Making the moral of the story stick − a media psychologist explains the research behind ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Arthur’ and other children’s TV
This article originally appearded on The Conversation on February 23, 2024.
To adult viewers, educational media content for children, such as “Sesame Street” or “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” may seem rather simplistic. The pacing is slow, key themes are often repeated and the visual aspects tend to be plain.
However, many people might be surprised to learn about the sheer amount of research that goes into the design choices many contemporary programs use.
For more than a decade, I have studied just that: how to design media to support children’s learning, particularly in moral development. My research, along with the work of many others, shows that children can learn important developmental and social skills through media.
History of research on children’s media
Research on how to design children’s media to support learning is not new.
When “Sesame Street” debuted in November 1969, it began a decadeslong practice of testing its content before airing it to ensure children learned the intended messages of each episode and enjoyed watching it. Some episodes included messages notoriously difficult to teach to young children, including lessons about death, divorce and racism.
Researchers at the Sesame Workshop hold focus groups at local preschools where participating children watch or interact with Sesame content. They test the children on whether they are engaged with, pay attention to and learn the intended message of the content. If the episode passes the test, then it moves on to the next stage of production.
If children do not learn the intended message, or are not engaged and attentive, then the episode goes back for editing. In some cases, such as a 1992 program designed to teach children about divorce, the entire episode is scrapped. In this case, children misunderstood some key information about divorce. “Sesame Street” did not include divorce in its content until 2012.
Designing children’s media
With help from the pioneering research of “Sesame Street,” along with research from other children’s television shows both in the industry and in academia, the past few decades have seen many new insights on how best to design media to promote children’s learning. These strategies are still shaping children’s shows today.
For example, you may have noticed that some children’s television characters speak directly to the camera and pause for the child viewer at home to yell out an answer to their question. This design strategy, known as participatory cues, is famously used by the shows “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer.” Researchers found that participatory cues in TV are linked to increased vocabulary learning and content comprehension among young children. They also increase children’s engagement with the educational content of the show over time, particularly as they learn the intended lesson and can give the character the correct answer.
You may have also noticed that children’s media often features jokes that seem to be aimed more at adults. These are often commentary about popular culture that require context children might not be aware of or involve more complex language that children might not understand. This is because children are more likely to learn when a supportive adult or older sibling is watching the show alongside them and helping explain or connect it to the child’s life. Known as active mediation, research has shown that talking about the goals, emotions and behaviors of media characters can help children learn from them and even improve aspects of their own emotional and social development.
Programs have also incorporated concrete examples of desired behaviors, such as treating a neurodiverse character fairly, rather than discussing the behaviors more abstractly. This is because children younger than about age 7 struggle with abstract thinking and may have difficulty generalizing content they learned from media and applying it to their own lives.
Research on an episode of “Arthur” found that a concrete example of a main character experiencing life through the eyes of another character with Asperger’s syndrome improved the ability of child viewers to take another person’s perspective. It also increased the nuance of their moral judgments and moral reasoning. Just a single viewing of that one episode can positively influence several aspects of a child’s cognitive and moral development.
Teaching inclusion through media
One skill that has proven difficult to teach children through media is inclusivity. Multiple studies have shown that children are more likely to exclude others from their social group after viewing an episode explicitly designed to promote inclusion.
For example, an episode of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” involved Clifford and his family moving to a new town. The townspeople initially did not want to include Clifford because he was too big, but they eventually learned the importance of getting to know others before making judgments about them. However, watching this episode did not make children more likely to play with or view disabled or overweight children favorably.
Based on my own work, I argue that one reason inclusivity can be difficult to teach in children’s TV may be due to how narratives are structured. For example, many shows actually model antisocial behaviors during the first three-quarters of the episode before finally modeling prosocial behaviors at the end. This may inadvertently teach the wrong message, because children tend to focus on the behaviors modeled for the majority of the program.
