Prosocial Television and Young Children: TheEflEects of Verbal Labeling and RolePlaying on Learning and Behavior

Lynette K. Friedrich and Aletha H. Stein

Pennsylvania State University

FMEDRICH, LYNETTE K., and STEIN, ALETHA H . Prosocial Television and Young Children:The Effects of Verbal Labeling and Role Playing on Learning and Behavior. CHILD DEVELOP-MENT, 1975, 46, 27-38. The effects of prosocial television alone and in combination withtraining—verbal labeling and role playing—on learning and helping behavior wereassessed. 73 kindergarten children were assigned to 1 of 5 conditions for the 4 viewing andtraining sessions: (a) neutral television and irrelevant training, (b) prosocial television andirrelevant training, (c) prosocial television and verbal-labeling training, (d) prosocial tele-vision and role-playing training, or (e) prosocial television and both verbal-labeling and role-playing training. 3 measures of learning were employed: a content test to measure knowledgeof specific content of programs and generalization of themes to other situations, a puppetmeasure to assess both spontaneous speech related to program content and helping behaviorin a fantasy context, and a third measure designed as a behavioral index of helping anotherchild. The results provide support for the prediction that children learn the prosocial contentof television programs and generalize that learning to other situations. Support is also foundfor the prediction that training enhances verbal learning and affects actusd helping behavior.The verbal labeling had the greatest impact on the verbal ineasut® of learning, particularlyfor girls, and role-playing training was more effective, particularly for boys, in increasingnonverbal helping behavior. The 3 diverse measures of learning, both specific and generalized,were positively related to one another. This was true for verbal asjwell as behavioral indicesof helping.

The study described here was designed totest the effects of an educational television pro-gram that deals with social and emotionaldevelopment on the learning and behavior ofyoung children. The second purpose was totest two types of training designed to helpchildren rehearse and learn the content of theprograms.

In recent years, a body of experimentalstudies showing imitation of prosocial behavior

has accumulated. These studies demonstratefairly clearly that children imitate altruism,helping, delay of gratification, and high stan-dards of performance when they are exposedto models exhibiting these behaviors (Hoffman1970; Staub 1971a). While these studies arean important first step in demonstrating thepotential of modeling for conveying prosocialbehavior to children, many questions arisewhen one attempts to generalize their findings

We are very grateful to the kindergarten teachers and children at Lemont Sdiool inState College, Pennsylvania, for their cooperation in the execution of the study. In particular,Mrs. Clemence Flenner, Mrs. Vonda Gertz, Mrs. Gwenn Bunnell, and Mrs. Pat Smith werevery generous in their help in all phases of the study. The following people contributed tovarious portions of the data planning, collection, and analysis: Ann Clewett, Mary S. Thomp-son, Sandra Sborovsky, David Tyson, Robert Marcus, Carol Quarton, Martha Serig, Mary E.Thompson, Ann Godlesky, and Mary Maxwell; illustrations for the book and content test weremade Dy Aalo Cutler. Frandne Deutsch organized and supervised the data analysis, and MaryLong contributed in a variety of ways to the organization and execution of the study. Wewould like to thank the entire staff associated wim "Misterogers' Neighborhood," particularlyElaine Lynch, for generous assistance in obtaining materials needed for the researda. This re-search was supported by grant (XlD-CB-340 from the Office of Child Development to theauthors. Requests for reprints should be sent to Lynette K. Friedridi, Pennsylvania StateUniversity, College of Human Development, Human Development Building, University Park,Pennsylvania 168(E.

IChild Devdopmmt, 1975, 46, 27-38. © 1975 by the Society for Research in Child Devek^moit, Inc. AUrights

^ Child Development

to the effects of television. Experimentally con-structed modeling sequences are much lesscomply than television programs; the be-havior measured is usually identical vidth thatobserved; and behavior is usually measuredimmediately following exposure to models in ahighly controlled situation. If television has ef-fects of real interest, it must be demonstratedthat children can learn from the more complexmaterial presented and that they generalizethat learning across situations and over time.

In an earlier study (Friedrich & Stein1973; Stein & Friedrich 1972), the present in-vestigators studied the effects of "Misterogers'Neighborhood" on the naturalistic behavior ofpreschool children in a nursery school setting.We compared children who were shown "Mis-terogers' Neighborhood" with those shown"neutral" children's films and with those shovmaggressive cartoons. Observations were con-ducted during a baseline period before thetelevision programs were shown, during a 4-week period in which programs were shownthree times a week, and for 2 weeks followingthe programs. Children who saw "Misterogers'Neighborhood" showed higher levels of self-controlling and achievement behavior (taskpersistence) than those in the other two groups.For children from lower-social-status families,exposure to "Misterogers' Neighborhood" wasalso associated with increased prosocial inter-personal behavior (cooperation, nurturance,and verbalization of feeling) in comparisonwith the other treatment groups. Higher-social-status children did not show positive effectson interpersonal behavior. To some extentthese effects continued during the 2 weeksafter viewing ended.

The present study was designed to assessboth acquisition and perfortnance (Bandura1969) of prosocial television content. It wasalso designed to determine whether the chil-dren could generalize the program content tosituations in their own lives. Four programswere chosen which formed a story sequencefocused on understanding the feelings of others,expressing sympathy, and helping. Helping wasdiosen as liie behavioral area in which per-formance was assessed.

