PRIMARY CHILDREN'S STORIES AS A FUNCTION OF EXPOSURE TO VIOLENCE AND CRUELTY IN THE FOLK FAIRY TALE.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

KOELLE, BARBARA SHRYOCK.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

Developmental psychology.

0620.

Local Subjects:

0620.

Physical Description:

166 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 42-03B.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

Like violence in the television watched by children, the effect on children of violence in the folk fairy tale is controversial. Beginning in the early 19th century critics and educators claimed that the more violent stories provoke fear and anxiety in children, just as today such reactions are connected with television violence. Folk fairy tales were also criticized for providing harmful models of behavior for a youthful audience, as is today's television. Defenders of violence and aggression in the tales have included psychoanalysts and anthropologists, who find in them cathartic and developmental benefits, and writers and artists who stress the values for children of an unexpurgated literary heritage.

Unlike television there has been little experimental study of the actual effects of these stories. Bruno Bettelheim's recent widely-publicized work on folk fairy tales, in which he defends the violence, provided a focus for such a study. Analyses of children's own stories by cognitive-developmental psychologists suggested a method of investigation.

Primary-age school children heard four Grimm fairy stories in versions which were similar in structure but differed in the amount and quality of violence depicted. They then donated stories of their own which were analyzed for structure, using a scoring system from the literature, content, using scoring devised for this study, and length, using word-count. Subsidiary measures included a structured interview, a checklist of amount and kind of television watched, and a parents' questionnaire.

Results were analyzed from three theoretical viewpoints: developmental/cathartic, learning theory, and anxiety-reaction. Significant differences found in certain areas of story content supported the anxiety-reaction hypothesis. Differences in story structure and length, and those attributable to gender or television-watching did not attain significance. A sizable number of children mentioned the fairy tale violence in individual interviews, and a sizable number of parents underestimated the amount of time their children watched television.

Conclusions, though limited by the size and high SES level of the sample, suggested that the unexpurgated tales should be told only with caution to young children, and audience for which they were not originally intended. Developmental benefits were not observed within the limits of the study. Different results might be obtained with a different SES group, with a longitudinal study, or with the use of folk tales with male protagonists. Their employment in an intermediate school environment, and implications of the television survey results were discussed.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: B, page: 1203.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1981.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.