My team and I conducted a recent study showing that including a 30-second clip prior to the episode that explains the inclusive message to children before they view the content can help increase prosocial behaviors and decrease stigmatization. Although this practice might not be common in children’s TV at the moment, adult viewers can also fill this role by explaining the intended message of inclusivity to children before watching the episode.
Parenting with media
Children’s media is more complex than many people think. Although there is certainly a lot of media out there that may not use study-informed design practices, many shows do use research to ensure children have the best chance to learn from what they watch.
It can be difficult to be a parent or a child in a media-saturated world, particularly in deciding when children should begin to watch media and which media they should watch. But there are relatively simple strategies parents and supportive adults can use to leverage media to support their child’s healthy development and future.
Parents and other adults can help children learn from media by watching alongside them and answering their questions. They can also read reviews of media to determine its quality and age appropriateness. Doing so can help children consume media in a healthy way.
We live in a media-saturated world, and restricting young children’s media use is difficult for most families. With just a little effort, parents can model healthy ways to use media for their children and select research-informed media that promotes healthy development and well-being among the next generation.
Associate Professor of Communication, University of California, Davis
Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of California, Davis
Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of California, Davis
Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of California, Davis
This article originally appearded on The Conversation on February 23, 2024.
Why are sitcom dads still so inept?
This article originally appeared on The Conversation June 16, 2020.
From Homer Simpson to Phil Dunphy, sitcom dads have long been known for being bumbling and inept.
But it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, sitcom dads tended to be serious, calm and wise, if a bit detached. In a shift that media scholars have documented, only in later decades did fathers start to become foolish and incompetent.
And yet the real-world roles and expectations of fathers have changed in recent years. Today’s dads are putting more time into caring for their children and see that role as more central to their identity.
Have today’s sitcoms kept up?
I study gender and the media, and I specialize in depictions of masculinity. In a study I did in 2020, my co-authors and I systematically look at the ways in which portrayals of sitcom fathers have and haven’t changed.
Why sitcom portrayals matter
Fictional entertainment can shape our views of ourselves and others. To appeal to broad audiences, sitcoms often rely on the shorthand assumptions that form the basis of stereotypes. Whether it’s the way they portray gay masculinity in “Will and Grace” or the working class in “Roseanne,” sitcoms often mine humor from certain norms and expectations associated with gender, sexual identity and class.
When sitcoms stereotype fathers, they seem to suggest that men are somehow inherently ill-suited for parenting. That sells actual fathers short and, in heterosexual, two-parent contexts, it reinforces the idea that mothers should take on the lion’s share of parenting responsibilities.
It was Tim Allen’s role as Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor of the 1990s series “Home Improvement” that inspired my initial interest in sitcom dads. Tim was goofy and childish, whereas Jill, his wife, was always ready – with a disapproving scowl, a snappy remark and seemingly endless stores of patience – to bring him back in line. The pattern matched an observation made by TV Guide television critic Matt Roush, who, in 2010, wrote, “It used to be that father knew best, and then we started to wonder if he knew anything at all.”
I published my first quantitative study on the depiction of sitcom fathers in 2001, focusing on jokes involving the father. I found that, compared with older sitcoms, dads in more recent sitcoms were the butt of the joke more frequently. Mothers, on the other hand, became less frequent targets of mockery over time. I viewed this as evidence of increasingly feminist portrayals of women that coincided with their growing presence in the workforce.
Studying the disparaged dad
In our new study, we wanted to focus on sitcom dads’ interactions with their children, given how fatherhood has changed in American culture.
We used what’s called “quantitative content analysis,” a common research method in communication studies. To conduct this sort of analysis, researchers develop definitions of key concepts to apply to a large set of media content. Researchers employ multiple people as coders who observe the content and individually track whether a particular concept appears.
For example, researchers might study the racial and ethnic diversity of recurring characters on Netflix original programs. Or they might try to see whether demonstrations are described as “protests” or “riots” in national news.
