The Neighborhood of Make Believe

The Neighborhood of Make Believe

by Angelina M. Hart, NYSPEP Coordinator

Recently, an old Fox News video resurfaced and was posted to Huffington Post. The video spends several minutes criticizing Mr. Rogers for telling children they are special, based on a statement by Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, blaming Mr. Rogers for creating a generation of students who feel entitled.

Fox News also mentions the increase of narcissism among college students, based on a scientific study led by a psychiatrist at San Diego State University. However, in researching this piece, I found no mention of Mr. Rogers being cited as the causal factor for increased narcissism, aside from Don Chance's unqualified statement.

Interestingly, San Diego State University Psychology Professor Jean Twenge, writes, "The MTV show 'My Super Sweet Sixteen' has done 100 times more to normalize narcissism than Mr. Rogers ever did."

It should come as no surprise that -according to one source- Don Chance later contacted Fox News, retracting previous statements against Mr Rogers admitting, "I have no professional qualifications to evaluate the real problems or propose solutions." Moreover, Don Chance mistakenly confuses merit (earned) with value (intrinsic).

Sadly, irresponsible journalism has become mainstream. Most audience members don't know how to discern responsible journalism from inflated hype used to increase ratings, which saturates Fox's video. Fox could have cited the full source of the original statement against Mr. Rogers as coming from a finance professor. Audience members capable of critical reasoning skills might question his qualifications for making such a statement. Mentioning the scientific study on narcissism misleads by supposition that somehow the scientific study supports Don Chance's unqualified claim, which is a fallacy.

NYSPEP received a communication from Kenneth Barish, Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at Weill Medical College, Cornell University, in response to the recently resurfaced Fox video. We invite you to read his response, published by Huff Post Parents (Huffington Post). Please CLICK HERE to view his qualified response.