March 15, 2025

From ‘The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ to ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, moral stories have long served to entertain children and convey moral lessons through their succinct narratives. Many of these classic moral tales feature anthropomorphised animals as key characters, with anthropomorphism — the attribution of human traits to non-human animals — being prevalent in children’s stories. Previous research has found that moral stories featuring anthropomorphised animal characters are less effective at promoting prosocial behaviours compared to stories with human characters. As most of the research on learning from anthropomorphism relates to how children learn about animal biology, it remains unclear whether the results are generalisable to other domains such as moral learning.

In “Can classic moral stories with anthropomorphized animal characters promote children’s honesty?” (Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2023), Assistant Professor Xiao Pan Ding, Cleo Tay, Yu Juan Chua, and Joey Kei Teng Cheng (all NUS Psychology) investigated the effectiveness of moral stories with anthropomorphised animal characters in promoting honesty in children. The researchers found that moral stories were only effective at promoting honesty in younger 3- to 4-year-old children but not older 5- to 6-year-old children. Additionally, moral stories featuring anthropomorphised animals such as elephants and rats were not as effective at increasing honesty compared to stories with human characters.

The researchers employed a modified temptation resistance paradigm (TRP) to measure children’s honesty. In this modified TRP, children were left alone in a room with a laptop displaying an animal, and told not to peek at the animal on the screen. When the experimenter returned, they read children different versions of the classic moral story “George Washington and the Cherry Tree” where the type of protagonist varied between three conditions: a human, an elephant, a rat, and a control condition. In the story, the protagonist (Little George) chopped down his father’s favourite cherry tree, then confessed to his wrongdoing when confronted. Little George was eventually rewarded for being honest by his father. In the control condition, the protagonist does not confess to his wrongdoing. After the moral story, the experimenter asked the children if they had peeked at the screen.

The researchers found that anthropomorphised animal characters in the moral stories had no effect on the honesty of 5- to 6-year-olds. However, for 3- to 4-year-olds, the type of protagonist character impacted honesty levels. Moral stories with human characters significantly increased honesty compared to a control story where the wrongdoing occurred but truth-telling was not shown. Interestingly, moral stories featuring anthropomorphised animals that children disliked (i.e. rat) were significantly less effective at promoting honesty compared to moral stories featuring humans.

Looking beyond this study, understanding which story elements optimise learning holds implications for utilising short fiction throughout childhood. As educators and parents aim to cultivate important moral values like honesty and virtue through diverse methods, it is crucial for them to select narratives featuring role models that children can relate to at each developmental stage.

Read the full article here.