For our study, we identified 34 top-rated, family-centered sitcoms that aired from 1980 to 2017 and randomly selected two episodes from each. Next, we isolated 578 scenes in which the fathers were involved in “disparagement humor,” which meant the dads either made fun of another character or were made fun of themselves.
Then we studied how often sitcom dads were shown together with their kids within these scenes in three key parenting interactions: giving advice, setting rules or positively or negatively reinforcing their kids’ behavior. We wanted to see whether the interaction made the father look “humorously foolish” – showing poor judgment, being incompetent or acting childishly.
Interestingly, fathers were shown in fewer parenting situations in more recent sitcoms. And when fathers were parenting, it was depicted as humorously foolish in just over 50% of the relevant scenes in the 2000s and 2010s, compared with 18% in the 1980s and 31% in the 1990s sitcoms.
At least within scenes featuring disparagement humor, sitcom audiences, more often than not, are still being encouraged to laugh at dads’ parenting missteps and mistakes.
Fueling an inferiority complex?
The degree to which entertainment media reflect or distort reality is an enduring question in communication and media studies. In order to answer that question, it’s important to take a look at the data.
National polls by Pew Research Center show that from 1965 to 2016, the amount of time fathers reported spending on care for their children nearly tripled. These days, dads constitute 17% of all stay-at-home parents, up from 10% in 1989. Today, fathers are just as likely as mothers to say that being a parent is “extremely important to their identity.” They are also just as likely to describe parenting as rewarding.
Yet, there is evidence in the Pew data that these changes present challenges, as well. The majority of dads feel they do not spend enough time with their children, often citing work responsibilities as the primary reason. Only 39% of fathers feel they are doing “a very good job” raising their children.
Perhaps this sort of self-criticism is being reinforced by foolish and failing father portrayals in sitcom content.
Of course, not all sitcoms depict fathers as incompetent parents. The sample we examined stalled out in 2017, whereas TV Guide presented “7 Sitcom Dads Changing How we Think about Fatherhood Now” in 2019. In our study, the moments of problematic parenting often took place in a wider context of a generally quite loving depiction.
Still, while television portrayals will likely never match the range and complexity of fatherhood, sitcom writers can do better by dads by moving on from the increasingly outdated foolish father trope.
Professor of Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
Foster or Otherwise, Parenting is Parenting: Love, care, and try your best
Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care.
Marianne Guilfoyle, Chief Innovations Officer at LA-based Allies for Every Child and a key foster care advisor to the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, often remarks: “If I had a nickel for every person who said they had considered being foster parents…” And she is right. It’s not that people haven’t considered fostering, it’s that they’ve never seriously considered it. And far too often, their reason is that they don’t think they could do it. Indeed, multi-racial, same-sex couple Ching-chu Hu and Jim Van-Reeth, who have adopted four children through the foster care system, say they constantly hear comments such as “Oh, I could never do that” or “You’re stronger than me!” Their thoughts on this? “We believe most people on the planet naturally have the necessary tools to be foster parents -- to love and nurture a child.” Positive media portrayal of fostering can play a large role in empowering people to see that they can indeed foster. We need to see more of these stories.
Another honest response they get from people interested in adoption are fears that adopting from the system is too “dangerous”, and international adoption will get you “safer” children with “less issues.” To this, Hu and Van-Reeth remark; “Children are amazingly resilient, and the issues we all face as parents are strikingly similar, whether a child is from the foster care system, international adoption, or is a biological child. The primary difference is that we came into it expecting challenges, whereas those with biological children may be caught off guard by difficulties if they arise.” Rich Valenza, founder of Raise a Child and himself a father of two children he adopted through the foster care system, echoed this sentiment, reflecting on how the conversations with other parents at school drop-off were often quite therapeutic. He noticed, “Whether raising your birth children or children through foster care, the parenting problems you face are pretty similar! You have expectations of what raising a child will be like, but the reality quickly sinks in for both scenarios that it’s often not the way you planned. You’ll never be fully prepared. You likely won’t hear “thank you for giving me an amazing life” from your foster children as you tuck them into bed, but it’s a safe bet that you won’t hear that from your birth children either.” Content creators should strive to show the parenting commonalities in raising children, from the struggles to the joys, regardless of how their children entered their lives.
