What type of stories
do children and adults prefer – fact or fantasy? Most people would answer that
children prefer fantasy stories and adults prefer factual stories. Is this
actually the case? The Association for Psychological Science posted current
research that answers this question (October 19, 2015).
Psychologists Jennifer
Barnes, Emily Bernstein, and Paul Bloom from the University of Oklahoma and
Yale University in America studied the story preferences of children and adults
(published in the Imagination Cognition
and Personality journal, March 2015).
Barnes studied
children aged 4-7 years of age and adults. The researchers conducted two experiments.
In the first experiment both groups were asked to choose which of two books
sounded like it would contain ‘the better story.’ They were not told the story
– they were only given a brief description of what the story was about.
Participants were
asked to choose between a story about a child ‘who found buried treasure’ or a
story about a child ‘who discovered a dinosaur bone.’ However, half of each
group was told that the treasure story was ‘true’ (fact) and the dinosaur
story was ‘make-believe’ (fantasy). The other half was told the reverse,
that the treasure story was fantasy and the dinosaur story was fact. This was
done to reduce bias for content preferences and to test stories that actually
happened versus stories that didn’t.
The results showed
that children aged 4-7 years significantly preferred fact over fiction, no
matter what the content of the story was. In other words, children preferred
the story that they were told was true. Adults chose fact and fantasy equally –
there was no distinct preference.
In the second
experiment, Barnes studied fantasy plots and characters versus realistic plots
and characters. Participants were asked to choose between two stories: one
about a boy ‘who lives on an invisible farm’ and the other about a boy ‘with
lots of brothers and sisters.’ The choices were to test magical stories versus
real stories.
The results showed
that children aged 4-7 years chose the stories equally – there was no distinct
preference. However, adults significantly preferred the fantasy (magical)
story.
The results seemed
counterintuitive – that in both experiments, children did not consistently
prefer fantasy, and adults did not consistently prefer fact. The researchers
did not study why, although they think it could be that young children are
still learning about the ‘real’ world and that they want to hear stories about
the real world. Adults, on the other hand, have the ‘luxury’ to choose fantasy
over the real world.
Researchers did not
test stories against dramas (play or pantomimes) or theatre, video, DVD, and
cinema stories. The test was about what the stories would ‘contain’ – there were
no visual images or actual stories. In addition, the age group was 4-7 years,
and there was no comparison with other age groups to test when the difference
changed or evolved – i.e. the preferential transition from childhood to
adulthood.
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