The second purpose of the study was toacplore methods of training that might enhancethe effects of the television programs. Due tothe compile nature of the program content,children may benefit from additional rehearsalor other learning t^jhniques. The training

methods were chosen with two major con-siderations in mind: (1) they had a foundationin imitation theory and had some empiricalsupport, and (2) they appeared to have po-tential for translation into methods that couldbe used in group settings with children.

Verbal labeling was one type of trainingused. Verbal labetog and questioning of thechild is likely to provide the child with a meansof coding and representing material cognitivelythat will be considerably more efficient thanthe methods he generates on his own. Preschoolchildren do not readily produce verbal labels tocode their experience, though they often canuse such labels if someone else provides them(Flavell, Beach, & Chinsky 1966). For ex-ample, 4-year-old children learned and recalledmore of a model's behavior when an adultlabeled the behavior verbally than they didthrough observation alone (Coates & Hartup1969). Bandura and his colleagues have alsodemonstrated that children and adults learnobserved materials more efficiently when theyhave useful verbal labels for what they observe(Bandura 1969). As television stimuli are morecomplex and more numerous than modelingsequences used in the laboratory, such devicesfor understanding and storing material areprobably quite important. Verbal labeling mayalso enable the child to generalize televisioncontent appropriately to new situations. Forexample, ii several incidents in a program arelabeled "helping," the child may be better ableto engage in helping in new situations.

Role playing was the second trainingmethod used. Staub (1971b) found that roleplaying (without modeling) was an effectivemethod of increasing helping and sharing be-havior, though the effects depended partiallyon the sex of the child. On the basis of social-learning theory, role playing would be expectedto increase learning because it is a personallyinvolving form of rehearsal of program content.Finally, to the extent that young children areegocentric, asking them to take the role ofanother may be a particularly effective way ofincreasing their understanding of others' feel-ings and behavior.

MethodOverview

Seventy-thr^ kindergarten children wereshown a series of four television programs, eachof whidi was followed by a training session.Four groups saw prosocial |»ograms from

Friedridi and Stem 29

"Misterogers' Neighborhood." One of thesegrouj^ received activity that was irrelevant tothe program; one received verbal-labeling train-ing in which the themes from the program werelabeled in storybooks; one group received role-playing training in which tfie themes were re-hearsed using hand puppets; one group re-ceived both verbal-labeling and role-playingtraining. The fifth condition was a controlgroup who saw neutral television programs andreceived irrelevant activity. Three measureswere administered following the television ses-sions. The content test was designed to tapknowledge of the specific content of the pro-grams and generalization of the themes of theprograms to other situations. The puppet mea-sure was designed to elicit spontaneous verbaland nonverbal production of the material fromthe programs, to test generalization of that ma-terial, and to measure helping in a fantasy con-text. The third measure was designed as a be-havioral index of helping another child.

SubjectsThe subjects were 38 boys and 35 girls en-

rolled in kindergarten in a small city. Agesranged from 5-3 to 6-3. The study was con-ducted in May and June. The children werewhite, and most came from middle- or lower-middle-class families.

Pretest Data Collected on SubjectsBecause the small number of children in

each experimental condition might result ininitial group diflFerences even after random as-signment, three types of information were col-lected before the experimental treatments wereadministered. Teachers rated the children onhelping and verbal fiuency, and a brief test ofknowledge of the "Misterogers' Neighborhood"program was administered.

Helping and verbal fluency.—Four scalesdealing with helping and three with verbalfluency were constructed to be as specific aspossible. These scales were:

1. The diild will share what he has whenanother child needs something.

2. The child will seek out someone orsomething to help another child.

3. The child will provide comfort andsympathy to another child.

4. The child will actively aigage in anactivity to help anotfier diild with a project ortask.

5. The child engage in role-playinggames sudb as playing house, fireman, c»wbo)^,and the like.

6. The child is verbally fluent. That is,he or she speaks readily, especially to an adult,and talks a great deal.

7. The child has an extensive vocabulary.He or she knows many words and uses them ina meaningful way.

Two teachers were in a position to rateeach child because the two morning classes andthe two afternoon classes were combined in anopen classroom arrangement using both class-rooms and a large hall area between them.Each teacher was asked to place the childrenshe knew in one of four categories (muchabove average to much below average) foreach of the scales. Where the two teachersdisagreed, they discussed the difference andagreed on a placement of the child.

The ratings on the helping scales andverbal-fluency scales were suflBciently highlycorrelated to compute one score for each setof scales. Intercorrelations of the four helpingscales ranged from .51 to .89, with a medianof .75. Intercorrelations of the three verbal-fluency scales ranged from .39 to .79, with amedian of .47.

Knowledge of television program.—Abrief test was constructed to evaluate the chil-dren's familiarity with the "Misterogers' Neigh-borhood" program. Pictures of six dharactersfrom the program (three males and three fe-males) were arranged on two large posterboards. In individual sessions, the subjects wereasked to point to a character named by theexperimenter, then to another character namedby the experimenter. As there was only one pic-ture left on tiie board after two were identified,the subject was asked to name the characterin that picture. The score consisted of thenumber of characters correctly identified.