But this is not to dismiss the trauma that foster children experience in leaving their home, and whatever difficult life they may have endured previous to entering foster care (or within foster care). And this needs to be appropriately reflected in media, too. Valenza is a proud proponent of family therapy and removing all associated stigma, “Whether you have birth or foster children, all families can benefit from therapy-- it needs to be seen as a bonus to your life, an education into yourself.” In addition to recruiting foster parents, Raise a Child makes an effort to continually support parents throughout the foster/adoption process. They are currently partnered with LA-based Allies for Every Child on a pilot program that provides extra support and training to remind parents, for instance, that when problems arise, “this is not about me, this is about the needs of the child.” Portraying counseling as normative in fictional media could go a long way in reducing the stigma of seeking professional help, both for parents and children.
One of the biggest lessons that Hu and Van-Reeth encountered over the years was learning, accepting, and supporting the perspectives of the foster children’s previous lives, and not judging the biological parents (who often grew up in similar situations). They explain, “No matter how horrific we may find their previous life, it was still their home, their reality, their “comfortable” environment. It is the lives they were used to, and anything different, no matter how safe, how loving, how supportive, is still different, unusual, and unfamiliar to their world. And it takes a lot of time and nurturing for them to trust a safe and loving environment.”
Worrying that a foster child you hope to adopt might be reunified with their birth family is another fear that can lead people to pursue private or international adoption instead. Indeed, Hu and Van-Reeth went through this in the most heart-wrenching way; “Losing our 18 month old son-who we had had since day one- to his birth parents who we knew were falling back into drugs, was the hardest moment in our fostering journey. Especially the fact that as foster parents we felt we had no voice, no “seat” at the judicial table. Those scars left indelible memories.” Ultimately, their son did end up returning back to their home, and is now adopted by the Hu and Van-Reeth. Those interested in fostering and adoption and those creating media about foster care should understand that there are different paths to take, depending on the long-term option desired, and the amount of potential heartbreak you are willing to risk. Media content can help by portraying all types of fostering, including:
A foster parent that just fosters with no intention of adopting (roles which are very much needed since reunification with the birth family is the primary goal for children entering into the foster care system.)
A foster/adoptive parent who takes in foster children who might become available for adoption (and therefore would adopt the child if it was a good fit), but the child could instead be reunified with their birth family.
An adoptive-only parent who will only take a child into their home if they are already classified as “adoptive,” meaning the birth parents have terminated their parental rights.
Finally, another reason people are hesitant to become foster parents is because they’re afraid they won’t be good enough, or they will mess up as a parent. But ultimately, as Velenza correctly puts it, “Worrying about being good enough parent is exactly what will make someone a good foster parent. This shows that they are conscious of their role, and it shows they care. And ultimately, that is what it takes.”
For foster parents, there are countless instances along the way that remind you you’re doing a great job. For Valenza, as his children get older he finds he gets immeasurable pride from seeing them thrive, and even beginning to realize and appreciate the work he does for the foster care community. As Hu and Van-Reeth reflect; “It’s the small things: it’s seeing them come out of their shells, adjusting, being nurtured, opening up, and giving a hug. It’s seeing them bring their defenses down, grow, and become stronger and more comfortable with the world around them. It’s giving them first-time experiences, whether that’s flying on a plane, going to a park, or even, shockingly, giving them breakfast.”
Actionable Insights
Write and cast realistic, everyday people as foster parents who aren’t perfect people, but care and are doing their best.
- Media that gets it right: Instant Family - the couple is refreshingly honest in their uncertainty and process to fostering, making them extremely relatable.
