Introduction
Created by and starring Fred Rogers, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was a long-running children’s television program aimed at promoting the education, health, and development of its young viewers. Himself a psychologist and minister, Rogers’ knowledge of and experience with children formed his approach to Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. “He knew how to use the television screen to nurture children’s healthy growth in all developmental domains, especially the social-emotional and the spiritual (Sharapan 2015)” (Harris, 2019, p.141). Rogers’ efforts focused around conveying complex themes and making a personal connection with each child who watched his show; he also promoted the sharing of feelings in order to grow in emotion regulation, empathy, and emotional expression (Harris, 2019, p. 146-147). As such, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood utilized a plethora of mass communication theories as it taught children about both the world around them and the worlds inside themselves.
In this paper, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood will be examined under the lens of how it promotes the social emotional development of children. Through the number of theories the show uses, and various ways in which it uses each theory, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood addresses the issue of children’s social emotional development in a holistic manner.
Social Learning Theory
Each theory utilized is intimately interwoven within and among the others, but the overarching theory prevalent in Mister Roger’s Neighborhood is social learning theory. As the umbrella under which the other theories are housed, each theoretical approach used in the program inevitably ties back to social learning theory, creating a cohesive strategy for aiding in children’s social emotional development.
In order for social learning theory to be effective in Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, Rogers first needed to establish himself as a trustworthy role model to his young audience. Rogers establishes this through the three components of source credibility: knowledge, trustworthiness, and charisma. In the realm of knowledge, Rogers puts complex themes into easily understandable language, but he never dumbs himself down; “Mister Rogers is an engaged teacher: a parental figure, not an adult playmate” (Zelevansky, 2004, p. 196). Unlike other shows in which adults are portrayed as clueless, unintelligent, or childish, Rogers is clearly the adult in his relationship with his viewers. While he does engage in play and make-believe on the program, he never lowers himself in any way; rather, he meets children where they are at as a teacher figure. This plays into the trustworthiness aspect of his credibility. Since Rogers is the teacher in the relationship, children are more inclined to look up to and trust him. Rogers did not hide anything from his young viewers. He “always included children in his thoughts, questions, and observations, thus encouraging them to become curious explorers in their own environment and reflect upon the wonderful world around them” (Harris, 2019, p. 146). By making himself a sort of an open book to children, they see Rogers as an honest person, and therefore a credible role model. Finally, in terms of charisma, Rogers is ever-present to his audience. “When Mister Rogers looks into the camera and appeals to his viewing audience for their attention, he is trying to establish intimacy with eye contact and language that speaks in terms of a personal you…not a social us” (Zelevansky, 2004, p. 196). This opens the door to an attractive, personal relationship between Rogers and individual viewers, further cementing Rogers as an appealing role model.
Having established himself as a role model to his young audience, Rogers utilizes social learning theory by speaking and acting in such a way that is easily understood and imitated. A major way in which Rogers accomplished this was by discussing emotions with his viewers. “Rogers (1983) believed that acknowledging and accepting their own feelings, both negative and positive, were vital for young children. Thus, feelings formed the foundation of his approach (Palmer and Carr 1991)” (Harris, 2019, p. 146). Not only does he pose questions about viewers’ feelings, but as established above, he also discusses his own, thus creating an environment in which emotions could be recognized and shared. “By sharing with others, children would have the potential to learn more about controlling and applying feelings as a positive strength (Johnson and Howard 2013). This included working on self-regulation, developing empathy, and using words to express feelings” (Harris, 2019, p. 147). Rogers approaches this holistically; “his method is to ask questions, encourage speculation, and advance interpretations that encourage his young audience to recognize that careful thinking and looking can lead to both understanding and action” (Zelevansky 197). By encouraging this sharing through the posing of questions and sharing of his own emotions, Rogers presents courses of action and ways of speaking that children watching his program learn to imitate.
