
Children's books with humans have greater moral impact than animals, study finds - gpresot
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/01/only-childrens-books-with-humans-have-moral-impact-study-finds
======
hownottowrite
In animal intelligence studies, researchers have observed that species are
more keen to learn from members of their own kind. There's a great chapter in
Frans de Waal's "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?"[0] which
discusses the difference between wolves and dogs. Many people believe dogs are
smarter than wolves because they are more keen to listen/observe humans.
However when the tests are arranged so that wolves can learn from other wolves
it becomes clear that wolves are far more intelligent. It's a matter of wolves
not caring a bit about humans. de Waal goes on to discuss similar testing
biases inherent in comparing chimpanzees and human children, with human
children getting a one-up on chimps because the testing administrators are
members of their own species.

If you're interested in diving into the motivation behind storytelling and how
it effects us, I'd recommend reading The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan
Gottschall[1]. It's one of the most approachable book on the subject.

[0] Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are by Frans de Waal:
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/06/are-we-
smart-e...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/06/are-we-smart-enough-
to-know-how-smart-animals-are-frans-de-waal-review)

[1] The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-
storytell...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-storytelling-
animal-by-jonathan-gottschall.html)

~~~
gallerdude
We need neutral octopuses to be the judge.

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eat_veggies
But what will judge the octopi?

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JetSpiegel
Dolphins.

~~~
kornakiewicz
I think that dolphins might be biased.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/science/dolphins-toss-
sha...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/science/dolphins-toss-shake-eat-
octopus.html?mcubz=1)

~~~
OtterCoder
This is the most reddit-like thread I've seen on HN.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Here are some advantages animal characters can have:

They provide enough psychological distance to allow dangerous situations or
bad things to happen.

They allow stereotypes more easily without creating human prejudice.

So as the article supports, human characters may provide more immediate
context, but animal characters probably allow more complex/difficult
situations to be explored.

~~~
stevenwoo
One of my friends kids had James and the Giant Peach lying around and it's
really thin and I had never read it so I read it during a car drive. SPOILERS
- It's hard to get darker than having your parents die while you are a child,
or empathizing with a character and being happy when his evil aunts are
killed.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
One of the big advantages of children's literature is that it can portray
things too dark for adult literature.

------
appleflaxen
I may be missing it, but where is the discussion of blinding? If the person
reading the story is the one who gives directions about sharing, then how do
we know whether or not the effect was due to the experimenter?

The original journal publication is at least linked in the article [1]

but this is a very fundamental experimental design concept. I don't understand
how this experiment can be run this way, let alone reviewed by peers and
published.

1\.
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12590/epdf?s...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12590/epdf?shared_access_token=pe47nFMA_K4-5DuHH3I2d4ta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC6748z_qEzyWjpKevlijCSNZqgMtKQWoecQi1JomdGjs2zXZ4BBmtV3ULQacZfVUsyCUHU74tThtq9R3osjgNiWG-
ek7hYaAJINhD0wfJowkFQ%3D%3D)

------
maaaats
It's harder when using humans, though. How do you depict a slow person, two
enemies etc? With animals, the turtle and the hare you instantly know have a
difference in speed. The mouse removing something from the lions paw portraits
two natural enemies etc.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Not all children know a rabbit is faster than a turtle, nor that x and x are
an enemy of a lion. If we can teach this layer, why can't we do the other?

A simple thing like one kid being known to be fast, getting trophies, or the
slower one having some sort of handicap would do the same. The second is
easily strange kids at a new school, kids that look different or eat
differently (with the one being helped having been unsure of it), and so on.
After all, it isn't like the animals are natural enemies, but one happens to
eat the other.

In other words, simply have the story tell the lesson outright, with people,
rather than expecting them to learn from the animal metaphors.

~~~
throwaway_345
As a parent with a child on Autism spectrum, it makes me mad to no end to try
and shoehorn Animals everywhere. Like - Rabbit and Tiger going to school and
doing things. Tiger going to "boys room". How do you explain that tiger is a
boy?

I am not saying - to not have Animals in the stories. Turtle and the rabbit in
their role make sense. Thirsty crow story won't be same without a crow or some
other kind of flying Animal. So as Lion and the mouse.

But it doesn't stop there. We have Animals doing shopping, pigs buying ham (it
comes quite close to that sometimes). In my experience of working with my
child, he understands and retells stories that he can relate to. Contexts that
I can explain without calling for helpful dose of fantasy. He and I still try
and love books where use of Animals is out of place. Such as - Elephant &
Piggy stories. But I believe, he will get so much more out of those books if
they used Humans.

Then again, I may not be their target audience...

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I used to babysit (as a 25-30+ old adult) for a pre-teen (and later teenager)
with autism (it was really more supervision, just in case, as he did fairly
well most times). He had much of the same issues - calling a fried chicken leg
a "drumstick" was completely off limits as he wouldn't know what I was talking
about. I can imagine he had much of the same problem with such stories. This
is probably a facet that is often overlooked.