Show the similar joys and struggles that parents face, regardless of whether their children are biological, adopted internationally/privately, or from the foster care system.
Normalize seeking counseling and therapy, show how it is beneficial and healthy for the entire family.
Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD
Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers
This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.
Cultivating Hope
We have all heard the phrase “have hope”, however, is it simply a feel-good emotion thrown around or is it wishful thinking or is there some truth to the statement?
Growing up in a conservative Middle Eastern country, in a somewhat traditional Sri Lankan home, I was always hopeful of realizing my goal of becoming a journalist – preferably a political reporter using my pen as my tool to change the world and make the invisible visible. When my peers were taking the conventional route of getting married young for stability or choosing financially viable careers, I never lost sight of my goal and with a great support system, I completed my undergrad education and landed a journalism gig straight out of school. I believe I achieved what I set out to do because I was always hopeful that I can create my own reality.
Youth and Hopelessness
I think of kids today and I worry because the news, so easily available at our fingertips, and pretty much every headline seems like an assault on the very notion of hope – school shootings, families torn apart at the border, trans rights under attack, climate change being refuted etc. And then the content children are exposed to – including superhero movies – have the hero resorting to violence or killing the bad guy to come into power. This constant influx can result in the youth feeling hopelessness that the world around them is beyond their control.
Yet, research has found that adolescents who are hopeful enjoy academic success, develop strong friendships, are more creative and better at problem solving, have lower levels of anxiety, are less likely to drop out of school and do not give up when faced with obstacles.
Can We Learn Hope?
Thankfully, the work of American Psychologist Charles ‘Rick’ Snyder, a pioneer in hope research, shows us that hope can be learnt.
He adopted a three pronged approach to understanding hope: goals, agency and pathways. According to this approach, individuals who are hopeful have the motivation and a clearly defined plan to achieve their goals.
It is not just a general feeling that good things will come rather it is the focus on goals, setting it apart from optimism and wishful thinking. Having hope is to imagine a happy ending and figuring out the means to get there. This is good news for anyone who has a part to play in shaping the next generation.
Barriers to Hope
In order to cultivate hope in the next generation, it is first important to understand some of the triggers of hopelessness.
We live in an age where we are constantly bombarded with information from digital platforms to social blogs. It is no surprise that all ages are avid consumers of social and digital media and this is especially true for pre-teens and teenagers. Increased exposure to digital information can have a positive impact on a teenager as it helps normalize diversity in the world around them, increasing awareness on political and social issues that impact them (for example, the Parkland survivors were instrumental in increasing the number of younger voters in the recently concluded midterms) and even encourage them to explore forms of self-expression like creating blogs.
However, this increased exposure can also have a detrimental effect on cultivating hope.
Instant gratification is one of the downsides of the digital age. Teenagers today are no longer willing to follow the advice that slow and steady wins the race rather, their short attention spans and their need for immediate results is affecting their willingness to work hard in achieving their goals. For example, gone are the days where teenagers poured over books to complete an assignment, now they would rather get the cliff notes version on the internet to quickly put something together.
Peer acceptance is important for teenagers and they are always worried about how they will be perceived by their friends. Teenagers today glean their approval rating from the likes and comments they get on their social profiles and spend a great deal of time trying to prune their online identity, sometimes with a disconnect to who they are. The constant pressure to be someone you are not can result in them not feeling good about themselves leading to a lack of hope and self-doubt. British vlogger Dina Tokio in her book Modestly talks about how she stopped playing sports when she started wearing the hijab because she thought she did not look good playing soccer wearing the hijab. This resulted in her developing body image issues in her later teenage years.