However, Rogers’ use of social learning theory does not stop there; he also makes use of symbolic communication within social learning theory through his use of puppet storytelling. Children can imitate both real people and fake characters alike, including puppet and cartoon characters, when it comes to social learning theory. “A regular feature of the show is the ‘Neighborhood of Make-Believe,’ a parallel dimension in which the real world concerns of the first part of the show are played out and extended into fantasy by puppet characters and their human counterparts” (Zelevansky, 2004, p. 200). These “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” segments utilize all three of the ways in which the media instructs audiences: observation, inhibition, and disinhibition. Puppet characters such as Prince Tuesday and Daniel Tiger confront their own emotionally charged problems, which are reflective of that episode’s themes and, consequently, the problems and emotions children face; in these predicaments, the puppet characters are aided by trustworthy adults who also reside in the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.” These puppet characters feel, make mistakes, receive help, and learn about themselves and others, as well as the emotions of both themselves and others. “As cast by Fred Rogers, imagination leads beyond distraction and fantasy to an extension of vision and the invention of images and concepts” (Zelevanksy 208). As such, children apply social learning theory as they observe the actions of and interactions between characters and learn the good and bad consequences associated with them. As the children relate to the puppet characters and come to trust the advice of the puppet’s adult friends, they learn to imitate the actions of helping trusted adults for help, talking about their own emotions, and considering the emotions of others. In other words, they are developing interpersonal and social-awareness skills, such as cooperation, naming the emotions of others, and peacefully resolving conflict, decision-making skills, and self-management and self-awareness skills such as naming and managing one’s own emotions; all of these are important social emotional skills (Christensen & Myford, 2014, p. 23). Thus, children progress in their social emotional development as they watch and imitate the actions of the puppet inhabitants of the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”
Schema Theory
Schema theory is linked to social learning theory in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; while there are more components to the schemas Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood constructs for its young viewers, Rogers’ questioning and sharing, and the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe,” are undoubtedly important elements of the constructed schema. In fact, each episode’s schema begins to take shape at the very beginning of each episode when Rogers first begins talking to his audience. This is particularly important in the case of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood due to its young audience, as “several theories emphasize the role of story schema in children’s learning. In general, schema make learning more efficient by providing a skeleton structure against which learns compare and encode incoming information” (Jink and Kirkorian e1104). Research has shown that story schemas improve children’s comprehension and recollection of printed stories, and some academics think story schema play a similar role in processing televised stories (Jing & Kirkorian, 2020, p. e1104).
When Fred Rogers sits on the little bench in his living room with that day’s prop, he has already begun that episode’s schema construction. As Rogers uses the prop to begin that episode’s discussion, he previews for the children watching what will be coming up throughout the program. “Based on story schema theory, previewing provides an organizational structure that may function as a mechanism supporting narrative processing in many learning contexts…previewing certain elements of a televised story may influence how much children attend to those elements during the full episode” (Jing & Kirkorian, 2020, p. e1101, e1103). By posing questions and making observations about whatever object Rogers brings into his “home” with him, he is effectively setting up that episode’s theme; he prepares viewers’ minds to focus on that theme and to organize the events and information from that episode into a cohesive schema. This is important because it allows Rogers to prime his audience to glean the same lesson from the various presentational devices he uses throughout the episode, including his own dialogue, stories in the “Land of Make-Believe,” and field trips.
