Prosocial Television and Young Children's Behavior: Learning from Prosocial Television; Effects of Rehearsal on Performance Measures

The two studies reported here investigate the impact of prosocial TV programs and rehearsal techniques on children's learning or acquisition of program content and on performance of behavioral adoption. Subjects for the studies were 73 kindergarten boys and girls who were predominantly middle and lower class. The children saw four 'Mr. Rogers' programs or four neutral programs on consecutive school days. Each of the four television programs was followed by a 15-20 minute training session. Two types of rehearsal were explored for children who saw the prosocial television programs: verbal labeling and role playing. Two principal measures were designed to evaluate learning of program content: (1) a Content Test (36 items with two alternatives each) administered on the last day of television viewing and training, and (2) a Puppet measure which provided an index of the child's verbalization of program themes. In the second study, a measure was taken of the children's inclination to engage in helping behavior in an actual experimentally controlled classroom situation. An overview of study findings indicated these conclusions: (1) Both types of training (verbal labeling and role playing) following prosocial television enhanced learning and performance of prosocial content; (2) Verbal labeling had greatest impact on verbal measures, particularly learning for girls; (3) Role playing was more effective, particularly for boys, in facilitating the performance of nonverbal helping behavior; and (4) The combined training condition often led to elevated scores for both sexes. (CS)