Cultivating Hope
All hope is not lost and there are some ways, research has shown, to cultivate hope:
1. Set clear, attainable goals – Create a big picture of what is important to you and what you want to achieve. A great way to do this is by creating a vision board or writing a personal mission statement. Think about where you want to be in terms of academics, relationships, family, personal interests and it even helps to add bucket list items like places you want to travel to. Then arrange your goals in the order of importance. This is helpful for adolescents with little hope so they do not get distracted by trying to achieve everything in a short span of time and resulting in burnout.
2. Set a clear task plan for achieving goals – Someone with low hope thinks all goals need to be accomplished all at once and this can be very overwhelming for them. By creating a step-by-step task plan, those with low hope can celebrate the completion of each task keeping them motivated till they achieve their goal. For example, if you want to buy a new car, start by creating a checklist of task beginning with narrowing down on car options to checking details of requirements such as registration and insurance.
3. Visualize different paths to a goal – If you suffer from low hope, chances are one of your greatest challenges in achieving your goals is the inability to move past obstacles and abandoning your goal at the first sign of a hurdle. Visualizing different paths to a goal will help in overcoming obstacles that seem insurmountable and will give you the motivation to take the road less traveled.
4. Identify ‘hope providers’ – As you take on new tasks and dive into the unknown to achieve your goals, it is important to surround yourself with motivators. This can be parents, friends, your partner, or even a teacher – someone you can turn to when you encounter obstacles or just need reassurance that you are on the right track.
5. Bombard yourself with stories of success - Hopeful people are inspired by the stories of success, especially when they are faced with obstacles. Make sure to capture the full story of a person’s success and the failures they had to go through to achieve their goals. Research has shown that seeing the underdog in movies attaining their goals against all odds can act as a motivator and make people more hopeful. For example, even seemingly innocent cartoons such as Mulan and Frozen showcase the main character going through hardship before achieving success.
6. Enjoy the journey – More often than not, the focus is on attaining the goal without focusing on the joys in achieving it. By creating a task checklist, this can be avoided by celebrating little milestones along the way!
Journalist-turned-Marketer Yusra Farzan currently serves as a Project Manager at the Center for Scholars + Storytellers, UCLA. Previously, she has managed strategic communications, content development and cultural insights tracking for Fortune 500 and leading UAE brands. She is passionate about the empowerment of underprivileged youth of color and in increasing representation and inclusion in media and marketing.
In her leisure time, she likes reading and traveling. Connect with Yusra on LinkedIn here.
This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.
Joy
In January of 2018, nearly one in every four Yale freshmen gathered in a lecture hall with a common task for the semester: to learn what brings us joy. The “Psychology and the Good Life”course was created by Yale psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos, and it has become the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history. The success of the course mirrors a broader human fascination with understanding how to experience and increase well-being in our everyday lives.
What is Joy?
When you hear the word “joy”, you might immediately think of “happiness”—indeed, it is quite common to see these words used interchangeably. However, scholars have suggested that the two terms are distinguishable. Whereas happiness is predominantly derived from external and potentially fleeting sources, joy is thought to be more sustained and reflect a sense of deep connection to something or someone we value. Joy has also been described as a response to something we have been hoping for or anticipating. For example, watching a feel-good comedy might promote our happiness, but being reunited with a loved one after a long separation can bring us joy.
Psychological Research on Joy
Although psychological research on joy has been relatively limited given the complexity of its definition, we do know about some barriers to experiencing joy in our everyday lives.
First, researchers have recognized that humans have a negativity bias, wherein we tend to pay more attention to negative things that happen to us compared to positive things. Think about the last time you had lunch with a friend—did you spend more time talking about your stresses and worries or all the positive things in your life? Although it’s important to seek out social support in times of distress, disproportionately focusing on the negative and ignoring the positive can take a toll on our well-being.
Second, humans exhibit habituation to positive events and experiences—with repeated exposure, pleasant things get less pleasant. Imagine a child who receives a new toy. Although initially overjoyed, after several days the child becomes disinterested and tosses the toy aside. Habituation helps explain why people may have trouble sustaining well-being over time.