Television ConditionsFour programs from "Misterogers' Ne i^ -

borhood" which formed a dramatic sequraicewere shown. A jealous caisis aris^ in which oneof the characters fears she will be replaced bya fancy new visitor. Much of the action centerson the attempts of friends to understand herfeelings, reassure her of her uniqueness, andhelp her. The programs were edited by 5-12minutes so the total time for eadi was about 20minutes.

30 Child Development

The neutral programs were children's filmsabout nature, a visit to the post oflBce, and othertopics unrelated to interpersonal relationshipsor feelings. The films were transferred to video-tapes and shown on a television monitor. Thefilms lasted 15-20 minutes each day.

Training ConditionsVerbal labeling.—For the verbal-labeling

condition, a book was constructed to followeach program. The first section of the book wasconcemed with the events in the program. Il-lustrations of these events were shown beside atext in which the feelings and actions of thecharacters were labeled. At the end of thestory, the children were asked to repeat thelabels from the story and to give examples ofthe behaviors or feelings labeled (e.g., "WhenHenrietta sees Collette's picture, she feels . . .what?").

The second part of each book was de-signed to promote generalization of the con-cepts to situations involving children. A storyabiout children was constructed to parallel thestory from "Misterogers' Neighborhood." In theprograms, the major characters were female,but the characters in the generalization sectionwere both male and female in order to increasethe appeal for boys. Again, behaviors were la-beled and rehearsal questions were presentedat the end.

Role playing.—For the role-playing con-dition, hand puppets were constructed to repre-sent the principal characters from the "Mis-terogers' Neighborhood" programs. The adulttrainer and children used puppets in a structuredrehearsal of key events and dialogue from theprogram they had just seen. The second part ofeach session involved training for generaHzationto situations with children. Puppets represent-ing children were used, and action and dia-logue parallel to those in the television programwere rehearsed. In the initial sessions, thetrainer modeled the role play before the chil-dren participated; in later sessions, the chil-dren and trainer interacted with puppets fromthe outset. During pretesting we found thatchildren, especially boys, were reluctant to usepuppets of the opposite sex; therefore, boysused male puppets and girls used female pup-pets.

Irrelevant activity.—^In the irrelevant-ac-tivity condition, the diildren rK»ived severalcommercially produced gam^ and books. Foreach day, there was one game and one book

which the adult r ^ d to the children. The con-tent of the books was unrelated to the themesof the "Misterogere' Neighborhood" programs,and the games were designed primarily for in-dividual activity rather than group cooperationor competition.

ProceduresThe combination of television viewing

with the three types of training resulted in thefollowing five conditions: (1) prosocial tele-vision-verbal-labeling and role-playing training,(2) prosocial television-role-playing trainingonly, (3) prosocial television—verbal-labelingtraining only, (4) prosocial television—irrelevantactivity, and (5) neutral television-irrelevantactivity. The children were randomly assignedto one of the five experimental conditions withthe restriction that the conditions were bal-anced for sex, teacher ratings of helping andverbal fluency, and initial knowledge about"Misterogers' Neighborhood."

After assignment to experimental condi-tions, subjects within each condition wereplaced in groups of three or four children. The,groups contained both males and females in asbalanced proportions as possible. These groupssaw the television programs together and re-ceived training immediately following each pro-gram. The programs were shown to a givengroup on Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, andTuesday. (There was no school on Friday.) Ifa child was absent on one of these days, he orshe was reassigned to another group in thesame experimental condition that began afterthe original group was finished. When this oc-curred, the subject was usually included in arepeat of the last session in which he or she hadparticipated before absence, plus the sessionsthat remained. The training sessions for thecombined condition lasted about 25 minutes;the other conditions lasted 15 minutes. Twofemale adults served as trainers.

Dependent MeasuresContent test.—^The content test had 39

items consisting of two alternatives. The 39items were grouped in three sections: (1)specific content of the "Misterogers' Neighbor-hood" programs (program specmc, e.g., "Hen-rietta knocked down Collette's picture. DidHandiman Negri: [A] Tell Henrietta to pick itup? [B] Help get it back?"), (2) generalizationto situations involving the characters from the"Misterogers' Neighborhood" programs thatwere similar to those occurring in tiie program(program general, e.g., "X, the owl, toses Lady

Elaine Fairchild's ball. Would HandimanNegri: [A] Help X find the baU? [B] TeH X tofind the ball?"), and (3) generalization to situ-ations similar to those in the program involvingchildren (general, e.g., "Tom loses Sam's ballWould Mr. Rogers: [A] Tell Tom to find it?[B] Help Tom find the ball?"). The two alter-natives for each item were illustrated on onepage of a loose-leaf notebook. For each item,the experimenter read a stem, then read a briefdescription of the two alternatives. The childwas asked to point to the correct alternative.The program-specific items were presented first,then the program-general items, then the gen-eral items. Within each section, the parallelitems were arranged in different random orders.

The names and characters used in theitems were divided equally between males andfemales. The "Mr. Rogers says" format was usedfor the general items to make them parallel instructure to earlier items.

