Not all fairy tales bring up honesty in children equally. Stories in which a positive hero is rewarded for his honesty instill this quality in a child three times better than those in which a liar is punished.
“As parents of young children, we wanted to understand the extent to which fairy tales help foster honesty in our offspring,” says psychologist Victoria Talwar from McGill University (USA), one of the co-authors of the study *. – How does it all work: “it flew in one ear, flew out the other”, or do children really learn the moral meaning of fairy tales?
Telvor and her colleagues at the Institute for the Study of Children. Eric Jackman at the University of Toronto and Brock University (Canada) decided to check: what if the young generation does not draw any conclusions from the moralizing stories that writers invented and folklore supplied for centuries?
To assess the ethical power of fairy tales, scientists conducted an experiment involving children aged 3 to 7 years. Each of the kids was asked to determine which toy is in the hands of the host: the latter did not show the toy, but only made it make its inherent sound – clapped crackers, rattled rattles. At the height of the experiment, the leader, as if recollecting himself, left the room for a minute, ostensibly in order to bring a book with fairy tales. When leaving, he strictly forbade the children to approach the table where there was a toy, the name of which was required to be guessed. Needless to say, after the door closed behind the leader, the temptation to look at the toy was irresistible: most of the children took off from their seats and ran up to the table.
The experimenter returned, opened the book, and began to read the story. Sometimes it was Pinocchio, sometimes it was The Tortoise and the Hare, George Washington and the Cherry Tree (this story, which tells about an act that the future first president of America did at a tender age, is as popular in the USA as it once was). in the USSR – stories about little Lenin), and sometimes – a fable about a stupid shepherd boy who played tricks on others, shouting: “Wolf! Wolf!”. After the children listened to the story, the host asked them to tell the truth: did they come to the table or not?
Researchers, accustomed from their student days to believe in the educational power of stories that ridicule liars and empty dreamers, expected that Pinocchio and the shepherd’s fable would have the greatest effect on children. After all, in these stories, a lie appeared to be the shortest path to public condemnation, all sorts of troubles and even death. In fact, it turned out quite the opposite: neither the fairy tale about the wooden man whose nose grew every time he lied, nor the fable about the boy who was eaten by wolves, did not make children one iota true. In an educational sense, they turned out to be no more useful than the story about the hare and the tortoise, which the experimenters specially included in the list, where the topic of honesty is not touched upon at all.
But fairy tales, where the main character spoke the truth and deserved praise for this, turned out to be much more effective: the children who listened to them repented of their deeds and confessed three times more often. So, in the story about the childhood years of the future president of America, little Georgie cut a cherry tree to try out a new knife given to him. “Who did this?” the father asked angrily. Georgie was about to lie that he didn’t know, but then he remembered that it was wrong to lie and confessed everything. To his surprise, his father not only did not punish him, but even praised him: “Well done! Tell the truth always and everywhere.” This uncomplicated and at the same time dramatic story (how difficult Georgie’s choice was, everyone who has not yet forgotten their own childhood will understand) had a much stronger educational effect than the long misadventures of Pinocchio.
“Our research has shown that in order to instill moral qualities in children, such as honesty, it is better to focus on the benefits that the hero receives from them, rather than on the negative consequences that a lack of these traits is fraught with,” says psychologist Kang Lee (Kang Lee) , one of the co-authors of the study. “I think it’s the same with other moral qualities.” Talvor points out that the original story about George Washington is effective precisely because it demonstrates that it pays to be honest. To test their hypothesis, the researchers changed the ending in this story – the boy shifted the blame to another and, when the truth was revealed, received a good beating from his father. The effect of this “apocryphal” version of the story was as subtle as that of Pinocchio.
As the authors of the study acknowledge, the next goal is to determine whether such stories affect the child’s behavior in the long term. Interestingly, for the researchers themselves, the work carried out had not only theoretical, but also quite practical consequences – they successfully applied the discovery in the process of raising their children. “It really works. Now I read just such fairy tales to children, ”admitted Victoria Telvor.
* «Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children?» Psychological Science, July 2014.