How can we combat negativity biases and habituation to lead happier and more joyful lives? It’s important that we not only seek out social support and interaction with others when we’re struggling or when things aren’t going our way (e.g., after a breakup), but also when things are going right. For example, there is scientific evidence that people feel better on days that they tell other people about positive personal events (e.g., receiving phone call from an old friend). Additionally, expressing gratitude(i.e., what we are thankful for) can provide a helpful reminder of all the things we should appreciate in our lives.
Joy in the Connected World of Adolescents
Given the proliferation of electronic communication, it’s also important to think about how we can promote joy and happiness in an increasingly (technologically) connected world. This is especially relevant when we talk about teenagers, who are some of the most prolific users of social media.
Although adults may express widespread fears about the risks of teens online, we also know that technology and social media offer many benefits for teens. The ability to connect with others at the click of a button allows users to stay in touch with and potentially even strengthen friendships. Teens who feel lonely or isolated can also use mobile technologies as a way to more easily interact with peers and receive social support. Additionally, mobile technologies can offer adolescents opportunities to explore different personal identities and express themselves creatively, which can contribute to a stronger sense of self.
On the other hand, there are certain ways that excessive phone use and online activity can undermine adolescents’ joy and happiness. When I asked Dr. Laurie Santos, Yale professor and creator of the new Psychology and the Good Life course, about potential downsides of teen media usage, she also highlighted its effects on health and face-to-face interactions. Adolescents who spend more time on social media sleep less and sometimes even report more emotional distress (e.g., depressive symptoms). For example, whereas using social media to actively connect with others can promote well-being, a lot of passive browsing (e.g., scrolling through Instagram) can create envy and negative mood. This raises an important issue for tech developers looking to create media or apps geared at children and adolescents. Santos notes that we need to carefully “balance any benefits that come from an app [with] the downside of more phone use overall,” especially in light of evidence that increased use of mobile devices predicts less enjoyable face-to-face interactions.
Taking Action
So, how can we find more joy in our daily lives? Here are a few tips based on what we know from the research.
1. Keep a gratitude journal. Every day, take time to reflect on what you are grateful for and log it in a journal. Even if it’s only for five minutes, this exercise can help you keep perspective on all the things you have to appreciate in life.
2. Help others. Although there are times we are stressed out and need support from others, research shows that holding doors for strangers, doing volunteer work, and helping out our friends all contribute to better well-being, even among teens and young adults.
3. Balance online and offline time. Given that online venues offer both opportunities and risks, the question is less about whether we should spend any time online and more about how and when we’re spending time online. Disconnecting before bed might be especially important, and being intentional and cognizant about connecting rather than comparing ourselves is likely to create a more positive experience.
Hannah Schacter is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the University of Southern California Department of Psychology. Her research examines how adolescents' interpersonal relationships contribute to their health and well-being across varying social contexts. To learn more, please visit www.hannahschacter.com.
This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.
Creating Vitality Through Hope
“You can do it!”
“I believe in you!”
“Never give up!”
Each of these common motivational phrases is centered around the idea of cultivating one of the earliest and most crucial human virtues to develop: the virtue of hope. Hope is often defined as a wish, and with it an expectation, that something good will happen. Herein lies the beauty of the human mind: when we imagine and believe in a positive outcome, we actually increase our likelihood of achieving that outcome. Over the past few decades, scientists have found time and time again that hope is related to positive outcomes such as greater happiness, increased academic success, and an overall sense that life is meaningful. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that a great emphasis is placed on the importance of increasing hope in children.
Psychological Research on Hope
In his theory of hope, psychologist Charles Snyder described three components that he viewed as fundamental to this virtue: goals, agency, and pathways. Setting and achieving goals is integral for healthy human development. Agency refers to the belief and motivation that we can achieve our goals, while pathways are the set of steps necessary to accomplish the desired outcome. According to this theory, hope is essential for every step of decision making.
