کتاب داستان های کودکان به ما می گویند: تصویرسازی مربوط به انگیزه در کتاب های کودکان و ارتباط آنها با کارایی دانشگاهی و میزان جرایم

We reasoned that children’s books mirror the current motivational orientation (Zeitgeist) of a society. Based on the work of McClelland and other motivational psychologists, we assessed the current motivational orientation via the prevalence of achievement, power, and affiliation imagery in the most popular children’s books of federal states in Germany. As expected, the achievement imagery was closely and significantly related to academic performance. Our assumption that power imagery was positively and affiliation imagery negatively related to youth crime (youth suspects) could not be supported. Thus, for the achievement domain, the findings provide strong evidence that children’s books tell us an important story worthy of further exploration.

When the children’s book author, Astrid Lindgren, sent her manuscript “Pippi Longstocking” to the publisher in 1944, she felt the need to comment that it may offend readers, and she begged the publisher not to alarm the Swedish youth welfare office. Although the authorities were not contacted, the manuscript was initially rejected. Pippi, with her unconventional and assertive character, was not seen as a story to be told to children at that time. Other children’s books have met similar fates, and it seems clear that the content children’s books tell us something about the time in which they were popular or unpopular (Hunt, 1996). Therefore, we view children’s books as an indicator of the motivational orientation of a society (Zeitgeist), which should provide us with an understanding of the times. Understanding the times in which children are socialized should additionally allow us to see how society will develop as these children will shape society as grown-ups. Children’s books appear to be especially suitable to assess the Zeitgeist because they closely represent what is valued and selected by parents and others to pass onto children. Additionally, children’s books may also have an impact on how children see and act in the world as newcomers, and the books they are exposed to are likely to shape children’s understanding of the world.

We have just begun to read the first pages of the story that children’s books can tell us about predicting social development, and the story gets off to a very promising start. We were able to support our expectation that the achievement imagery in children’s books is a valid indicator for social development in respect to academic performance. We hopefully encourage research on children’s book from a motivational perspective.