So, that’s the way he does it … justice keeps Punch popular
THE enduring appeal of Punch & Judy may stem from the justice ultimately faced by Mr Punch rather than his slapstick antics, a new study suggests.
Child psychologists at the University of Illinois found that children as young as 17 months expect leaders to intervene when one member of their group transgresses against another.
Usually at the end of a Punch & Judy performance, the eponymous hero has been taken to task by a policeman or, sometimes, a crocodile.
For the new study the team invited 120 infants to watch puppet shows in which one bear was the leader, and two other bears fought over toys.
The research relied on a wellestablished method that gives insight into the thoughts of children who cannot yet speak, because they typically stare longer at events that unfold in ways they do not expect.
They found that when the head bear failed to intervene in wrongdoing by one of the puppets the infants stared longer at the leader.
The children also stared longer at the wrongdoer bear than they stared at the victim bear when the leader ignored the transgression, as if something about the wrongdoer would explain the leader’s reluctance to correct her.
Psychology professor Renée Baillargeon, said: “It suggests that infants already have expectations about how leaders should behave and that they evaluate leaders as either conforming or not conforming to these expectations. It means that they expect parents, teachers and other authority figures to correct the situation when a transgression occurs.”
She said it could explain the popularity of Punch & Judy and fairy tales.
“An expectation of fairness does appear to be innate. This is partly why they enjoy fairy tales.”
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.