In fact, research has shown that children and adolescents with higher levels of hope tend to develop many life goals, they focus on success rather than failure when working towards their goals, and view themselves as capable of solving any problems that might arise. In addition, hopeful youth are generally more optimistic and have higher self-esteem and better mental health. We all know that being hopeful feels good, but these studies demonstrate that hope is also healthy.
Losing and Learning Hope
Perhaps the most striking way to see the power of hope lies in the cases where hope has been lost. Rates of depression have been rising, especially amongst teenagers; a key symptom of depression is a feeling of hopelessness. In a study investigating the relationship between hope and depression in adolescents, hopelessness was found to be the key predictor of depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior. Similarly, hope is negatively related to symptoms of depression in both children and teens. Taken together, these results suggest that higher levels of hope may protect individuals from the effects of negative life events on mental health. Therefore, psychologists suggest interventions for developing youth aimed at building positive expectations and optimism.
Fortunately, studies suggest that almost anyone can be taught to be more hopeful. Interventions aimed at increasing hope in children and adolescents have been successful in enhancing hope in all students, regardless of initial hope levels. In one study, scientists created a 5-week hope-based intervention for middle school students that was designed to increase hope, life satisfaction, self-worth, mental health, and academic achievement. This intervention harnessed the power of parents, teachers, and peers in helping students accomplish four main steps: 1) conceptualizing clear goals, 2) identifying a range of pathways for attaining said goals, 3) summoning the mental energy and motivation to continue goal pursuit, and 4) reframing seemingly insurmountable obstacles (i.e., “I will never do well on this test because I get anxious during exams”) as challenges to be overcome (i.e., “My test anxiety makes it more difficult for me to do well on this test; therefore, I need to practice stress-reducing activities that I can use to calm myself down”). The researchers identified two groups of students at the same middle school with similar initial levels of hope, mental-health, life satisfaction, self-worth, and academic achievement. One group then participated in the intervention, while students in the other group continued their routines as usual.
Both groups were tested immediately after, 6 months after, and 18 months after the intervention had finished. The students who had participated in the intervention reported higher levels of hope, life satisfaction, and self-worth. Even further, this positive impact was still found when the students were tested at the 18-month follow-up. This study showed that even a short hope intervention can have positive effects on psychological strengths, and that parents and teachers can help cultivate hope in children by encouraging them to set goals and helping make plans for goal attainment.
Hope and Media
Increasingly, children and teens rely on media and technology to structure their everyday life. We now have a unique opportunity to harness the power of this reliance to our advantage by developing programs and applications such as fun, positive-thinking, goal-setting smartphone apps that focus on increasing hope in developing youth. An impactful app could bolster hope by following a set of guidelines. First, the app could guide students through questions aimed at measuring their levels of hope. For example, the Children’s Hope Scale gives a total hope score, in addition to subscale scores for pathway and agency, components of hope. After a baseline hope score is determined, the app could offer an engaging narrative to teach students about hope theory and its relevance to setting and achieving goals, and then walk the student through creating a list of important life components and assess the student’s level of satisfaction within these areas.
Then come up with the most important steps: creating positive, specific, workable goals and developing multiple pathways to achieve each goal. The app should encourage the student to generate and focus on agency-promoting thoughts about each goal. The student’s baseline hope subscale scores will provide information about which aspects of hope are most important to target during this process. After the goals and pathways have been established, the app should check in with students weekly to remind them of their plans and encourage them to continue towards goal attainment. The app could also help students maintain motivation by offering incentives such as virtual points and trophies as goal progress is made. With apps such as this one, we can bolster hope in children and teens and give students the tools they need to work towards achieving a more positive and fulfilling life.
Amanda Baker is a Ph.D. psychology student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research examines adolescent brain and behavioral development, with a focus on the emergence of anxiety in adolescence. https://galvanlab.psych.ucla.edu/lab-members/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-baker-b186b9b0
This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.