"The Office" to study social skills - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

genuinegirly · 05-15-2009, 06:58 AM

I was browsing CNN when I found a novel use of one of my favorite television series. It seemed like good fodder for discussion.

I snipped the following article a bit. Here's a link to the full article: Mothers' talk is key to kids' social skills, study says - CNN.com

Quote:

Mothers' talk is key to kids' social skills, study says

By Elizabeth Landau

(CNN) --
Research from the United Kingdom shows that the way mothers talk to their children at a young age influences their social skills later in childhood.

The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, found that children whose mothers often talked to them about people's feelings, beliefs, wants and intentions developed better social understanding than children whose mothers did not.

In the first part of the study, mothers were asked to talk to their 3-year-old children about a series of pictures depicting scenes such as a child coming out of school looking happy and people waiting in line. Children whose mothers talked about the mental state of characters in the picture tended to perform better on social understanding tasks, the researchers found.

The effect persisted when the researchers revisited the families -- 57 of them remained in the study until the end -- on an almost yearly basis. The authors controlled for socioeconomic status and IQ of the mothers and found that these factors were not as relevant.

"You can predict even from when the children are 3 or 4 what their social understanding will be like when they're 8 or 9," said Nicola Yuill, lead author and senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Sussex in England.

For one test of social understanding, children 8 and older watched clips of the British television series "The Office" and were prompted to answer questions about the situations: for example, the way the main character, David Brent, embarrasses people without realizing it. Children also judged other people's feelings from pictures and explained what they would do in hypothetical situations involving other people's feelings.

"The communication of empathy is just about the most important thing you can do," said Nancy Weisman, a psychologist in Marietta, Georgia, who was not involved with the study. "Every single moment of the day, you have situations in which you can teach this."

When they began the study 14 years ago, researchers focused on mothers because it was difficult to find fathers who spent as much time at home with their young children. It may be easier to find fathers to participate today, Yuill said.

Weisman recommends to her patients that they use opportunities such as television shows and movies to talk to children about what the characters may be feeling as a result of the actions on screen. If someone is yelling at the supermarket, this is another chance to talk to a child about other people's feelings, she said.

It's essential for both mothers and fathers to give children a vocabulary of feelings, said Dawn Huebner, a psychologist in Exeter, New Hampshire, who sees children ages 6 to 12. Children don't always realize what their emotions are and need to have words to describe them in order to become more empathetic, she said.

The finding underscores the need to not only talk about feelings and mental states but to also indicate to children how to deal with those feelings, she said.

Do you think the british television series The Office is appropriate for this study?
If you are a parent, have you seen benefit to discussing feelings as they describe?
As a child, do you recall your mother speaking with you about social signals and feelings? Did this benefit your peer interactions?

______________________________________________________________
Do you think the british television series The Office is appropriate for this study?
The first time I watched this television series, I was horrified, and yet I enjoyed it. I had to walk out of the room at times, or I'd pace as I dealt with the awkward situations before me. Since this show is a comedy, I don't really know if it's applicable for the study, but I see why they would choose to use clips from the show.
If you are a parent, have you seen benefit to discussing feelings as they describe?
N/A
As a child, do you recall your mother speaking with you about social signals and feelings? Did this benefit your peer interactions?
My mother was never good at picking up on social subtilties. She couldn't understand most jokes. She often spoke with me about her own feelings, though. There were frequently situations where I didn't pick up on humor. I often empathized with the person who was the butt of a joke, and it confused me when someone made a joke about their own shortcomings. It took me a while to become comfortable in social situations. I don't know how much of this is based on the behavior of my mother, her active attempts or her passive model.

roachboy · 05-15-2009, 07:24 AM

(a)

i think the uk office is brilliant. everything about it. getting kids to study ricky gervais is also brilliant. whether it produces the desired outcomes or not is hard to say---recently i read in the atlantic piece about the us financial oligarchy some snippets from authors of books that had been published across the 90s that were supposed to denounce the lunacy/lack of accountability and/or transparency within wall street---these folk were dismayed that their tell-all books were understood by hundreds upon hundreds of b-school students as how-to manuals.

so you never know.

btw the uk version is infinitely smarter and funnier than the american version. this even though i like the american cast.

(c)

i'm trying to imagine the catastrophes that would have been engendered had my mother tried to explain the world of social interactions from her particular---um---viewpoint. as it was, my main Instruction in anything like this regard came by way of table manners. apparently she thought that if i understood the meaning of sequences of forks on one side and spoons on the other and never fucked it up, i'd be good to go---so i could be inept in every other way, but the ability to navigate thickets of cutlery at table was basically pushing reset.

strangely, i found over the years that she was right.
what she left out, of course, were the complications that can follow from hitting the wine too early, before the food comes.
but that too is reflected in cutlery chaos, so i suppose she was also correct that way.

and it was better that she thought like this. trust me.

05-15-2009, 07:24 AM	#2 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	(a) i think the uk office is brilliant. everything about it. getting kids to study ricky gervais is also brilliant. whether it produces the desired outcomes or not is hard to say---recently i read in the atlantic piece about the us financial oligarchy some snippets from authors of books that had been published across the 90s that were supposed to denounce the lunacy/lack of accountability and/or transparency within wall street---these folk were dismayed that their tell-all books were understood by hundreds upon hundreds of b-school students as how-to manuals. so you never know. btw the uk version is infinitely smarter and funnier than the american version. this even though i like the american cast. (c) i'm trying to imagine the catastrophes that would have been engendered had my mother tried to explain the world of social interactions from her particular---um---viewpoint. as it was, my main Instruction in anything like this regard came by way of table manners. apparently she thought that if i understood the meaning of sequences of forks on one side and spoons on the other and never fucked it up, i'd be good to go---so i could be inept in every other way, but the ability to navigate thickets of cutlery at table was basically pushing reset. strangely, i found over the years that she was right. what she left out, of course, were the complications that can follow from hitting the wine too early, before the food comes. but that too is reflected in cutlery chaos, so i suppose she was also correct that way. and it was better that she thought like this. trust me. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite