Does disgust-eliciting propaganda shape children's attitudes toward novel immigrant groups?

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Media Studies

Background:

• Propaganda often uses themes of disgust and disease to create negative attitudes towards marginalized groups.
• Historical success of such tactics necessitates empirical evaluation of propaganda's efficacy, especially in young children who rapidly form social attitudes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if 5- to 9-year-old children's judgments of novel foreign groups can be influenced by visual propaganda depicting disgust.
• To assess the potential for children to internalize negative misrepresentations presented in propaganda.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory study involving 48 children aged 5-9 years.
• Children were exposed to poster-sized illustrations depicting a novel foreign group as disgusting.
• Attitudes towards the group were assessed using a wide battery of tasks.

Main Results:

• No clear evidence was found that children readily internalized propaganda messages when evaluating novel social groups.
• This resilience to propaganda was observed regardless of the specific type of disgusting imagery used.
• The findings were consistent across the investigated age range (5-9 years).

Conclusions:

• Children aged 5-9 demonstrate a notable resistance to forming negative attitudes towards novel groups based on propaganda depicting disgust.
• The results suggest that young children are not easily swayed by negative misrepresentations, offering a practical, encouraging outlook.
• Further research can explore the mechanisms of this resilience and its generalizability to different forms of propaganda.