Once Rogers has previewed an episode’s lesson, he can build upon the schema he has set up through the storytelling aspect of the program. Using stories to construct children’s schemas is vital due to “the principle of narrative dominance.” This principle says that when people have a large quantity of information to process, processing the narrative being conveyed is prioritized (Jing & Kirkorian, 2020, p. e1104). By using storytelling as an educational component, Rogers is able to use narrative dominance to his advantage; children will remember the social emotional lessons they learned by remembering the narratives they are associated with on the show. “Rogers’ strengths and leadership dispositions were transferred to young television neighbors through storytelling,” thus making storytelling an essential component of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in terms of both social learning theory and schema theory (Harris, 2019, p. 151). In fact, “…findings verify the significant role of story schema in the context of…educational programs in which the story is intertwined with educational content. As a specialized type of schema, story schema provides an assimilative framework that arranges the incoming narrative information in a coherent way…and can affect information encoding, storage, and retrieval” (Jing & Kirkorian, 2020, p. e1112). By framing social emotional lessons in a storytelling context, such as through the “Land of Make-Believe” and field trips in which the story of how something, such as crayons, is made, Rogers capitalizes on the advantages of using the medium of television. He keeps the audience’s attention through engaging stories and imagery while conveying important lessons in an easily remembered and understood manner. Each story gives children a schema within the larger schema he is constructing; the stories teach children about causal relationships, problem solving, and emotions in a sequential structure, and the schema from the stories are components of the episode’s overall schema centered around a specific theme (which the story relates to). Thus, these stories play into social learning theory by providing actions for children to imitate, as well as play into schema theory by giving young viewers a sequential, causal storyline that helps them to understand the importance of expressing one’s emotions, asking for help, and other relevant social emotional skills.
It should be noted that “Mister Rogers makes explicit use of various presentational devices, and each episode is defined by a title or subject” (Zelevansky, 2004, p. 198). These devices include props, puppets, and footage of experts doing their jobs, such as factory workers making crayons and musicians playing a song as Mister Rogers observes and asks questions. By utilizing a number of different models, Rogers constructs a strong schema by attaching social emotional lessons to varying images. This helps his young audience to better understand the social emotional lesson being taught and build a well-rounded schema about it by providing them with various examples of when and how to use the lesson and how to apply the lesson in those scenarios.
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood also employs a simple structure in the organization of its episodes, making it easier for children to follow along and absorb the schema being laid out for them. “Educational television programs developed to transmit information about intrapersonal awareness and development of interpersonal understanding and cooperation to a target audience aged two to eight should rely on the visually simpler scene and shot structures” (Craig & Wilhelm, p. 334). Doing so helps young viewers to better understand the passage of time, the connections within scenes, and transitions to new scenarios, creating a more comprehensible program for children; Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood does just that (Craig & Wilhelm, p. 334). By using long and cohesive shots and showing and verbalizing transitions between locations, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood avoids unnecessarily confusing its audience and effectively groups ideas together (such as clearly defining what does and does not occur within the “Land of Make-Believe”). This in turn helps viewers focus on the social emotional lessons being taught, as well as mentally group each scenario together, further cementing how the episode’s lesson can be applied in various ways in various scenarios. Thus, a cohesive, organized, and layered schema is created that children can refer back to in various scenarios; giving them a number of different applications will also help them to imitate the positive actions they were exposed to more often, as they will associate those actions with various related scenarios.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
In order for children to remember and activate the schemas they gain from watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it is important for them to process the social emotional lessons being taught to them as they view the program. This is where the Elaboration Likelihood Model comes into play. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood skillfully makes use of this model by activating both the central and peripheral routes of children’s cognition.
Firstly, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood addresses issues that are important to children. “Rogers developed the ability to perceive children’s interests (Sharapan 2012)…[Children] are truly attentive when they are interested in and care deeply about a topic” (Harris, 2019, p. 145). By centering his show around these topics, Rogers is able to activate both the central and peripheral routes of children’s processing. Due to their interest in the topics and the importance and relevance they therefore hold in the children’s minds, the children watching the program actively process the lessons being taught; learning these lessons feels good because they apply to the children’s lives, so the children also process them peripherally due to the positive emotions they thus associate with the show and its lessons. Rogers also personalized his messages, resulting in a similar outcome. “Rogers used story telling purposefully using the word you instead of I (Collins and Kimmel 1996) to make the stories with their lessons and messages more personal for the child (Johnson and Howard 2013)” (Harris, 2019, p. 145). Relevance increases active processing, and the positive emotions associated with Rogers taking interest in what is important to his viewers also increases processing; thus, elaboration is increased on both accounts, influencing Rogers’ young viewers to both remember and adapt to the social emotional lessons he teaches. They activate the schemas he constructs and imitate the words and actions they learn from him.
