How Stories in the Media Can Be Meaningful in Children’s Lives

Figures & data

Figure 1. How challenges in the plot-story construction can be an opportunity for growth.

Table 1. How children followed the protagonist on her adventure and with doing so acquired the same insights as her.

Character Arc of Joy^1	Following the Character Arc^2
Believe in the Lie	Level 1: Joy is the Way to Happiness and Sadness is Annoying At this level, children concur with Joy’s initial perspective on life that it is important to strive for joy and that sadness should be avoided. When asking what an interviewee was thinking of Joy aiming to prevent Riley from being sad, he responded: “Good. […] I never want to be sad.” (Boy, 7 years old) In one interview, a girl (8 years old) said that she only had happy memories, which was acknowledged by her friend: “Yes, these are fun. Sad things are stupid.” (Girl, 9 years old)
Moment of Truth	Level 2: Sadness is Actually Important Just like Joy, children become to discover that sadness is important. However, they do not fully embrace sadness (yet) and have ambivalent feelings toward this emotion. Children at this level do not completely understand why exactly sadness is important but do think that she belongs. The following part of an interview exemplifies this: Interviewer: “And what do you think of Sadness should stay in that circle [so she cannot make Riley sad]?” Interviewee: “Not good.” Interviewer: “No, why not?” Interviewee: “Because … uh … Sadness should also just … [Silence]” (Girl, 10 years old)
Embrace the Truth	Level 3: Sadness has Unique Qualities that We Need to Embrace At this level, children can explain why sadness is important. They understand that sadness can trigger others to give comfort, hugs, and help. The following part of an interview illustrates that a child understands why Sadness, compared to Joy, was better at connecting to Bing Bong when he was sad: Interviewee: “Then she [Sadness] is going to hug and then she [Joy] goes, thinks uh … : ‘How did you…’ and that’s what she said here [points at the still where Joy asks Sadness:] ‘How did you do that?’” Interviewer: “Yes, […]. Do you know the answer to that question? How did she do that?” Interviewee: “Uh … because she said [to Bing Bong]: ‘I feel sorry for you.’” Interviewer: “Hmm, hmm. To Bing Bong indeed. Joy is very surprised that it worked. Because why didn’t Joy succeed?” Interviewee: “Because she made jokes. And that does not help.” (Boy, 6 years old)
A New Life	Level 4: To Live a Full Life it is Important that All Emotions Work Together At this final level, children understand that all emotions are unique and important, and that collaboration between them is needed to live a full and happy life. Children indicated that this is something we learn when growing up. The following quotes exemplify thinking at this level. This was upon watching Joy’s revelation about the importance of Sadness: Interviewer: “Joy discovers something here. Do you know what she discovers here?” Interviewee: “Teamwork.” Interviewer: “Yes, teamwork. […] Can you explain that a bit more?” Interviewee: “That it is better for them [all emotions] to work all together, to make sure she [Riley] has a good life, than … for Joy to do everything on her own.” (Boy, 10 years old)

¹The character arc of Joy is based on the story structure of Inside Out (Weiland, 2016b) and knowledge on storytelling (Campbell, 2008; Vogler, 2020; Weiland, 2016a). ²These levels were constructed from the data.

Figure 2. How children search for and find meaning in a film story.

Figure 3. To what extent stories can be meaningful.

Weiland, K. M. (2016b). Inside Out. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/movie-storystructure/inside-out/

 Google Scholar

Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. New World Library.

 Google Scholar

Vogler, C. (2020). The writer’s journey: Mythic structure for writers. Michael Wiese Productions.

 Google Scholar

Weiland, K. M. (2016a). Creating character arcs: The masterful author’s guide to uniting story structure, plot, and character development. PenForASword Publishing.

 Google Scholar

Data Availability Statement

The data generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the first author upon reasonable request.