Anthropomorphism as an Educational Tactic

Anthropomorphism is an extremely common trope in children's media, especially in media for very young children. This usually takes the form of talking animals or, less commonly, inanimate objects. The level of anthropomorphic behaviour beyond speech varies widely.

The use of anthropomorphism is controversial from an ecocritical perspective, but certainly has its advocates; Leesa Fawcett, for example, believes that anthropomorphism is 'a necessary means we employ to make sense of and relate to other species’ experience because we still have no real knowledge of animal cognition' and does not imply anthropocentrism.

One reason for the prevalence of anthropomorphism is its value as an educational tactic. A 2018 study by James Alex Bonus and Marie-Louise Mares indicates that mild anthropomorphism (i.e. animals talking and singing, but no further humanlike behaviour) is beneficial to children's ability to learn new scientific information, and will not internalise the obviously-unrealistic anthropomorphised aspects as a true reflection of the world. While the study does not claim to have a definite explanation on this, one of the possibilities it offers is that 'children’s affective reactions are stronger in response to anthropomorphic (rather than human) characters, which influences the manner in which they encode factual information in memory'.

*The Octonauts* features a multi-levelled anthropomorphic system, in which different creatures have different levels of humanlike traits. The main cast are highly anthropomorphic animals who talk, read, wear clothes and even drive vehicles. By Bonus and Mares' metric, this would be considered 'extreme' anthropomorphism, a type which was not substantially represented in their study, and of which the effect on children's learning is unclear. It is possible that the choice of an anthropomorphic animal cast was meant as a 'universaliser' of sorts: by portraying characters who are not human, they opt out of the question of *who does science,* and mitigate the risk of accidentally presenting scientists as having certain physical characteristics—skin tones, for example. However, this reading is problematised by the characters' accents, which are recognisably tied to geographical regions. (Also of note is that Dashi, Tweak and Shellington speak in accents that are not the natural accents of their voice actors, making this unquestionably a deliberate artistic choice).

The sea creatures are much closer to nature as their anthropomorphism is limited to talking (perhaps, also, their logical reasoning is necessarily presented as more 'human', e.g. the crustaceans in 'The Great Algae Escape' realising they can save themselves from the algal bloom by driving the stolen Octopod to another location). This mild anthropomorphism might be good for education, but it exists within the context the show's strange, tiered approach, in which certain castes of animals are distinctly more or less human than others. Unfortunately for *The Octonauts'* stated aims, this implies a degree of anthropocentrism.

### References

1. ↑ Leesa Fawcett, ‘Anthropomorphism: In the Web of Culture’, *Undercurrents,* 14 (1989), 14-20, p.14, cited in Marjetka Golež Kaučič, ‘“Zoopoetic Dwelling”: The Ecology of the Connectedness of Animal and Human Homes and Dwelling Through Folklore and Literary Representations’, *Studia Mythologica Slavica,* 23 (2020), pp. 205-234, p.217.
2. ↑ James Alex Bonus and Marie-Louise Mares, 'When the Sun Sings Science, Are Children Left in the Dark? Representations of Science in Children's Television and Their Effects on Children's Learning', *Human Communication Research,* 44 (2018), pp. 449-472 <https://academic.oup.com/hcr/article/44/4/449/5055861>, p.464.
3. ↑ Ibid, p.467.