Zhang Q, Duan Z, Xiang D, Yu Y, Tian J. The Effects of Prosocial Cartoon Examples on Children's Donating Behavior.
Psychol Res Behav Manag 2021;
14:1257-1268. [PMID:
34408510 PMCID:
PMC8364968 DOI:
10.2147/prbm.s315068]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/09/2021] [Accepted: 07/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE
In this study, we examined whether prosocial cartoons could inspire children to donate toys to others immediately upon exposure.
PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS
Cartoons were rated as prosocial or control via 80 adults. One hundred and fifty-six children participated in the study (M age = 5.29, SD = 0.79). Children in the experimental group were exposed to cartoons in which the main character had a large number of donating behaviors, while children in the control group watched cartoons without donating behaviors (randomized controlled study). They watched these cartoons for 4 consecutive days. Afterwards, children's donating behaviors toward their peers were assessed in the Toy Donation Task (TDT). An analytic method of 2 (cartoon: prosocial vs control) × 2 (gender: male vs female) × 3 (age: 4 vs 5 vs 6) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to make result analyses.
RESULTS
The empirical results indicated that watching cartoons specifically depicting charitable donations (and not cartoons with other prosocial content) increased donations for charitable causes, whilst watching the control cartoons (cartoons without prosocial content) which did not depict characters acting in an antisocial way did not increase donating behavior. Specifically, 5-year-old female children reported more donating behavior than 6-year-old female children and 4-year-old female children, whilst no significant age effects were found among male children. Here, 4-6-year-old female children and 4-5-year-old male children in the prosocial cartoon condition reported more donating behavior than those in the control cartoon condition.
CONCLUSION
These findings indicated an accumulating positive effect of watching cartoons with donating content on children's donating behavior, especially for 4-6-year-old female children and 4-5-year-old male children.
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