The 39 items of the content test were sub-mitted to an item analysis that provided corre-lations of each item with the total score andthe subscore of the section in which it be-longed. On the whole, the items correlated wellwith total score. Three parallel items, one ineach section, were eliminated because of zero-order or negative correlations. Of the remaining36 items, 10 had correlations with total scoreabove .71, 15 had correlations between .51 and.70, eight were correlated between .31 and .50,and three were below .30. The latter three wereretained because parallel items showed highercorrelations, and the total scores of the subpartswould be unbalanced if one item were removedwithout deleting the parallel items.

The reliability of the total score (Kuder-Richardson 20) was .87, and the reliabilities ofthe subscores were .69 for program specific, .72for program general, and .67 for general.

The content test was administered to allchildren on the last day of television viewingand training. Five female experimenters ad-ministered the tests. All were blind to the con-ditions in which the children had participated.The test took approximately 20 minutes.

Puppet measure.—^The puppetconsisted of two sections—a program-relatedsojtion and a generalization section. The pur-pose of the measure was twofold: (1) totap the child's spontan«)us piXKiuction of ver-bal and nonverbal contait from tJhe prosocial

Friedndi and Stein 31

programs, and (2) to measure helping behaviorin a fantasy context.

In the program-rekted section, the ex-perimenter manipulated a Henrietta puppet onthe stage of a puppet theater. Initially, Hen-rietta discussed her jealousy of Collette. Sheknocked down a picture of Collette and astring of beads belonging to Collette, thenmade a series of four remarks with pauses of 10seconds between them. Helping was scored ifthe child picked up the picture and the beadsand restrung the beads. Scores were weightedmore heavily the earlier in the sequence thehelping acts occurred. Replacing die picturehad appeared in a television program and intraining, but the episode with the beads hadnot been seen or rehearsed previously. Theremainder of the program-related section con-sisted of verbal probes by the Henrietta puppetdesigned to tap the themes of the prosocialprograms. Some of the probes were directlyfrom the programs (e.g., "Do you think thatthey would send me away?"); others requiredreformulation or more general application ofcontent (e.g., "How do friends show they likeyour) .

In the generalization section, the experi-menter and child each used a puppet of thechild's sex. The experimenter presented a briefstory that was parallel to the last two televisionprograms. Again, the probes consisted of s ^ -cific questions parallel to those in the programand training (e.g., "My mad wishes made thecake fall, didn't they?") and more graieralquestions that had not been seen or rehearsed(e.g., "Why did you come to my house?").

The puppet measure was administered byone of two female adults. A second femaleadult recorded all speech and nonverbal be-havior. The speech was also tape recorded. Thesession took approximately 15 minutes.

Scoring categories for verbal and nonver-bal behavior were constructed initially on thebasis of theoretical criteria and were modifiedand refined by a detailed examination of thedata. The process of refining and scoring wascarried out with the information about exj«ri-mental conditions removed from the protocols.Verbal responses were classified as Rogers pror-social (themes fi^m the programs), generalprosocial (positive or socially responsive re-marks that were not direct^ related to theprogram content), neutral, or hc^le . Non-verbal behavior that involved helping other

32 CMd

than picking up the picture and beads, or wasimitative of the television program contatit, wasscored prosocial Other nonverbal behavior wasclassified as neutral, distracted, or hostile. Theplacement of particular types of responses inthese categories was discussed by both authorsbefore the final scoring of individual protocols.

Behavioral helping measure.—^The be-havioral helping measure was constructedthrough extensive pretesting after determiningthat previously us«i procedures were inappro-priate for this study. A female experimenterseated the child at a table on which twoportable easels rested. On one easel there wasa collage that was tom, with five of the piecesfalling off. The experimenter told the child thatanother child had made the collage but hadtom it and knocked the pieces down acci-dentally. The other child had been especiallysad and angry because the collage was for his(her) mother's birthday.

Following the presentation of this sadstory, the experimenter left the child seated for1 minute saying she would gather materials forhim to make a collage. After the child finishedhis own collage, there were three probes, timedapproximately 1 minute apart, designed to beincreasingly explicit in facilitating helping be-havior (e.g., "Is there anything you can thinkof that would make the other boy [girl] feelbetter?"). Finally, an opportunity to share waspresented by giving the subject five shiny goldstars for his callage and saying, "You can takeas many as you want for yourself and give asmany as you Mke to the otiier boy [girl]."

The number of pieces repaired (fre-quency), time spent helping (duration), andlatency before the first helping act were theprincipal scores derived. For frequency andduration, weighted scores were also calculatedby weighting responses that occurred beforethe probes more heavily than those that oc-curred following the probes.

The behavioral helping measure was ad-ministered by one of three females who wereblind to the experimental condition assignmentsof the children. A second female recorded thechild's behavior. The puppet measure and be-havioral helping measure were administer^ incounterbalance ordar. For most duldren, bothmeasures were given within 2 days followingdie kst television and training session (nor-malfy Wednewiay a i ^ Thursday). Due toscheduling problems or abse]K;es, some chil-

dren received (me or both measures at thebeginning of the week following the last tele-vision session. The maximum time intervalbetween tefevision and testing was 1 w^k.

