Effect of Personalization in Children's Fables

Therapeutic Assessment of families with children emphasize children's active involvement and the use of developmentally appropriate feedback formats. Narrative and metaphor-based approaches, such as therapeutic fables, have been proposed as effective tools to communicate assessment-related information in a way that is emotionally accessible and engaging for children. Personalization is assumed to be a key mechanism underlying their effectiveness; however, little is known about whether increasing levels of personalization yield incremental benefits. The present study examined the impact of different degrees of personalization in a therapeutic fable on children's appreciation of the narrative. A total of 222 children aged 9 to10 years were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: non-personalized, minimally personalized, moderately personalized, or fully personalized fable. Following story exposure, children completed the Fable Appreciation Questionnaire assessing affective engagement and perceived narrative quality. Results indicated that personalized fable elicited significantly higher affective engagement compared to non-personalized narratives, whereas no differences emerged in other formal qualities. Importantly, minimal personalization was sufficient to enhance emotional engagement, with no additional gains observed for higher levels of personalization. These findings suggest that personalization primarily influences children's emotional involvement rather than their evaluation of narrative structure, supporting the use of even minimally personalized narratives as an efficient and developmentally sensitive feedback tool.