Sharing Information in Close Relationships

For children aged 6 years and 0 months to 9 years and 11 months, who are based in the US.

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Participate Now!” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. In this Zoom-based study, your child will listen to stories about animated characters to choose to share or not share different types of information to other characters. Your child will then answer a series of questions to gauge how they think about the characters in the story.

Past research suggests that children are sensitive to different types of information and expect some kinds of information (e.g. secrets) to be shared with close individuals more than with people who are not close. We aim to investigate whether children think two characters are closer based off of the information they share, and whether they expect a character to share a certain piece of information based off of their relationship with the other characters. This study will help us better understand how children begin to think think about norms of communication within close relationships.

15-20 minutes

After children complete the study session, they will receive a $5 online gift card and a certificate of participation within 1-2 business days. To receive the gift cards and certificate, the child must be within the age range for our study. Each child will only receive one gift card per session. We can compensate participants with an Amazon US gift cards, or with alternative online gift cards (e.g., Target). We'll ask you about what gift cards work for your family, and we'll work with our lab managers to get you a suitable gift card.