Social image among peers

For 6- to 11-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 scheduled Zoom session, a researcher will read aloud or show videos of age-appropriate stories to your child. The stories involve children talking with classmates and teachers in familiar situations. For example, in one story, a child is selected to lead a group project and wants people to think she is smart or nice. After each story, your child will be asked what they think about the characters, such as what they think the characters know, what kind of qualities they possess, or what a character might choose to do in a situation.

Children quickly learn that social behavior shapes how others see us. In everyday life, children make decisions about what to say, whom to associate with, and whose behavior to follow, all while considering how these choices might affect their social image. In this study, we are interested in how children think about reputation and social impressions: what kinds of actions make someone seem smart, kind, popular, or embarrassing to be connected with.

To capture the range of situations in which reputations are formed, we examine several familiar social contexts. In some stories, children consider how people might speak or act when they want to appear knowledgeable or nice to others. In conversational situations, we explore how children interpret what people choose to share or explain during interactions and what those choices reveal socially. In online and peer-group contexts, we look at how children reason about feeling embarrassed through association and how social connections can influence reputation. Finally, we examine how children think about popularity and imitation. By bringing together these different scenarios, we aim to better understand how children reason about managing impressions and navigating social reputation in their everyday social worlds.

15 minutes

Each family will receive a prize of a $10 Amazon.com gift card per child that participates, sent via email within the week after you participate. Participants must be in the age range for this study, visible in the consent video, and have never participated in this study before.