The Impact of Personalized Storybooks on Children's Altruistic Sharing Behavior

This study examines the impact of making a child the main character in a picture storybook about sharing by incorporating their photo and name into the story about their altruistic sharing behavior. A total of 315 children, aged 5 to 6 years, participated in the study. The children were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a personalized sharing story group, a non-personalized sharing story group, and a neutral story group. Each child was given 20 stickers and asked to select their 10 favorites. They were then allowed to share any number of these 10 stickers with an unknown child, should they choose to do so. Following this initial sharing process, children were read a picture storybook corresponding to their assigned group. After the story was read, the sticker-sharing task was repeated. The results indicate that children reading a personalized storybook exhibited a significantly higher increase in sharing behavior than those reading a non-personalized or neutral storybook. Additionally, it was found that children who were read a non-personalized sharing story demonstrated a significantly higher increase in sharing behavior than those in the neutral story group. These findings suggest that personalized picture storybooks can effectively promote altruistic sharing behavior in early childhood.