Results

The basic analysis for measures wasanalysis of variemce of sex X conditions usingthe procedures desoibed by Winer (1971, pp.468-473) for a factorial experiment with asingle control group. First, all five conditionswere compared for condition differaic^. Then,the neutral condition was compared with all theprosocial television conditions combined. Thefour prosocial conditions were analyzed in afactorial design including verbal-labeling train-ing and role-playing training.

Content TestThe content test scores were submitted to

an analysis of variance of sex X conditions Xsubscore. There was a significant differenceamong conditions, F(4,62) = 6.71, p < .01.The interaction of sex X conditions was of \X)T-derline significance, F(4,62) = 2.37, p < .10.The means for males and females in the fiveconditions appear in table 1.

Children in the prosocial conditions scoredsignificantly higher than those in the neutralconditions, F(l,62) = 8.21, p < .01. It is alsonoteworthy that there was little difference be-tween the three subsections of the content test.There was some tendency for the ^x>ups whohad seen the prosocial program to performbetter on the program-specific items, F(2,98)= 2.81, p < .10, but this difference was mini-mal. TTiey showed significantly higher scoresthan the children in the neutral condition onprogram-general and general items as well

TABLE 1

MEAN CONTENT TEST SCORES FOR MALES ANDFEMALES IN FIVE CONDITIONS

VERBAL-LABELINGROLE- TREATMENT

SEX

Mate

Femate .

Botb

TREATMENT

.. NoRPRP

.. NoRPRPNoRPRP

NoVL

29.0128.38

25.4428.6827.2 lab28.5*

VL

25.5630.72

33.9929.49

29.79»30.06*

CONDITION

• • •21.75

18.99

20.46*

NoxE.—^M«ms thitt ladude tlie same wmorsa^t arem«smx. RP = rate plsyi^; VL =: vnbal bA

When individual conditions were aim-p a r ^ with the neutral group, all groups thatreceived verbal-labeling or role-playing traininghad significantly higher scores than the neutralgroup. The effects of the two types of trainingvaried, however, for boys and girls. There wasa significant interaction of sex X verbal labelingX role playing, F(l,49) = 4.99, p < .05, anda borderline interaction of sex X verbal label-ing, F(l,49) = 2.38, p < .10. For boys, therewas Kttle difference between the group that sawthe prosocial program with irrelevant activityand those who were trained. The means in-dicate that the lowest scores were in the verbal-labeling condition and the highest scores in thecombined verbal-labeKng and role-playing con-dition. However, girls who had been exposedto verbal labeling alone performed better thanthose with irrelevant activity. The difference isof borderline significance, F(62) = 1.64, p <.10, partly because of the small numbers in thesubgroups. The means indicate that the girlswho had irrelevant activity had lower scoresthan those in the training condition, but thedifferences are not significant for role playing orthe combined training.

On the content test, then, exposure to theprosocial programs led to better performancethan exposure to neutral programs. Childrenwho saw the programs apparently learned theircontent. Perhaps of more importance, they gen-eralized the ideas in the programs to new situa-tions closely related to everyday life. Verbal-labeling training produced slightly greaterlearning for girls than exposure to the programswithout such training, but neither type of train-ing enhanced learning for boys.

Friedrich and Stein 33

Puppet MeasureRogers verbalizatkm.—^The total Rogers

verbalization score represents the sum of singte-word responses and longer utterances that re-flected pix)gram content. The results for theprogram-related and the genra*al sections of thepuppet measure were quite similar, so only iheanatyses of totals across both sections are pre-sented.

The children who saw the prosodal tele-vision programs had higher Rogere vCTbaliza-tion scores than those in the neutral condition,F(l,61) = 7.40, p < .05. Within the prosocialtelevision conditions, the effects of training dif-fered for boys and girls—sex X verbal labeling,F(l,48) = 4.53, p < .05. The means appearin table 2.

Cirls who received verbal-labeling training—^whether or not it was combined with rofeplaying—^had higher Rogers verbalizationscores than those who did not receive verbal-labeling training. While boys' scores werehighest in the combined training condition,neither type of training produced significantimprovement over the scores of boys who sawthe programs with no additional training.

In order to control for overall amount ofverbalization, the Rogers verbalization scoreswere divided by total verbalization for eachchild. The resulting proportions fell in a pat-tem similar to that obtained with the rawscores (see table 2). Children who saw theprosocial programs had higher proportions ofRogers verbalization than those in the neutralcondition, F(l,63) = 17.37, p < .001. Therewas also a significant main effect of verbal-

SEX

Mak

Female . . .

Both

TABLE 2

MEAN VERBALIZATION SCORES ON

TOTAL ROGERS VERBALIZATION

Role-playing

Treatment

.. NoRPRP

.. NoRPRP

.. NoRPRP

itam that JBdnde 1

Verbal-labeling

Treatment

No VL VL

4.25 8.141.13 15.439.71 17.146.33 18.38

12.13*** 12.64''*'9.07*c 17.OC

die Sffine swoctwcxwit aie lu

Condition

4.12

6.71• • •

5J3*n significantly

PUPPET MEASURE

PROPORTIONRELATED

Role-playing

or TOTAL VERBALIZATIONTO ROGERS CONTENT

Verbal-labeling

TreatmentTreatment NoVL VL

NoRPRPNoRPRPNoRPRP

dieramt. RP - nde d

.30 .27

.30 .46

.33 .43

.27 .43J l J5.29 .44Inrtng; VLsrvnbal

NeutralCondition

• • •.15• • •

20

• a •

.18

lidbdiag.

