Prosocial Youth, Altruism & the Media

THESIS In this day and age, the media influences the minds of adolescents tremendously. Most of the time, people see media in a negative light, one that is detrimental to a child's way of learning. This is true to some extent. However, media is also used to promote and teach prosocial behavior and altruism to young children through mediums like television.

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What is prosocial behavior?

Saying a kind word to a classmate, sharing books and advice, defending your friend from bullying, acknowledging how others feel— these are only but a few of a plethora of prosocial behaviors that can enhance the lives of children. I know that children don’t develop social values by themselves in their rooms. They develop their values and who they are through the interactions they have with others. Educators, policymakers, and researchers are increasingly emphasizing the importance of the school’s role, family models, media, and any other form of interactions with people to build a child’s prosocial skills.  The term prosocial behavior means positive actions that benefit others. These actions can be prompted and influenced by empathy, moral values and a sense of personal responsibility over the desire for personal gain.

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From a very young age, children are taught to give a helping hand. This is first introduced if the child has siblings. If not, the child is taught this int heir first years of school. They are taught sharing is caring. 

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Media and Prosocial Behavior

Media is everywhere and it’s influence can be detrimental or helpful in a child’s learning process. With technological advancements, children have unlimited access to media with a push of a button. For the purpose of this assignment, I am going to be focusing on the positive effects of media on a child’s learning abilities.  There have been many studies conducted by researchers studying how the media has a positive effect on children’s ability to display prosocial behavior. One of the earlier studies of prosocial behavior was conducted in 1986 by Suzanne Denham, a psychologist at the University of Maryland Baltimore. She investigated the social cognitive abilities, expression of emotions and prosocial responses of young preschoolers towards others involved. She found that her research support anecdotal evidence regarding effective perspective-taking provided by other researches; that is, children shows both non egocentric and inferential abilities to understand others’ feelings.  Another study was researched by a group of graduate students from three prestigious. They investigated the role of media exposure on concurrent and future aggressive and prosocial behaviors in preschool children. They tested this by exposing kids to aggressive and education mediums of media. The pool of subjects were carefully chosen based on socioeconomic backgrounds, gender, and age.  They had children rate educational and aggression types of media one a scale of one to seven. Then the researchers observed regulatory actions of the children for ten minutes and determined their behaviors. They found that relatively high SES and high functioning children that were showing educational programming were concurrent with prosocial behavior. Here, we see that educational and positive media have an impact on children. But it also depends on other factors as well.  Citations: 

Denham, Susanne A. “Social Cognition, Prosocial Behavior, And Emotion in Preschoolers: Contextual Validation. “Child Development 57.1 (1986): 194. Print. Ostrov, Jamie., Gentile, Douglas., & Crick, Nicki. “Media Exposure, Aggression and Prosocial Behavior During Early Childhood: A Longitudinal Study.” (2005). Print. 

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Propaganda like this may not be targeted to younger children, but it does speak to adolescents. Signs like these influence adolescents by drilling in a particular message. Some people learn better from reading while other may prefer to watch moving pictures. 

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Younger children are exposed to all kinds of media. Television is the main type of media children are using or better yet, watching. This is important to acknowledge because children learn by example and do what they see. In essense, what they are watching on television is how they are going to act.  Sophia the First is a Disney Junior Original that tells the story of a young 8 year old girl who becomes a princess when her mother marries the King of the land. The whole series revolves around Sofia and her endeavors of being the princess she is meant to be. Along her journey, she comes across problems that only she can solve. She also helps out her friends a long the way. The show is directed towards young girls ages 2-8.  Vivian is one of the quiet girls. She doesn’t talk much nor does she interact with the other girls. Some of the other princesses pick on Vivian and exclude her from their tea parties. In this particular episode, Sofiais paired with Vivian in a class assignment to build a model of their dream castle. At first, Sofia was letting the other girls influence her opinions about Vivian. However, when she meets up with Vivian at her house, she discovers that Vivian is an amazing musician. They end up becoming great friends and thankful that the project brought them together. 

In this episode, Sofia demonstrates prosocial behavior as she befriends Vivian and helps her overcome her shyness with the use of song. There are many lessons being taught in this episode. Some of them are to never judge a book by it’s cover and always keep an openmind. This altruistic behaviors are modeled to young girls through television like media. Young girls watch this show and are given perspective on how to treat others rightfully. 

The episode models how to be open minded and to try new things. These are the types of lessons that all types of media should convey to younger children. Such mentality changes the dynamic and the way the young kids treat others. 

All in all, Sofia the First is one of the many television shows that convey prosocial behaviors to a younger audiences. It teaches and demonstrates life lessons that adolescents should use in the present and future.

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Three Prosocial Behaviors You Would Want to Teach Young Children

Prosocial behaviors refer to acts done to benefit others for reasons other than personal gain. Children show these when sharing with others, cooperating, taking turns or being there for a friend in need. Selflessly helping others is typically a learned behavior. Parents who demonstrate prosocial behaviors lead by example. Children may learn about h...

The prosocial behaviors that are mentioned in this article are ones that can be found in the media. 

Empathy: In Bob the Builder, a child’s educational show that was shown on Nick Jr., taught kids that you can be the helper but you’re going to need help from others too. This show portrayed the ultimate way of being understanding and caring individuals for others not for personal gain.

Moral Values: There are many video games that try to teach the children the difference between right and wrong.

Personal Responsibility: What you do affects the people around you. There are many types of media that demonstrate this prosocial behavior via commercials, television, video games, etc. 

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In conclusion,

Positive models can have positive learning effects, especially when they demonstrate consistent behaviors. By encountering empathy, children first learn prosocial behavior, actions that reflect caring about the welfare and rights of others, feeling concern and empathy for them, and acting in ways that benefit others. Prosocial behavior is central to the well-being of social groups.

The purest forms of prosocial behavior are motivated by altruism, an unselfish interest in helping another person. The circumstances most likely to evoke altruism are empathy for an individual in need or a close relationship between the benefactor and the recipient. Many prosocial behaviors that appear altruistic are in fact motivated by the norm of reciprocity which is the obligation to return a favor with a favor.

Reciprocity or altruism may motivate many important prosocial behaviors, including sharing. Most sharing during the first three years of life is done for non-empathic reasons, such as for the fun of the social play or out of imitation.

At about four years of age, a combination of empathic awareness and adult encouragement produces a sense of obligation on the part of the child to share with others. What is important developmentally is that the child has developed a belief that sharing is an obligatory part of a social relationship and involves a question of right and wrong.