MOSCOW, August 12 Novosibirsk State Pedagogical Univ. scientists have found that modern children's toys can have a negative impact on the development of a child's personality. According to the authors, most toys convey the same experiences, close to indifference and apathy, which leads to children's distorted perception of the world around them and of themselves. The results were published in the journal «Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Social and Economic Psychology».
In the conditions of a modern family, where parents are often limited in time, the importance of toys for raising a child increases significantly, according to the Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University (NSPU).
Researchers have found that a significant part of modern children's toys form a distorted image of an “ideal” adult and their own future. Increasingly, the doll either takes on various forms of monsters, or, conversely, becomes extremely naturalistic and overly detailed, reflecting necrophiliac images, which can create a strong attraction to the theme of death, cruelty and destruction.
In addition, the vast majority of modern toys, according to experts, are characterized by a deficit of emotional content, despite the bright color and bizarre shape. The paradoxical effect occurs because the colorfulness contradicts the static nature of the toy, the limitations of its functional capabilities. When trying to play with an interesting doll at first glance, it turns out that it «can't do anything.» Because of this, the child gets the impression that the toy is deceiving him — it promises more than it gives.
«As a result, toys do not evoke the feeling of being alive, they are just pieces of plastic and synthetic fur,» emphasized Olga Belobrykina, associate professor of the Department of Social Psychology and Victimology at NSPU.
According to her, the prevalence of emotionally poor toys can lead to the development of deficient emotional intelligence in children, which poses the risk of raising an entire generation of people prone to emotional coldness and passivity.
To avoid such a scenario, the authors recommend that parents choose toys that develop memory, motor skills, imagination, and social skills without aggressive images: musical instruments, construction sets, puzzles, classic dolls.
«The problem of assessing the emotional content of children's toys attracts the attention of many researchers. Existing approaches are based on expert assessment, that is, on the analysis of toys by qualified specialists. The limitation of this method is its labor intensity and subjectivity, which prevents mass analysis of toys,» said the associate professor.
She noted that the study was conducted using an original methodology developed by one of the authors. The analysis was based on a theory linking the external properties of a toy with the emotions that fill it. The emotional content was measured using computer technology: a program developed by scientists analyzed color, texture and compositional characteristics.
At this stage, specialists are faced with the task of improving the developed methodology: adapting it to solve various research problems and undergoing certification.
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