Poster #27 - “Frogs don’t wear sweaters”: The Influence of Anthropomorphized Characteristics on Children’s Biological Learning and Reasoning

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

This study examined whether anthropomorphized characteristics in children’s story books influences science learning. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of humanlike characteristics to non-human entities (Geerdts, 2016) and is commonplace in children’s media (Goldstein & Alperson, 2020; Taggart et al., 2019). Research findings are mixed, with some showing that anthropomorphism enhances learning and others showing that anthropomorphism has no or harmful impacts on learning (Bonus, 2019; Bonus & Mares, 2018; Conrad et al., 2021; Geerdts et al., 2016; Richert & Schlesinger, 2017). The current study addressed these discrepancies by more finely manipulating anthropomorphism in language and illustrations of children’s stories.
A sample of 79 4-year-olds and 76 5-year-olds were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, hearing realistic or anthropomorphized language paired with realistic, subtle (facial features), or extreme anthropomorphized (clothes, houses) illustrations. Children heard two stories in random order: (a) animals migrating due to food scarcity; (b) animals migrating to raise young somewhere safe. Children were tested on their story recall (recalling which animals from the story migrated and for what reason) and generalization (using what they learned from the stories to determine whether real animals not presented in the stories migrate and for what reason).
A series of 2 (Age: 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds) X2 (Language: Realistic, Anthropomorphized) X 3 (Illustrations: Realistic, Subtle Anthropomorphism, Extreme Anthropomorphism) ANOVAs were conducted to assess children’s recall and generalization.
Children performed differently in the two stories, so the results are reported separately.
For the raising young story, there were no age differences in recalling which animals migrated. There was an interaction between age and language (p = .04) for the reason animals migrated, indicating that when children heard realistic language, 4- and 5-year-olds performed equally (p = .48), but when they heard anthropomorphized language, 5-year-olds outperformed 4-year-olds (p < .001).
For the food scarcity story, 5-year-olds outperformed 4-year-olds in recalling which animals migrated (p = .02). Results revealed an interaction between age and illustrations in recalling why the animals migrated (p = .03). Follow-up analyses revealed two patterns driving the effect. First, 5-year-olds who viewed subtle anthropomorphism illustrations outperformed 5-year-olds who viewed realistic (p = .02) or extreme anthropomorphism illustrations (p = .001) There were no differences for 4-year-olds across the illustrations. Second, 5-year-olds outperformed 4-year-olds when they viewed realistic (p = .03) or subtle anthropomorphism illustrations (p < .001) but the age groups performed equally when they viewed extreme anthropomorphism illustrations (p = .39).
For both stories, 5-year-olds were more likely than 4-year-olds to generalize whether and why animals not seen in the story migrate (p ranging from <.001 to .012). There were no effects of illustration or language on children’s generalization of whether and why animals migrate for either story.
These results highlight that anthropomorphism influences science learning, and that this depends on age, specific anthropomorphized characteristics, and type of learning assessed. Further, anthropomorphism in language or illustrations can support learning. More specifically, subtle levels of anthropomorphism in illustrations may be more supportive of learning outcomes than both realistic and extremely anthropomorphized illustrations.

Authors

• Caitlin Lindley, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Ageliki Nicolopoulou, Lehigh University