Cecilia Snyder
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Valerie Umscheid
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors: Cecilia Snyder, Valerie Umscheid
Abstract
Previous research has shown that children evaluate the true selves of villains to have more potential for inner goodness than heroes do for inner badness (Umscheid, 2023). The current study asked 170 seven- to twelve-year-old children (84 boys, 86 girls), located primarily in Michigan, to evaluate the true selves of real-life villains: bullies. I looked at whether character type (bully or prosocial) influences children’s true self evaluation. Results showed that children evaluated bullies and prosocial characters to be “good†more than 50% of the time. However, prosocial characters were rated as being “good†on the inside at a higher rate than bullies (>75% of the time) and had more ratings of being “a lot good†than did bullies These findings remain open for further discussion on character type influences the conceptualization of a bullies true self when discussing different forms of bullying, i.e. emotional or social aggression.
