Princess Picture Books: Content and Messages.

ABSTRACTBecause many girls develop their understanding of what it means to be a girl from books about princesses, the researchers coded the messages and content in 58 princess books (picture, fairy tales, and fractured fairy tales). Results indicate that gender stereotypes are present in the books—the princesses were more likely to be nurturing, in distress, naive, and homemakers than the princes. Most princesses were valued for their beauty, gave up their lives for the princes, and did not gain status from the intimate relationships, which progressed quickly without an initial friendship. All books had prosocial content and had negative content. Although few books were generally positive, educational, appropriate for the intended audience, or realistic in problem resolution, books with a child princess received higher overall evaluations and lower negative content scores. The Disney books were not worse than the other books that included nonchild princess characters; however, they were more problematic b...