Do children expect helpers to be nice?

For 4- to 7-year-olds

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. During the appointment, your child will hear a short story about a protagonist who chooses to help or not help someone else. We will then ask your child whether they think the protagonist will help a different person in new situations.

Prior research has shown that children often struggle to use their observations of people's helpful or unhelpful behavior to predict their future behavior. However, perhaps children require specific types of evidence to form predictions about people's future actions? In this study, we emphasize that the characters are not required to act, but intentionally sacrifice their time or resources in order to act in helpful (or unhelpful) ways. This study asks whether this type of evidence helps children determine who is likely to act in "good" or helpful ways towards other people in the future.

10 minutes

You will receive a $5 gift card to the Amazon US site (https://www.amazon.com/) for completing this study. In order to receive this payment, your child will need to be within our specified age range, your child will need to be visible throughout the video, and you will only be able to receive one gift card per child. You will receive payment within 1 week of participation.