34 CMd Development

labeling training, F(l,50) = 6.41, p < .05,but no significant interaction of sex with eithertype of training.

However, it is clear from an inspection ofthe means that verbal labeling by itself did notproduce elevated scores for the boys' group.Only the combined role-playing and verbal-labeling training group showed a higher pro-portion of Rogers verbalization. For girls, ver-bal-labeling alone, or in combination with role-playing training, was effective.

It is evident from the proportion scoresthat the effects of conditions on the raw scoreswere not due simply to an increase in overallamount of verbalization following training.

There were no significant effects of condi-tions on verbalization classified as generallyprosocial, neutral, or hostile.

In summary, the verbalization scores onthe puppet measure are consistent with thecontent test in indicating that children exposedto the prosocial television programs learned thespecific content of those programs and wereable to generalize that learning to new situa-tions. The leaming was demonstrated in both amultiple-choice format and in production ofspontaneous verbalization.

Children who received both types of train-ing generally had the highest scores of anygroup. For girls, the verbal-labeling training byitself was also very effective. Boys showed ele-vated scores only in the combined trainingcondition. The role-playing condition alone wasgenerally not effective.

Prosocial nonverbal behavior.—In the pro-gram-related section of the puppet measure,helping was scored when the child picked upthe picture and the beads and restrung thebeads. There was a borderline effect of sex Xcondition, F(4,63) = 2.39, p < .10, on help-ing. The comparison of the four training condi-tions indicated a significant sex X verbal label-ing interaction, F(l,50) = 5.95, p < .05. Themeans appear in table 3.

For males, the neutral condition was lowerthan the prosocial television conditions, al-though the difference was significant only forthe group that recdved role-playing trainingby itself. Males were more helpful when theywere not exposed to v^bal labeling than whenthey were ecposed. Females were more helpfulwith verbal-labeling training than without, out

TABLE 3

MEAN SCORES FOR PKOGRAM-RELAT^} HELPING

SEX

Male . . .

Female .

ROLE-PLAYING

TREATMENT

NoRPRP

.. NoRPRP

VERBAL-LABELINGTREATMENT

NoVL11.50*h15.251

5.866.00

VL

9.13a«'9.86a*

9.0013.00

NEUTRALCONDITION

7.88»>

10.29

NOTE.—Means that include the same superscript are notsignificantly different. RP = role playing; VL = verbal labeling.

the combined training condition was highestand was, in fact, the only condition in whidihelping exceeded the neutral group. Thestrongest effect of training, then, was roleplaying for boys.

The second prosocial nonverbal behaviorcategory was imitation and generalized helping.This behavior differed significantly by condi-tion, F(4,63) = 2.66, p < .05, and there wereno interactions with sex. The means appear intable 4.

The control condition was the lowest, butthe difference between control and prosocialgroups combined was of borderline significance,F(l,63) = 3.80, p < .10. The combined meanfor both groups who received role-playing train-ing, however, was significantly higher than theneutral group. The effects of role-playing train-ing were of borderline significance, F(l,50) =3.41, p < .10. The combined training conditionwas considerably higher than the other threeprosocial groups. It appeare that role playingenhanced imitative and helping behavior mod-erately, especially when it was combined withverbal labeling.

In summary, exposure to the prosocialprograms resulted in some increase in imitativeand helping behavior in the puppet situation.

TABLE 4

MEAN SCORES FOR PROSOCIAL NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR

VERBAL-LABELINGTREATMENT

NEUTRALVL + CoN-ROLE-PLAYING

TREATMENT N O VL VL N o VL DITION

NoRP 1.07 1.14 1.11*»RP 1.57 2.60 2.10*RP-fnoRP .. 1.31 1.90

Noix.—^Meaas that indode the saitw supeiscript are notsignificanlly diffnent. RP = role playing; VL = verbal labeling.

Where training effects occurred, role playing byitself was effective for boys. The c«mbinationof role playing and verbal labeling resulted insome increase in helping for boys and girls.

Other nonverbal behavior.—^There weresignificant sex differences independent of condi-tions on a combined index of distraction (irrele-vant verbalization and distracted behavior Ukefidgeting and leaving the chair; F(l,63) =4.27, p < .05). In all instances males werehigher than females. Nevertheless, as therewere no sex differences on the prosocial cate-gories, the greater distraction shown by malesdid not appear to impair their performance.

Behavioral Helping MeasureThe three main indices of helping were

frequency, duration, and latency. As these threedependent variables were highly correlated,they were analyzed in a multivariate analysisof sex X condition. The results for the weightedscores are reported; the unweighted scores pro-duced similar results. The means for the threevariables appear in table 5. On the multivariateanal)^is, there was a significant effect of condi-tions, F( 12,159) = 2.66, p < .01.

