By Linda Nguyen, Tech Times
JK Rowling and her multibillion dollar book series strike again.
Harry Potter fan reading the opening lines of the final novel by author J.K. Rowling, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.’ (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
This time, Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have been linked with decreasing prejudice in stigmatized groups among students, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
Researchers led by Loris Venzalli, from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, have found that students who read and identify with the protagonist, Harry Potter, and disidentify with the antagonist, Voldemort, had higher levels of attitude improvement towards stigmatized outgroups such as immigrants, homosexuals and refugees. However, Venzalli said in the results the study only applied to people who identified with the main character or disidentified with the villian.
In the first study, researchers took data from Italian, fifth-grade elementary school students. They were asked to answer a questionnaire about their attitudes towards immigrants.
Then the students were divided into smaller groups that met with a researcher once a week for the next six weeks. They read a variety of passages in one of two conditions, prejudice and control. Passages were divided into conditions by unrelated judges.
In the experimental condition, students read passages about prejudice in the book while in the control condition, students read passages that did not mention prejudice. Afterwards, the children were administered another questionnaire that assessed attitudes towards immigrants.
Read the full article by Linda Nguyen from Tech Times.
