because those sell better? 'Oh my son/daughter loves [animal], I'll get this book rather than this one about human kids'
- dyarosla 9y agoAlso, interested to see what happens when characters are non-animals and non-human.. I would guess the results might be similar.
- pvaldes 9y ago"Moral impact" is one of those features conveniently impossible to measure, and at the same time very marketable to parents. Each little girl and boy reacts in an unique and personal way to the same stimulus and modify gradually their points of view after years of observation and experience. You can't just buy a magic book covering all possible cases to turn your little evil in an angel in a couple of hours.