Children of both sexes showed the highestlevel of helping in the role-playing conditionwithout previous verbal labeling. Comparisonsof each prosocial television group with theneutral group indicated that the role-playingcondition without verbal labeling was signif-icantly different from the neutral condition.The other three prosocial television groupswere not significantly different from the neutralgroup. Although the interaction of sex X con-dition was not significant on the multivariateanalysis, there was a borderline main effect ofsex—girls tended to be more helpful than boys,F(3,60) = 2.54, p < .10.

Friedrich and Stein 35

For the four prosocial television condi-tions, there were main effecte of verbal labeling,F(3,48) = 3.49, p < .05, and role playing,F(3,48) == 4.96, p < .01, as well as interac-tions of sex X verbal labeling, F(3,48) - 3.29,p < .05, and verbal labeling X role playing,F(3,48) = 2.95, p < .05. Overall, childrenwho received verbal-labeling training wereslightly less helpful than those who did not re-ceive verbal-lalMsling training. Inspection of themeans for the two sexes separately indicatesthat this result is due to the boys. Girls weresomewhat more helpful with verbal-labelingtraining than without. This was espedally truefor those who received role-playing training.That is, both boys and girls were helpful in dierole-playing condition without verbsu labeling,but girk tended to be even more helpful in thecombined condition.

When the individual components of help-ing are viewed, the effect of role-playing train-ing for boys is clear. Boys showaJ higher fre-quency of helping, spent more time helping,and did so with greatly reduced latency. Girlsin this group differed from other groups only inreduced latency. However, while the effects oftraining are clearer for boys, this may be due inpart to the generally higher helpfulness of girlsin the neutral condition.

In summary, on the behavioral helpingmeasure, exposure to the prosodal program,plus role-playing training, was associated withhelping behavior in a situation that was verydifferent and far removed from the televisionand training. Verbal-labeling training did notenhance helping for boys, but, when added tothe role-playing condition, it led to greaterhelping behavior for girk. There were no ef-

TABLE 5

MEAN WEIGHTED HELPING SCORES ON BEHAVIORAL HELPING MEASURE

MALE FEMALE

NoVL

3.9413.50

38.0206.5

570.0175.6

VL

1.716.50

59.234.3

695.7720.0

Neutral

6.63

42.3

565 J8

NoVL

5.437.08

106.175.5

526.4296.7

VL

8.8611.75

156.4163.4

397.1379.1

Neutral

10.67

205.0

445.0

Frequency:No RPRP

Duration:No RPRP

Latency:No RPRP

NOTE.—VL = viarbal labeling.

36 Child Develi^ment

fects of (xjnditions on verbal suggestions forhelping or on sharing.

Effects of Pretest Levels of Helping, VerbalFluency, and Knowledge about the ProsocialProgram

Some subsidiary analyses were performedto determine whether the impact of the televi-sion conditions varied as a function of the pre-test variables. Boys and girk were divided attheir respective medians on the basis of teacherratings of helpfulness, ratings of verbal fluency,and, finally, scores on the test of familiaritywith "Misterogers' Neighborhood." Each ofthese variables was included with conditions inan analysis of variance of the dependent vari-ables to which it might logically be related.

There were no consistent or meaningfulinteractions of teacher-rated helpfulness withconditions for the helping measures in thestudy. Similarly, teacher-rated verbal fluencydid not interact with conditions on the verbalmeasures. Finally, initial knowledge about theprograms had neither main effects nor con-sistent interactions with television condition onthe leaming measures. Thus, the effects of thetelevision and training did not differ for chil-dren of different levels of verbal fluency, class-room helpfulness, or initial familiarity withMr. Rogers.

Intercorrelations of MeasuresThe content test and verbalization re-

sponses on the puppet measure were consideredindices of leaming of the program content,while helping on the puppet measure and thebehavioral helping measure were consideredindices of performance or modeling behavior.Correlations among the most general measuresin each of these categories provide some infor-mation about the consistency both within andbetween measures of leaming and performance.

The content test score was positively re-lated to total Rogers verbalization on the pup-pet measure, r = .42, p < .01. All measures ofhelping on the puppet measure and the be-havioral measure were positively related. Nineof the 10 correlations were significant at the.01 level or higher. The correlations rangedfrom .37 to .80. Within the indices deigned tomeasure leaming and performance, then, therewere consistent positive relationships betw^nthe indict d e s i ^ ^ to measure leaming andanMmg those deigned to measure performance.Thus it appeal^ that th^e diverse techniquesdid in fact measure the same dimensions.

It might also be expected that learningand performance would be c»rrekted. Rogarsverbalization on the puppet measure was posi-tively related at the .01 level and higher tohelping behavior on both the puppet measureand the behavioral helping measure. The cor-relations ranged from .27 to .56. Content testscores were xmrelated to helping behavior.

Discussion

The first purpose of the study was to in-vestigate the effects of prosocial television onchildiren's leaming and behavior. The resultsprovide clear evidence that children learned theprosocial content of the television programs andgeneralized that leaming to a number of real-life situations. The results also provide somesupport for the prediction that the prosocialprograms would lead to increased helping be-havior, both in situations similar to the pro-gram and in situations very different from theprogram. These conclusions apply equally toboys and girk.

