The Impact Of Watching Heroic Cartoons On Young Children’s Helping Behaviour

In the age of digital media,cartoons have become one of the main ways for young children to learn and be entertained,providing an important platform for them to recognise,understand and acquire pro-social behaviour.On the one hand,cartoons are fun and educational,and have a certain influence on the physical and mental development of young children,among which hero cartoons are one of the favourite genres of cartoons for young children,and the heroic characters in the films promote love and justice to a certain extent.On the other hand,there are relatively few experimental studies on the effects of heroic cartoons on young children’s helping behaviour in China.In view of this,it is necessary to explore the causal relationship between watching hero cartoons and young children’s helping behaviour in order to provide reference for early childhood education practice in this area.A 2(cartoon: hero,non-hero)× 2(gender: male,female)between-group experimental design was used to examine the effect of continuous viewing of hero cartoons on the helping behaviour of young children of different genders,and to try to explore whether willingness to help plays a mediating role in this,with a view to seeking strategies for the cultivation of young children’s helping behaviour in educational practice.in October 2022,the researcher sampled a random whole group of children in kindergartens in city L 144 young children(50% female)participated in the experiment.One group was the experimental group,in which 72 children were assigned to watch the hero cartoon;the other group was the control group,in which 72 children were assigned to watch the non-hero cartoon,equally divided between male and female.After all children had watched the hero cartoon or the non-hero cartoon for five consecutive days,the classical paradigm was used to measure children’s willingness to help(the strength of children’s willingness to actively donate stickers in the helping situation,on a scale of 0-2)and the dictator game was used to measure children’s helping behaviour(the number of stickers children actually donated in the dictator game situation,on a scale of 0-5).The main test then conducted a 2(type of animation)× 2(gender)analysis of covariance on the experimental data obtained,controlling for age as a covariate,to examine the main effects of hero cartoons and gender on the effects of young children’s willingness to help and helping behaviour and their interaction effects,and to analyse the mediating role of willingness to help between hero cartoons and young children’s helping behaviour.The following findings were obtained:(1)continuous viewing of heroic cartoons significantly increased children’s levels of willingness to help and helping behaviour compared to continuous viewing of non-heroic cartoons;(2)there was no significant difference between boys and girls’ levels of willingness to help and helping behaviour;(3)boys’ levels of willingness to help and helping behaviour were significantly higher than girls’ after viewing heroic cartoons,and there was no significant difference between boys’ willingness to help and helping behaviour after viewing non-heroic cartoons;(4)There is a partial mediating effect between the willingness to help and the helping behaviour of young children.Based on the above findings,this study has the following educational implications for the practice of helping behaviour in young children:First,hero cartoons can be used as an effective educational tool for the development of helping behaviour in young children.Firstly,teachers should take the initiative to learn about hero cartoons and use them as an educational resource;secondly,they should broaden the use of hero cartoons in various aspects of education and teaching;and thirdly,they should encourage children to express themselves and develop positive emotions.Secondly,to respect the cartoon preferences of boys and girls and to select hero cartoons that are suitable for young children.To address the differences in the impact of hero cartoons on boys and girls found in the results of this study,on the one hand,teachers and parents need to explore the unique advantages of hero cartoons and encourage boys to share and exchange their understanding and feelings more often to deepen their pro-social experiences.On the other hand,teachers and parents should look for ways to bridge the gender gap in hero cartoons,and to stimulate girls’ interest in hero cartoons through educationally supportive means to gain learning and development opportunities from them wherever possible.In terms of cartoon selection,educators and parents need to,firstly,listen to young children and focus on the educational value of hero cartoons;secondly,take full account of young children’s physical and mental developmental characteristics and choose hero cartoons that are suitable for them;again,parents should accompany young children to watch cartoons and interact with them to guide them to establish the right values.Thirdly,the willingness of children to help others should be enhanced through training.On the one hand,teachers should improve their own quality and take the initiative to guide and enrich children’s emotional experience of helping others;on the other hand,parents should pay attention to the role of role models and psychological cues,and teach children by example to promote the development of helping behaviour.