Effects Of Pro-social Video Game Exposure On Young Children’s Pro-social Behavior

Pro-social behaviors in young children are behaviors that are beneficial to others,where typical pro-social behaviors include helping,sharing and so on.Pro-social behavior is an important part of young children’s social development,and the development of prosocial behavior helps promote social development.In today’s digital and information age,young children are inevitably exposed to video games in their lives.Although many studies have demonstrated the positive effects of exposure to pro-social video games on children’s pro-social behavior,children are exposed to pro-social video games in a variety of ways,such as direct manipulation or indirect viewing,and there is a relative lack of empirical studies that specifically explore the effects of video game exposure on children’s pro-social behavior.In view of this,this study was conducted with a three-factor2(video game: pro-social vs.neutral)× 2(exposure: manipulation vs.viewing)× 2(gender: male vs.female)theoretical basis of the General Learning Model(GLM)and Social Learning Theory(SLT).The between-groups experimental design controlled for age as a covariate(age was retained to two decimal places,to the nearest month),the independent variables of contextual stimulus characteristics were video game and exposure mode,the independent variable of individual subject characteristics was gender,and the dependent variables were helping behavior(helping behavior score in the "brush pick-up" task)and sharing behavior(The dependent variables were helping behavior(score of helping behavior in "picking up the brush" task)and sharing behavior(number of stickers shared in the "sticker sharing" task).The purpose of this study is to explore the continuous experimental effects of two contact modes of pro-social video games on young children’s pro-social behaviors,and further propose strategies for the cultivation of young children’s pro-social behaviors,so as to provide reference and reference for the cultivation of young children’s pro-social behaviors in educational practice.First,7 pro-social video games and 7 neutral video games were initially selected on the 4399 online game website,75 people were invited to have a complete experience of the selected 14 video games and fill out the "Video Game Pro-Social Degree Rating Form",and 5 video games were finally selected as the final pro-social video game materials by comparing the ratings: "Dora Saves the Dog","Protect the Orange","Dora Saves the Stray Dog","Take Care of the Little Baby on Holidays",and "Take Care of Pony Boy".and the five video games "Little Bear Baba Coloring Board","Family of Bubble Town","Little Bear Baba Learning to Match","My Little Horse Coloring Book" and "Baby Hippo Learning to Color" were selected as the final neutral video game materials.Second,180 older children(male=96)were selected as alternative subjects by random whole-group sampling in a kindergarten in Chongqing,and parents were informed of the purpose and process of the experiment in advance and signed an informed consent form for the experiment.Consenting children were tested for helping and sharing behaviors,and 112 children(50% female)with high levels of homogeneity in helping and sharing behaviors were selected as the final experimental subjects.The 112 children were randomly assigned to either a pro-social video game manipulation group(N=28,50%female)or a pro-social video game viewing group(N=28,50% female)or a neutral video game manipulation group(N=28,50% female)or a neutral video game viewing group(N=28,50% female),and children were paired with the same gender for the video game intervention during the experiment.All children’s levels of helping and sharing behaviors were tested again after the video game intervention for 5 consecutive days(one 15-minute session per day)to obtain post-test data on children’s helping and sharing behaviors.Finally,a three-way ANOVA of 2(video game)× 2(exposure mode)× 2(gender)was conducted on the data obtained from the experiment,controlling age as a covariate,to examine the main effects and interactions of video game and exposure mode on young children’s helping and sharing behaviors,and To measure the effect of prosocial video game exposure on young children’s pro-social behavior.The conclusions of this study are as follows:First,both manipulating and watching pro-social video games contributed to the level of pro-social behavior of young children;second,after manipulating pro-social video games,the level of pro-social behavior of boys was higher than that of girls;third,there was no gender difference in the level of pro-social behavior of boys and girls after watching pro-social video games.This study has the following implications for the development of pro-social behavior in young children:First,both manipulating and watching pro-social video games can be effective educational tools to enhance young children’s pro-social behaviors;second,compared to watching pro-social video games,educators can focus on allowing young children to manipulate and experience pro-social video games themselves,which can be more effective in the practice of developing young children’s pro-social behaviors;third,manipulating pro-social video games can help improve boys’ pro-social behaviors more than girls’.