Essay Example on Prosocial/Antisocial Modeling & Its Impact on Children's Growth

Prosocial and antisocial behavior modeling and its impact during growing is a critical factor to children. During childhood years, many have been looking up to parents, relatives, and close friends. Dominant traits have been learned from watching televisions and movies through emulation of the characters that we loved. Observational learning developed from the performers has resulted in the creation of models. Children's movies depicting instances of prosocial and antisocial will be discussed in this article.

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Shrek (2001-2010) Is an animation movie created by DreamWorks. There is a scene in which the king needs a queen to become a perfect king. However, the queen is trapped in a castle surrounded by an exploding volcano and a dragon spitting fire. Knights are therefore sent forth to rescue the queen. In this instance, knights are males modeling boys as robust, skilled, and brave. Thus traits are classified as prosocial. Furthermore, the queen appears vulnerable and needs saving. She is also talented in singing and cooking. Girls here are modeled as fragile, weak, and dependent. The traits are antisocial.

Angry birds, (2015). Features an animation movie created by Columbia Pictures about a bird named Red, a high tempered male. The film begins when Red is running late to deliver a cake to a client for his daughter's birthday. In the scene, Red arrives late. The client's child got scared of him due to his mode of dressing. When the father came outside, he got agitated by Red for arriving late and refused to pay him. Arguments and temper ensued as a result. The argument continued until Red accidentally broke an egg. Therefore, Red is categorized as high tempered, aggressive, and abusive. He also showcases a care-free attitude. Children watching this movie are modeled to develop antisocial behaviors since Red is characterized as a loveable performer who succeeds with evil actions.

Zootopia (2016). The animation was produced by Walt Disney Pictures featuring a police officer, rabbit Judy Hopps and a hustler fox, Nick Wilde. Hopp's dream was to become a police officer. She believed in her dream so much she helped fellow children from bully boys in the market. Throughout the scenes of the movie, Hopps portrays a character of hard-work, determination, and enthusiasm. From the instances she engages in police training, she did not quit despite the hardships to become top of the class. Through these actions, she models children to develop prosocial behavior of hard-work, resilience, and hunger to become the top. However, her partner Nick is con artist, lazy and corrupt. During his encounter with the officer Hopps, Nick lied to her about the validity of his business license. Officer Hopps finds him corrupting ice cream vendors about his child crying for a piece of ice. He also claims that he forgot his wallet and so he could not pay. Children are likely to develop habits of lies, conning, and laziness from these scenes. These traits are antisocial modeling.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is conclusive to say that the media model children. Movies are created for entertainment, and for it to entertain, it must have conflicts involving protagonists and antagonists. These characters influence, to a large extent, its viewers. The love they create for such characters makes children to side with and causing them to desire to become like them by developing the same behaviors they just watched.