~~~
DanBC
There are a couple of interesting books about metaphor for people with autism.

 _It 's raining cats and dogs_ was written by someone with autism:
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Raining-Cats-Dogs-
Expressions/d...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Raining-Cats-Dogs-
Expressions/dp/1849052832/)

And here's another book: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asperger-Dictionary-
Everyday-Expres...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asperger-Dictionary-Everyday-
Expressions-ebook/dp/B003GALS70/)

------
jameslk
The article interviews a few author's reactions at the end of the article
which seem to indicate they either don't believe the scientific research,
don't get it or don't care:

> _Kes Gray, the author of the bestselling rhyming animal series Oi Frog and
> Friends, was unperturbed by the researchers’ findings. “Authors and
> illustrators have no need to panic here, as long as we keep all of the
> animal protagonists in all of their future stories unreservedly cuddly. Big
> hair, big eyes and pink twitchy noses should pretty much nail it,” he said._

Perhaps there might be a problem with these type of authors influencing large
portions of the young population.

~~~
rossdavidh
For decades, statistical experts have explained, again and again, to coaches
and players that there is no such thing as a player with the 'hot hand'. The
coaches and players have mostly ignored such advice, believing that their
lifetime of following the sport matters more than researchers dipping into the
field for a study or two.

And eventually, of course, it turned out that the statisticians are probably
wrong, and the "hot hand" is real
([https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-
is-r...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-real/)).
Perhaps the child authors think they know more about how children and stories
interact than the researchers, because they've got a lot more experience with
the topic.

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Razengan
I think that using animals to impart moral lessons tends to imbue a child with
the subconscious connotation that morality/ethics belong in "fairy tales", and
not in the actual world of the "grownups" of their own kind.

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macintux
I remember covering Jonathan Livingston Seagull in grade school. Absolutely
loved the story and the message, but what I remember most clearly was the girl
who stated: who cares, it's just a story about a bird.

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pvaldes
"Moral impact" is one of those features conveniently impossible to measure,
and at the same time very marketable to parents. Each little girl and boy
reacts in an unique and personal way to the same stimulus and modify gradually
their points of view after years of observation and experience. You can't just
buy a magic book covering all possible cases to turn your little evil in an
angel in a couple of hours.

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dyarosla
The findings are interesting but perhaps the reason authors choose to include
anomorphic characters is because those sell better? 'Oh my son/daughter loves
[animal], I'll get this book rather than this one about human kids'

~~~
dyarosla
Also, interested to see what happens when characters are non-animals and non-
human.. I would guess the results might be similar.

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user982
I have an inchoate theory that early moral indoctrination through children's
books is basically a way of hardwiring the just-world fallacy into the broader
populace such that a minority of individuals who resist this worldview grow up
primed to embrace sociopathic realpolitik and advance to positions of power
over the majority who accept it at face value.

~~~
vanderZwan
As tempting as it is to just write "k" in response to this, I'll try to be
constructive: so what do you suggest we do instead?

~~~
user982
I don't know; this is observational rather than prescriptive. "Don't be
institutionally hypocritical as a society" is inviting, but has problems
whichever of the views is chosen. The sociopaths seem necessary so long as
geopolitics is simply gang warfare on a global scale.

~~~
icebraining
What about teaching everyone non-sociopathic realpolitik instead?

~~~
wolfgke
> What about teaching everyone non-sociopathic realpolitik instead?

Teaching about an oxymoron?

~~~
icebraining
It's not an oxymoron, it's in fact the definition of realpolitik, as coined by
Ludwig von Rochau. It means having a principled position, while viewing the
world as it is, without silly idealisms like the aforementioned just-world
fallacy. The view of realpolitik as just a name for gaining power at any cost
came later, and it's more prevalent in the English world.

I can recommend John Bew's _Realpolitik: A History_ , it's quite interesting
if one enjoys the history of political thought.

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type-2
I remember the animals from my children's book just as well as the humans

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foxhedgehog
George Orwell disagrees.

~~~
crummy
That's a good point - I think when it comes to stories for adults, using a
narrative tool like replacing the humans with animals or setting it in a
fantasy or scifi setting can help people appreciate it more honestly. Kind of
like how Battlestar Galactica can openly discuss the morality of violence
against an occupying force, while if it was set in Iraq viewers would have
been much less open minded to examining the concept.

Perhaps its adults books which should replace humans with animals?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Where did BG do that? (Not disagreeing, just not remembering/catching the
particular reference).

~~~
aaron695
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_(Battlestar_Galacti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_\(Battlestar_Galactica\))

I disagree with OP RE BSG.

It was not about morality in general it was directly referencing our current
views on morality, specifically the Iraq war.

But do agree subbing in animals/zombies/aliens for humans allows movies to get
away with more.