Another principal area of interest was thedevelopment of training procedures to enhanceleaming of the prosociau content of the pro-grams and increase the child's ability to include9iis content in his behavioral repertoire. Twodifferent types of training were used—^verballabeling and role playing. Both boys and girkresponded to training with increased prosocialverbalization and helping behavior on a fantasymeasure and on a helping task far removedfrom the television stimuli. Howevra:, the effectsof the two types of training were somewhatdifferent.

The verbal-labeling training, which in-volved listening to a story and rehearsing thelabels, had the greatest impact on verbal mea-sures of leaming and generalizing program con-tent, particularly for girk. Although this train-ing by itself did not affect verbal leaming forboys, it did lead to high levek of leaming whencombined with role playing.

Role-playing training, which involved re-hearsing selected! dialogue and actions withpuppets, increased helping behavior, particu-larly for boys. Girk also showed some increasein helping behavior in response to rol6 playingby itself, but they tended to be even morehelpful when they received both kinds oftraining.

In die framewofk of observational leaming

theory, these results suggest that verbal label-ing is more important for learning or acquisi-tion of observed content, while role playing ismore important for performance of learned be-havior.

The greater impact of verbal-labelingtraining on girk may be partly due to theprocedures which required the child to sitfairly quietly listening to the story and re-sponding verbally. Girk of this age may findsuch activity more appealing than boys do, andthey may deal with verbal material more easily.

For boys, the possibility for active partid-pation in the role-playing training may havebeen more engrossing and salient than the ver-bal-labeling storybooks. The fact that boys ofthis age are generally more restless and physi-cally active than girk may lead to greater in-ter^t in this type of training. It is ako likelythat boys have fewer opportunities than girk topractice prosocial behavior in fantasy in theireveryday play. The culturally sanctioned dollplay for girls stimulates imitation of nurturantand cooperative behavior, but such doll play isnot encouraged for boys. Instead, those dolkand fantasy materials that are provided forthem are likely to stimulate aggressive ratherthan prosocial play.

The additive, as well as the differential,effects of the two types of training are impor-tant. On most measures for both sexes, the chil-dren in the combined training condition hadthe highest scores. Thus, both kinds of trainingappear to be useful. It is possible that a moreactive form of verbal labeling, such as present-ing the labels through puppets, might be evenmore effective than the books used, particularlyfor boys.

As the content of both types of trainingdepended on the prosodal television programs,it is not possible to assess the effects of eitherwithout the television programs. However, thefact that viewing the programs without train-ing led to significant leaming of their contentsuggests that such viewing was ako an impor-tant component of the effects in the trainingconditions. In addition, the effects of role-play-ing training following television in this studyare considerably more generalized and moreconsistent across both sexes than that found byStaub (1971b) for role playing alone.

Generalization of both leaming and be-havior is particularly striking in Aese findings.

Friedrich and Stdn 37

Although gai^raatization was built into bothtypes of training, the measures of genaraUzationwere not identical with the situations used inthe training. The measures of leaming—^thecontent test and spontaneous speech on thepuppet measure—^required reformulation andgeneralization of verbal material rehearsed. Thebehavioral helping measure was quite differentfrom any situation or action presented in thetelevision or training.

The clear effects of television and trainingin this relatively small-scale study suggest thatthis type of prosocial television can have astrong impact on children who watch it innaturalistic contexts where viewing can occurover a much longer period of time than 1 week.These results appear to be readily applicable tonaturalistic settings because the children gen-eralized both leaming and behavior to situa-tions quite different from those to which theywere exposed in the television and training, andbecause this generalization occurred in mea-sures administered 2 or 3 days after the tele-vision viewing.

References

Bandura, A. Social-leaming theory of identificatoryprocesses. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbookof socialization theory and research. Chicago:Rand McNally, 1969.

Coates, B., & Hartup, W. W. Age and verbaliza-tion in observational leaming. DevelopmentalPsychology, 1969, 1, 556-562.

Flavell, J. H.; Beach, D. R.; & Chinsky, J. M.Spontaneous verbal rehearsal in a memorytask as a function of age. Child Development,1966, 37, 283-299.

Friedrich, L. K., & Stein, A. H. Aggressive andprosocial television programs and the naturalbehavior of preschool children. Monographsof the Society for Research in Child Develop-ment, 1973, 38(4, Serial No. 151).^

HofiFman, M. L. Moral development. In P. H. Mus-sen (Ed.), Carmichael's manual of child psy-chology. Vol. 2. (3d ed.) New York: Wiley,1970.

Staub, E. A child in distress: the influence of nur-turance and modeling on children's attempts tohelp. Developmental Psychology, 1971, 5,124-132. (a)

Staub, E. The use of role playing and induction inchildren's leaming of helping and sharingbehavior. Child Demhpment, 1971, 42, W05-816. (b)

38 Child Develi^tment

Stein, A. H., & Friedrich, L. K. Television con- 2. Television and social leamhig. WasMngtaa,tent and young children's behavior. IQ J. P. D.C.: Government Printing Officse, 1972.Murray, E. A. Rubinstein, & G. A. Ccnnstoc^ Winer, B. J. Statistic^ principles in experiment(Eds.), Television and social behavior. Vol. deH^. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.