Hi Having just read "The Sneetches" for the umpteenth time to my son, I've decided to follow up with TIPs a question (psychological!) that I've often wondered about. One of the interesting phenomenon observed in repeated surveys of people's attitudes, for example to the idea of a Black President, is that attitudes change much more markedly across generations (cohorts) than within a generation (birth cohort). In some such surveys, attitudes are remarkably stable within-cohorts and markedly changed (improved) across cohorts. This raises the interesting question of what produces the generational change.
There are innumerable possibilities, but I wonder about Dr. Seuss's role. For those not familiar with the Sneetches, the story involves star-bellied Sneetches who hold themselves superior to Sneetches without stars, until Sylvester McMonkey McBean comes along with his star-on (and star-off) machine to take everyone's money putting on and taking off stars until no one knows who was who (and no one eventually cares!). I wonder whether children incorporate the clear object lesson of this Seuss poem, and what its impact on adult attitudes might be in a very general way. It is not specific to race, ethnicity, gender, whatever, but clearly communicates the arbitrariness of much discrimination. Not easy to see how to evaluate empirically, although some things come to mind, such as surveys of people's exposure to Seuss, perhaps across cultures, and their attitudes toward various groups (or perhaps their attitude toward discrimination in general), or perhaps even experimental exposure of children to the Sneetches. A number of Seuss's other poems are similarly enlightening, depending perhaps on your political orientation (e.g., Yertle the Turtle). Happy New Year, and as always, Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected] Department of Psychology University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 CANADA --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
