Name: Rebekah Richert
Category: Culture: Harry Potter
Title: Assistant Professor of Psychology
Degree: Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2003
Areas of Expertise: Many parents are concerned about what their children take away from the specific content of certain fantasy worlds, such as the use of violence to resolve conflict, disrespect for authority and believing the fantasy world is actually real, Richert says.
"This is particularly problematic when discussing 'realistic fantasy,' as in the case of Harry Potter, whose 'fantastical' world involves a number of realistic elements," such as the presence of the Muggle world, which gives the stories a realistic feel and the very real existence of paganism outside of the Harry Potter series.
Research suggests that children often enjoy and persist in entertaining fantastical possibilities - which has also been connected to factors like increased creativity -but they are also fully able to reason rationally about those fantastical possibilities when a situation demands such reasoning, Richert says.
"Thus, in many senses, children's enjoyment of fantasy worlds like the Harry Potter series could be considered an outcome of and benefit to a naturally creative mind. If parents are concerned about their children's exposure to fantasy worlds like Harry Potter's, they should take whatever action they feel is appropriate, whether it's reducing their children's exposure to the fantasy altogether or engaging their children in conversation about it," she says.
Recognition: Professor Richert has opened a Childhood Cognition Lab at UCR. Recent projects seek to discover: whether preschoolers can transfer their problem solving skills from fantasy to reality; whether children ages 4 to 12 have internalized the concept of the soul and tell the difference between the soul and the mind; and the impact on adolescents raised in homes where parental religious beliefs differ. Professor Richert studies children's intellectual development as it relates to pretense, imagination, and religion. Studying metaphysical thought in children, before they have received scientific instruction about the world, may give us insight into the default thought processes of the mind and the cognitive tools to which children have access as they develop. Preschoolers' abilities to creatively imagine have been linked with a number of positive intellectual and social outcomes by social scientists, including higher intelligence and more developed social skills.
Outside Activities: Before arriving at UC Riverside in July, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
Languages Spoken: English
E-mail: rebekah.richert@ucr.edu
Phone: 951-827-8404
Preferred Media: Print, Radio, Video
Media Contact:
- Bettye Miller
bettye.miller@ucr.edu
(951) 827-7847