It Seems Sometimes a Surface Reading is Sufficient

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

A recent paper published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that reader identification with with the main character of Harry Potter (and disidentification with Voldemort) positively correlated with reduced bias toward stigmatized minorities in real life.  Researchers found this Harry Potter effect was significant even after controlling for the general amount of books read, which by itself is strongly associated with reduced bigotry and prejudice.  So, it seems unfair to say the books are nothing but toxic.

What I want to know is the correlation between reading Harry Potter and how people think their ENEMIES should be treated.  And what criteria determine what makes someone "bad" and how badly they deserve to be punished.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/harry-potter-battle-bigotry-87002/

*Update

The linked article is correct in its general summation of the findings, but is sloppily written.  I'm not entirely comfortable reproducing the entire paper, but if there are particular sections people would like to see I'll try to either excerpt or summarize them more accurately.  The paper itself is hardly groundbreaking - it's been shown before that reading about foreign perspectives helps increase tolerance.  This mostly showed that the same effect extended to fantasy fiction.  The studies were also extremely narrow in focus (only looking at identification with Harry or Voldemort).  Mostly I thought people would be relieved that SOME good came from such a widely selling series, despite its numerous flaws.

Comments

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

"The only participants that were involved in discussions ... were lead by the researchers."

If you "lead" the discussions you will get the answer that you want, even if you think that you're being neutral. Your subconscious attitudes show through to and influence the participant. That's why they go to the expense of using double-blind techniques in everything from medical research to police line-ups.

The results of this study are meaningless.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. It depends on whether the factor in question can actually be influenced by what the researcher is doing. In the discussion section the authors cited another study, done with children slightly younger than their group, that found *no* significant difference in reduction of prejudice between children who had a story discussed with them and those who only read the story without further comment or input from the researchers. It seems to be the role playing inherent in reading from a foreign perspective that reduces prejudice, not being lectured about it.

Which makes sense. Humans are emotional creatures, and we are not remotely as logical as we like to believe. We do, however, empathize strongly with our fellow man, as long as we recognize them as essentially 'like us.' Stories allow us to highlight that underlying shared humanity in a way that reaches our emotional core. This explains why we see so many conservative politicians do a 180 on gay rights once it's their own family that comes out of the closet, when all the cold, logical arguments about equal rights and fairness under the law failed to sway them.

The researchers also made clear that this was an area that needed more research to clarify cause and effect. So, this study isn't definitive by any means, but it's not utterly meaningless either. If nothing else, transcripts of the discussion will show how the kids interpreted what they read, which is useful information in and of itself (though not published in the journal article in question).

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, but I remain extremely skeptical. If it was not necessary to "lead" the participants in a discussion, then why did they do it? Why not have the children read the passages themselves, alone, and then fill out a questionnaire?

And it is now common practice for scientific journals to make additional "supporting material" available on their website, so there is no reason (such as high publishing costs) for any transcripts, etc. to be withheld. The authors should also have specified which passages from the books were used.

As someone who occasionally publishes scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, I feel that the reviewers and the journal editor should have insisted on the additional info. Without it, I continue to doubt the validity of their results. It is a very weak study, at best.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

The authors don't make any extravagant claims about what they've done: they make explicit that they haven't identified the mechanism by which exposure to oppressed fantasy characters translates into greater sympathy toward real-life marginalized groups. They further concede that studies 2 and 3 only connected correlational data and study 1 didn't have a mechanism to distinguish between the effects of purely reading the passage and having a structured discussion about it. Further studies to examine these oversights are suggested.

The authors do point out that their results are still important. Regardless of whether it was solely reading the passage or participating in a structured discussion about it, Harry Potter did work as a medium to reduce prejudice against marginalized groups in the real world even though it was based in fantasy. The correlational data supports this reading, as does the fact that prior studies have shown merely reading from oppressed groups perspectives, without further discussion, works to reduce prejudice. Given that far more people read fantasy than carefully structured passages tailored to reduce prejudice (and many have read Harry Potter) this is good news. It also suggests ways teachers can promote tolerance among their students in ways that effective and fun.

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

"Effective and fun?" Yes, I'm probably missing the point by fretting about the study's design and methodology. It must be my grad student days coming back to me. The journal is a respected, peer-reviewed publication and I should just get over it.

The main point really is that it is encouraging that kids seem be taking positive messages from HP, rather than negative ones (I wouldn't want to think that they're all going to turn into mini-Marauders, after all). And if this study encourages teachers and parents to discuss reading with kids, that's even better.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!