Characters play an integral role in animated narratives, but their visual racial presentation has received limited attention. A diverse group of U.S. children watched a 15-min physical activity-promoting animated Sci-Fi narrative. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, which varied the lead characters' racial presentation: realistic racially unambiguous (Original: White children, Black mother), realistic racially ambiguous (Ambiguous: All with brown skin without specified race/ethnicity), and fantastical racially ambiguous (Fantastical: All with brown skin with fantastical hair-and-eye color schemes). We assessed narrative engagement, wishful identification, and physical activity intention. Controlling for social desirability and multigroup ethnic identity, children who watched Fantastical characters showed significantly higher narrative engagement than those who watched Original characters, but they did not statistically differ from those who watched Ambiguous characters. Structural equation modeling indicated that narrative engagement and wishful identification fully mediated the racial representation effect (Fantastical vs. Original) on physical activity intention.

中文翻译：

---

动画科幻角色的种族呈现对儿童叙事参与、愿望认同和体育活动意图的影响。


角色在动画叙事中发挥着不可或缺的作用，但他们的视觉种族表现受到的关注有限。一群不同的美国儿童观看了 15 分钟的促进体育活动的动画科幻叙事。他们被随机分配到三个条件之一，这会改变主角的种族表现：现实的种族明确（原始：白人儿童，黑人母亲），现实的种族模糊（模糊：所有棕色皮肤，没有指定的种族/民族），以及梦幻般的种族模糊（梦幻般的：所有人都有棕色皮肤，有着梦幻般的头发和眼睛的配色方案）。我们评估了叙事参与度、一厢情愿的认同和身体活动意图。在控制了社会期望和多群体种族身份的情况下，观看奇幻角色的孩子比观看原创角色的孩子表现出明显更高的叙事参与度，但他们与观看模糊角色的孩子没有统计差异。结构方程模型表明，叙事参与和一厢情愿的认同充分调节了种族表征效应（幻想与原始）对体育活动意图的影响。