Effects of televised safety models on children's risk taking and hazard identification

Objective: To examine effects of televised safety models on children's willingness to take physical risks and their ability to identify injury hazards in common situations. Methods: Sixty children, between the ages of five and eight years, were exposed to one of three TV stimulus programs: (1) a safety educational videotape, in which actors engaged in dangerous behavior, suffered injuries, and then enacted alternative safe behaviors; (2) an animated cartoon, which portrayed characters engaged in safety behaviors incidental to the main story line; or (3) the same cartoon program edited to omit the scenes depicting safety behavior. Children's willingness to take physical risks was measured before and after the TV stimulus by a series of pictorial child-relevant scenarios in which they could indicate the level of risk they would take. They also completed pretest and posttest measures of hazard identification, in which they were to identify injury hazards in several pictorial scenarios. Results: Exposure to the safety educational videotape decreased children's willingness to take physical risks and increased their identification of injury hazards. Exposure to the animated cartoon with incidental safety components did not affect risk taking, but did increase ability to identify hazards. Conclusions: Findings are interpreted as evidence of observational learning and priming of thematically related knowledge by the television stimuli. Implications for safety educational curricula are discussed.