Neuroscience
Removing his spectacles was part of Clark Kent's metamorphosis from geeky journalist into superhero. With popular symbolism like that, perhaps it's no wonder that Francine Jellesma has found many children endorse negative stereotypes about people who wear glasses.
Jellesma conducted a literature review finding 28 relevant studies on this subject published since 1980. Although the results showed glasses were far less salient to children than other identifying features, such as gender, their views on glass-wearers were largely negative. For example, asked to compare pairs of children, one of whom was always wearing glasses, 5- to 9-year-olds consistently rated the child without glasses as prettier and better looking. Another study found that children were less interested in being friends with glass-wearing peers.
The one positive caveat was that many children associate the wearing of glasses with superior intelligence. For example, asked to draw a smart person or a scientist, children tend to depict their creations as wearing glasses (but they don't do so when asked to draw a stupid, nice or nasty person). Jellesma said this association was probably aided by the prevalence of intelligent, glass-wearing fictional characters like Harry Potter and John in Peter Pan.
What about children's views of their own glass-wearing? Here the findings from four relevant studies were more encouraging. Studies that have tracked the general self-concept of children over time have found little effect of their changing to wearing contact lenses, suggesting glass wearing isn't that important to the way they see themselves. It's only when attention has been focused specifically on self-perceptions of physical appearance that changing to contacts has made a difference, with contacts boosting appearance-related self-esteem. Also relevant are studies looking at children's willingness to wear glasses. Younger children don't' seem too bothered, but there's evidence of older children refusing to wear glasses, especially in urban areas. Jellesma said this could be due to fears of bullying in larger schools with more hostile social environments.
Jellesma concluded that more positive, glass-wearing media role models could help improve the self-esteem of glass-wearing children, and improve the stereotypes that children hold about people who wear glasses.
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F.C. Jellesma (2012). Do glasses change children's perceptions? Effects of eyeglasses on peer- and self-perception. European Journal of Developmental Psychology DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2012.700199
Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
What children think of people who wear glasses
Jellesma conducted a literature review finding 28 relevant studies on this subject published since 1980. Although the results showed glasses were far less salient to children than other identifying features, such as gender, their views on glass-wearers were largely negative. For example, asked to compare pairs of children, one of whom was always wearing glasses, 5- to 9-year-olds consistently rated the child without glasses as prettier and better looking. Another study found that children were less interested in being friends with glass-wearing peers.
The one positive caveat was that many children associate the wearing of glasses with superior intelligence. For example, asked to draw a smart person or a scientist, children tend to depict their creations as wearing glasses (but they don't do so when asked to draw a stupid, nice or nasty person). Jellesma said this association was probably aided by the prevalence of intelligent, glass-wearing fictional characters like Harry Potter and John in Peter Pan.
What about children's views of their own glass-wearing? Here the findings from four relevant studies were more encouraging. Studies that have tracked the general self-concept of children over time have found little effect of their changing to wearing contact lenses, suggesting glass wearing isn't that important to the way they see themselves. It's only when attention has been focused specifically on self-perceptions of physical appearance that changing to contacts has made a difference, with contacts boosting appearance-related self-esteem. Also relevant are studies looking at children's willingness to wear glasses. Younger children don't' seem too bothered, but there's evidence of older children refusing to wear glasses, especially in urban areas. Jellesma said this could be due to fears of bullying in larger schools with more hostile social environments.
Jellesma concluded that more positive, glass-wearing media role models could help improve the self-esteem of glass-wearing children, and improve the stereotypes that children hold about people who wear glasses.
_________________________________
F.C. Jellesma (2012). Do glasses change children's perceptions? Effects of eyeglasses on peer- and self-perception. European Journal of Developmental Psychology DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2012.700199
Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.
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- Why Do Children Hide By Covering Their Eyes?
A cute mistake that young children make is to think that they can hide themselves by covering or closing their eyes. Why do they make this error? A research team led by James Russell at the University of Cambridge has used a process of elimination to...
- We Sit Near People Who Look Like Us
The next time you're in an audience, turn to the person sat next to you and take a good look. That's what you look like, that is. Scary eh? Sean Mackinnon and his research team have shown that people sit next to people who resemble themselves....
- The Way Children With Autism Draw People
Drawings of humans by children with autism tend to lack variety, researchers have found, possibly reflecting the unusual way they think about and relate to other people. Anthony Lee and Peter Hobson compared drawings by 14 autistic children (aged 8 to...
- What On Earth...?
Children's drawings of the Earth as flat, or hollow with people inside, have led some psychologists to believe children develop naive, but coherent, mental models of what the planet is like based on their own observations. Such accounts predict that...