Naive teddy bears and spooky Bugs Bunny bring a lot of fun to kids. Don’t underestimate these toys, they can also make adults more genuine and friendly too.
Shreedhari Desai and others, researchers at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, recruited a group of adult subjects and put them in two different rooms, one with fun dolls, cartoons, colored pencils, etc., and the other without these “childlike” decorations. It was found that even with the stimulus to encourage people to “lie for a benefit,” the number of lies decreased by 20% in the subjects who had toys around them compared to those in the regular room. In addition, their overall behavior and mindset showed more kindness, generosity, and willingness to help others.
So it seems that it’s not hard to create a harmonious and friendly environment, and a few small toys in the room might make it easy to “fix” it.