Speaker: Si Jia Wu @SiJia05
Affiliation: University of Toronto
Co-authors: Keith Oatley (University of Toronto)
Title: Enjoyment of manga stories predicts psychosocial well-being in teenagers
Short Abstract: Japanese comics, or manga, are attracting teenage readers worldwide. The appeal stems from stories of young characters behaving in capacities beyond their age. Parents worry teenagers will adopt such behaviors and develop psychosocial problems. To address these concerns, we examined teenagers’ enjoyment of manga stories in relation to their psychosocial well-being. We asked 290 teenagers questions from the Manga Engagement Index (MEI) that we developed, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and engagement with other narrative and comic media, we found that more enjoyment of manga stories was related to better psychosocial well-being.
Long abstract
Manga stories have seen a surge in global readership over the past decade, particularly among teenagers. These emotionally rich stories, depicted through a unique combination of drawings and text, offer a distinctive narrative experience that engages readers in profound ways. Many of the most popular manga stories depict young characters attempting tasks beyond their age, commonly the child hero who must fight to rid the world of evil. This has formed the impression of manga as a form of violent media. Despite concerns from some parents about the potential for manga to encourage antisocial behaviors and mental health issues, there is a lack of empirical research addressing these worries. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating how the enjoyment of manga stories influences adolescents’ psychosocial well-being.
We hypothesized that more enjoyment of manga stories would be predictive of better psychosocial well-being. This hypothesis is grounded in empirical results on reading conventional fiction, that engagement with stories enhances empathy, prosocial behaviors, and reduces stress. We theorized that engagement with manga stories would yield similar results to findings on conventional fiction because drawings within manga are capable of eliciting more emotional inferencing from the reader than other comics. This theory is supported by research comparing the illustrations within manga to that within American comics. Namely, it has been found that American comics include more framed drawings of one action followed by another, whereas manga include detailed portrayals of the environment (e.g., a reflective glass window of a skyscraper catching the sunlight) and subtle movements (e.g., eyes narrowing), which we believe elicit more emotions.
To test this hypothesis, we recruited teenagers between ages 13 to 17, who have read manga at least once in their memory. Both teenagers and their parents were contacted for their assent and consent prior to commencing the study. The resulting participants included 290 teenagers (129 males, Mean age = 15.68, SD age = 1.18). They were given an online survey that included 25 questions from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which we used to assess three psychosocial outcomes: externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and prosocial behaviors. Each question asked participants to reflect on the past six months and rate the extent to which a statement was true for them on a 3-point scale. Statements such as “I get very angry and often lose my temper” and “I am constantly fidgeting or squirming” were scored to assess externalizing problems. Internalizing problems included statements as “I worry a lot” and “Other people pick on or bully me”. Prosocial behaviors asked for responses on “I am helpful if someone is hurt, upset, or feeling ill”. Additionally, participants were asked about their enjoyment of manga stories through the Manga Engagement Index (MEI), which we developed. The MEI presented 20 items for teenagers to rate, on a 7-point scale, the extent to which each statement captured their experience of engaging with manga. Some items captured enjoyment of reading manga such as “I have trouble putting down a manga volume once I start reading it” or “I find reading manga to be enjoyable”. Other items captured negative experiences such as “I find manga stories to be childish” or “I find manga stories to be inappropriate for youths”. These items were reverse coded prior to obtaining a summed score on enjoyment of manga stories. Finally, participants were asked to rate on a 7-point scale, about their engagement with other narrative (e.g., novels, films, TV shows) and comic media (e.g., American comics, cartoons, video games) through a modified version of the Visual Language Fluency Index (modified-VLFI).
We conducted a multiple hierarchical linear regression on z-scored psychosocial outcome and enjoyment of manga scores. We entered age in the first step, gender second, and ethnicity in the third step. This was followed by narrative media engagement in the fourth step and comic media engagement in the fifth step. After controlling for the previously entered variables, enjoyment of manga stories was entered in the last step.
Our results showed that enjoyment of manga stories significantly predicted each psychosocial outcome (ps < 0.01), even after accounting for age, gender, ethnicity, and engagement with other narrative and comic media. Adolescents who had more enjoyment of manga stories exhibited less externalizing (β = -0.42) and internalizing problems (β = -0.26), and more prosocial behaviours (β = 0.21).
These findings significantly contribute to empirical research on literature and media with evidence on the positive psychosocial effects of reading manga, a narrative medium that has never before been evaluated for its psychological impact. This additionally challenges parental assumptions about the negative impact of manga, highlighting its potential benefits. Overall, our study underscores the importance of experiencing stories in multimodal mediums, such as manga. Future research should continue to explore the diverse impacts of different narrative forms on psychological and social well-being.