Psychological Effects of Reading

Children read mainly for emotional expression and satisfaction rather than information and knowledge. At this time, the child experiences many contradictions, conflicts and tensions. Through reading, it is often possible for him, in one way or another, to resolve or at least minimize such conflicts and thus, gain a certain measure of psychic relief. Undoubtedly, a major part of the child's motivations to read comes from such psychological bases and undoubtedly, a large part of children's reading serves that function.

One area in the psychological use of communication centers upon violence in books and aggressiveness in children. Whether we like it or not, many children want to read such materials as fairy tales, comic books, adventure, crime and detective stories. They are absorbed in them and they would object strenuously to relinquishing them. There can be no doubt that such material exercises a strong attraction upon ceertain children or that it is psychologically valuable for them. But the m ain problem is to find out just how and to what extent this process actually operates. Under what conditions it is more or less effective? Perhaps such reading can discharge minor feelings of aggression, but will it intensify the major ones? For what kind of children is it effective? What kind of children use it to excess? Do children show any evidence of progression in this use of reading? What are the content characteristics most appropriate for such reading? In this connection, it must be recognized that just the opposite may occur and in some cases it undoubtedly does; that is, reading of materials may stimulate aggressive feelings rather than relieve them. The identification of the conditions under which it does so is obviously basic. The least we can do to solve the problem is to control or manipulate some of the stimuli of violence which come to the attention of children and young people to enable them to live calmer and freer lives.

Another significant psychological problem has to do with the use of reading or other communication to provide sources of identification which bolster the child's sense of prestige, power and general affectional levels. Children and young people who in their real life are not strong enough, or brave enough, or bright enough, or loved enough, or successful enough --- or who feel that they are not, which amounts to the same thing --- can sometimes, to some extent, repair such psychic lacks through reading. Several studies agree on a few points to support the fact that young readers do identify with fictional characters (although it is often not precisely clear just what is meant by identification). Secondly, such identification is selective; that is, it does not proceed by chance nor does it automatically correspond to the major characters. The child's identification comes from his predispositions --- the kind of person he is. In this selective process, the child identifies with fictional characters in conformity with his own personality or his own needs. He identifies most frequently with characters who are like himself in some regard. Thirdly, whether this means, as one writer claims, that "fiction can only stimulate what is already there, even though in a latent form," it does seem clear that children and young people derive gratification from their reading by expanding their egos, in the technical sense, to include the fictional characters they read about.