Which donuts give the most points?

5-year-olds OR 10-year-olds

Your child will play a game called DonutFest! They will be shown different pictures of donuts that vary in their color and the number of sprinkles. The goal of the game is to reach 100 points! Some of the donuts will make your child lose points, and some of the donuts will make your child win points. After playing several rounds of the game, your child will select which donuts they think are "good" donuts that made them win points and which donuts are "bad" donuts that made them lose points.

As adults, we tend to pay attention to and remember negative information more than positive information. This "negativity bias" affects how we seek out information and also how we recall information. In fact, the negativity bias is so strong that we often see neutral information as more negative than positive! Yet, we do not know whether this "negativity bias" is present in children as it is in adults. In this study, your children will play the DonutFest game, which will allow us to see if they learn "bad" donuts more effectively than "good" donuts. Also, we can see if children tend to view neutral donuts as more "bad" than "good."

20 minutes

To thank you for your child's participation, you will receive a $5 Amazon.com e-gift card within 2 weeks of your child's participation. To be eligible for the gift card, your child must be in the age range for the study, you need to provide a valid consent statement, we need to see that there is a child with you during the video consent, and this needs to be your child's first time participating in the study.