Children's reasoning about exceptional events

For 5-7-year-olds, who are fluent in English (either monolingual English speakers, or multilingual with regular (50% or more) exposure to English in their daily lives, counting both at home and at school)

This study will take place over a video call 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. In this study, your child will be watching a series of short videos about a character who deviates from their normal routine. Your child will be answering short questions related to each of the stories. Before the study session, you will receive an online consent form and brief demographic survey, which you will need to fill out before participation.

The purpose of this study is to help us better understand how children think about events in the past and how they could have turned out differently. This type of thinking is called counterfactual thinking. It involves imagining alternatives to past events by making changes to the event. When we think counterfactually, some events are easier to “undo” to change the outcome of past events than others. Previous research suggests that one of these events we tend to be biased to undo is exceptional events. For example, if you were to take the train to work when you usually drive, and then the train gets delayed so you don’t make it to work on time, most adults will tend to think “if only I had driven to work as usual, then I would not have been late”. In this study, we seek to determine whether children tend to show the same reasoning bias towards exceptional events that adults show.

10 mins

For families residing in Canada, you will receive a $5 gift card to Indigo after participation. For families residing in the United States, you will receive a $5 gift card to Amazon.com after participation. To be eligible for compensation, you must meet all of the following criteria: (1) Your child falls within the specified age range for this study, and meets the language requirements and (2) you provide recorded verbal consent. Each child is eligible to participate to receive a gift card only once; participants cannot do the study more than once for compensation. You will receive your gift card via email within 1-10 business days after participation.