Mental Models: Understanding the Impact of Fantasy Violence on Children's Moral Reasoning

Abstract

This study utilized a reinterpretation of the priming hypothesis to understand the effect of fantasy violence on children's moral reasoning. A posttest-only control group experimental design was used. A total of 121 children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions. Children saw 1 of 2 nearly identical versions of a fantasy violence program with the ending manipulated. In the clip, the main character either used physical violence to solve a conflict or the violence was edited out and the main character appeared to walk away from the conflict. A third group of children was in the no-treatment control condition. Subsequently, children were administered the Moral Interpretations of Interpersonal Violence (MIIV) scale, which assesses children's judgments of violent dilemmas and their reasoning about those judgments from a developmental perspective. It was found that children who saw the violent ending judged subsequent violent stories as more correct and utilized less advanced moral reasoning strategies when explaining their answers. Neither age nor empathy mediated the main effect. The findings suggest that the activation of mental models regarding violence is an automatic process that occurs somewhat independently of other potential mediators.