The Influence of 'Misterogers Neighborhood' on Nursery School Children's Prosocial Behavior.

The impact of "Misterogers Neighborhood" on nursery school children's prosocial behavior was assessed. Specifically, two hypotheses were tested: (1) that children who viewed several "Misterogers Neighborhood" programs would evidence more prosocial behavior than would nonviewers, and (2) that young viewers would show an increase in prosocial behavior greater than that shown by older viewers. The five programs selected to test these hypotheses contained three basic prosocial themes: restitution, sharing, and empathy. One program a day was shown to 21 children, aged 3 to 6, randomly selected from a local nursery school population. Another group of 22 nursery school children who did not see the programs served as controls. After the viewers were exposed to the five programs, restitution sharing, and empathy behaviors were assessed using two separate tasks. The results indicate that children viewing network programming designed to teach prosocial behavior can benefit by viewing. However, no support was obtained for the hypothesis that younger children derive greater benefits than older children from network programming. (CS)