Rogers further encourages central processing by actively engaging his audience. “While actively crediting and investigating personal emotions and sensations…Each viewer sitting before the screen on a given day is invited to participate…the bottom line message to the show is focused on reflexive thinking and work, not entertainment: He directly asks them questions and shares emotions and observations with them” (Zelevansky, 2004, p. 197). By including his viewers in his wonderings, influences them to do the same. (Rogers understood that “young children learn best through active participation and experience (Seitz 2006)” (Harris, 2019, p. 145). As such, he utilizes “play” effectively throughout Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; “play - in the Winnicottian sense of a concrete engagement with things and space through which transitions between self and world are enacted and learned – is the engine, and self-knowledge and relationship are the reward” (Zelevansky, 2004, p. 204). Engaging in play while actively encouraging his viewers to do the same through his words and purposeful images of what he is investigating allows Rogers to invite his audience to actively engage in play with him. This causes children watching the program to instinctively begin to actively process what Rogers is teaching them; Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood effectively becomes both the catalyst of active processing and the lesson being processed. Thus, children allot more cognitive effort to understanding the social emotional lessons being taught, better forming their thoughts on the subjects and thus their social emotional development.
Uses and Gratifications Theory
It is worth mentioning that throughout his use of social learning theory, schema theory, and the elaboration likelihood model, Rogers also intertwines uses and gratifications theory. By merit of offering instruction in social emotional development as through lessons personalized to its young audience, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood directly appeals to all four categories of needs: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, and social integrative needs. He increases children’s understanding and knowledge, aids them through their emotional experiences, and helps them to become more confident in expressing themselves and their emotions, as well as assists them in creating stronger bonds with other people through these facets. The program also applies to escape and tension release needs both directly and indirectly; by creating a safe space for learning, discovering, imagining, and playing, children are given a means of emotional expression and escape from adversity (direct impact), and by promoting social emotional development, children are also given the tools to do this in their everyday lives when they are not watching the show (indirect impact). Thus, uses and gratifications theory is used alongside the three aforementioned theories of social learning theory, schema theory, and the elaboration likelihood model.
Hypothesis
Due to the plethora of methods connected to a number of mass communication theories employed in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it can be concluded that the program increases the social emotional development of children. The hypothesis being put forth concerns Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and its cartoon spinoff show, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and concerns the effectiveness of the two shows in promoting social emotional development in children. Since “some research suggests that children tend to learn better from stories with human, rather than anthropomorphic characters,” it is theorized that while both shows attempt to create an interpersonal connection between host and viewers, the fact that Mister Rogers is a real, human person would further promote children’s social emotional development (Rasmussen et al., 2019, p. 14). Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood uses songs and narratives and offers strategies to understand, express and regulate emotions, and Mister Roger’s Neighborhood does the same. However, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood does this in a more constructed way, with the narrative element of the ”Land of Make-Believe” being clearly defined and different from Mister Rogers’ explanation of his own life but supplementing these sections, as well as Mister Rogers utilizing props, questions, and observations to preview each episode’s lesson. On the other hand, in Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, the narrative comprises the whole of the episode, which may inhibit children’s construction of a well-formed, lesson-driven schema. Thus, due to its emphasis on building an interpersonal, human connection between host and viewer and use of various methods in each episode to convey the same lesson, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood more effectively promotes the children’s social emotional development than Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. However, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood does contribute to children’s social emotional development.
