Latter-day Saint Life

BYU Study Finds Superhero Culture Might Not Actually Be a Good Thing for Your Kids

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Defending good. Defeating evil. What could be bad about the themes involving superheroes? Here's one surprising impact of superhero culture on kids that might surprise you.

There’s a lot of good that kids can take away from watching their favorite superheroes — defending and protecting the weak, using their talents to help others and fighting for a cause that’s bigger than themselves, to name a few.

BYU family life professor Sarah M. Coyne decided to study what it was, exactly, that preschool-aged boys and girls took away from exposure to superhero culture, and it wasn’t the many positive traits that shone through.

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The Fantasy and Reality of Your Royal Identity | Sarah M. Coyne | 2016

“So many preschoolers are into superheroes and so many parents think that the superhero culture will help their kids defend others and be nicer to their peers,” Coyne said, “but our study shows the exact opposite. Kids pick up on the aggressive themes and not the defending ones.”

Lead image from BYU News
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