An intercultural analysis of prosocial and antisocial behaviours in selected Japanese and western children’s fairy tales
Creators: name: Oghigian, Kathryn Hill
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2009

description: The purpose of this study was to examine twelve Japanese and twelve Western fairy tales to determine how often prosocial and antisocial behaviours appeared, and to find out what specific behaviours were being committed, whether the actions were committed by major or minor characters, what their motives might have been, if there was a difference in the number of prosocial and antisocial behaviours occurring between the historical versions and contemporary versions of the stories, and what possible differences there might be in the perceptions of two Western raters and two Japanese raters who were asked to identify and classify the prosocial and antisocial behaviours. The stories were chosen based on the titles examined in a 1967 study by Lanham and Shimura. The specific editions were selected on the basis of publication date, authenticity of the translation, nationality of the translator, and availability to the researcher. It was found that the Japanese stories contained a slightly higher number of prosocial than antisocial behaviours. The Western stories contained nearly twice as many antisocial behaviours as prosocial behaviours. In looking at the stories, all but two Japanese stories contained either more prosocial behaviours or an approximately equal number of prosocial and antisocial behaviours. In contrast, the majority of the Western stories contained a greater number of antisocial behaviours. Japanese story characters in four stories repented their "bad ways", and the "bad" characters in three Japanese stories and seven Western stories are punished with either a beating, blindness, and torture/death. In the selected Japanese stories, major characters committed most of the prosocial (78 percent) and antisocial behaviours (84 percent). In the Western stories, major characters committed most of the antisocial behaviours (88 percent), and just over half of the prosocial behaviours (59 percent). Although the researcher identified 33 percent of all the identified behaviours as having no specified or implied motive, the raters consistently assigned a motive, based on a subjective interpretation of both the action and the definition of the motives. There was a slight increase in the number of prosocial acts in the contemporary versions of Western stories, although the number of antisocial acts in the Western stories was still greater than the number of prosocial acts. There was only one significant cultural difference found between the Japanese raters and the Western raters, which had to do with the concept of admitting defeat. The researcher explores how prosocial and antisocial behaviours are learned in young children and argues that antisocial messages in children's literature do have an impact on children and their behaviour, and it is the responsibility of parents, teachers and publishers to be aware of the messages in children's literature and to provide guidance in order to help children to become prosocial adults.