Example Research
In order to provide further merit to this hypothesis in addition to the previous sections of this paper, it should be noted that “decades of research establish that children can learn from watching well-designed educational television (Fish, 2004), and correlational evidence suggests that the effects of educational television may be long-lasting (Anderson et al, 2001; Kearney & Levine, 2019)” (Jing & Kirkorian, 2020, p. e1101). This supports the theory that both Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood promote children’s social emotional development. Also, in an experiment concerning Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, researchers found that engagement with episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood along with playing on a corresponding Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood increased the use of emotion regulation strategies amongst children aged three to six years old; their use of emotion regulation strategies was higher than those children who watched the control show and played on the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood app and those children who watched the control show and played on the control app (Rasmussen et al., 2019, p. 12). Both shows speak directly to viewers, offer lessons on understanding and expressing emotions, and use narratives as a method of teaching these lessons; thus, it can be concluded that both shows increase children’s use of emotion regulation strategies.
The researchers who conducted the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood show and app study noted that “media effects may appear only after a period of tome due to the demands of memory processing (Jensen et al., 2011)…Time may also be required to actually have experiences in which to employ the new strategies children learned via the treatment stimuli” (Rasmussen et al., 2019, p. 16). The Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood study spanned about one month (Rasmussen et al 16). The proposed study would span three months, with assessment of the children’s social emotional development being conducted before the study and at the end of each month.
In the proposed example research, there would be three groups of children: children who watch selected episodes of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, children who watch selected episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and children who watch selected episodes of a children’s program not aimed at promoting social emotional development (the control show). In keeping with the age structure used by the study mentioned above, the children of each group would be separated into groups by age; the two groups would be aged two to four years, five to six years, and seven to eight years. The Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood study separated children into groups of children aged three to four years and five to six years (Rasmussen et al., 2019, p. 12).
The Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood study also relied on self-reporting by parents (Rasmussen et al., 2019, p. 10). This method will also be used in the proposed example research, as parents would be the ones overseeing the children’s engagement with the shows, as well as are, theoretically, the most aware of the development of their children. However, it is also proposed that a team of psychologists would assess the children’s social emotional development before and throughout the experiment. The purpose of this would be to supplement the self-reporting of the parents with an objective assessment conducted by psychologists who specialize in the social emotional development of children. These assessments would focus on the children’s aptitude in recognizing, regulating, and expressing emotions, as well as their willingness to recognize, regulate, and express these emotions. By compiling and organizing these assessments from before the study and after each month, a comprehensive analysis of the effects of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood in relation to each other and the control show can be achieved.
Conclusion
Mister Roger’s Neighborhood effectively employs and intertwines social learning theory, schema theory, the Elaboration Likelihood Model, and uses and gratifications theory in order to promote the social emotional development of its young viewers. The utilization of these theories allows the show to create a highly constructed, comprehensive lesson within each episode in order to continually teach children various important lessons regarding the understanding and expression of their emotions. As such, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood aids children in comprehending and expressing the emotions of themselves and others, thus promoting their social emotional development.
References
Christensen, C. G., & Carol, M. M. (2014). Measuring Social and Emotional Content in Children’s Television: An Instrument Development Study. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 58(1), 21-41.
Craig, J. R., & Wilhelm, R. D. Pre-Production Planning: A Semiotic Analysis of Selected Educational Children’s Television Programs. Education, 110, 331-336.
Harris, K. I. (2019). Fred Rogers and Children’s Spirituality: Valuing the Uniqueness of Others and Caring for Others. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(2), 140-154.
Jing, M., and Kirkorian, H. L. (2020). Teaching with Televised Stories: A Story-Focused Narrative Preview Supports Learning in Young Children. Child Development, 91(5), e1101-e1118.
Rasmussen, E. E., Strouse, G. A., Colwell, M. J., Johnson, C. R., Holiday, S., Brady, K. … Norman, M. S. (2019). Promoting Preschoolers’ Emotional Competence Through Prosocial TV and Mobile App Use. Media Psychology, 22(1), 1-22.
Zelevansky, P. (2004). “The Good Thing”: Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 64(2), 195-208.
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