Samantha Russell MSc

Research Overview

I’m interested in the influences of character realism on young children's understanding of picture book stories. Specifically, I am exploring children's responses to anthropomorphised characters, in comparison with more realistically depicted human protagonists. My PhD studies children’s relative mental and emotional state attributions for human, real animal and anthropomorphised animals. Individual differences in internal state attributions are examined in relation to children’s narrative recall and internal state references when telling stories. Additionally, prosocial outcomes following moral tales in relation to character realism is explored.