Let's Find The Stars!

For 4- to 9-year-old children

In this study, your child will play a card game with stars! Your child will learn about the cards, make some choices while playing with the cards (e.g., which card to peek at after they are turned over and shuffled) and then answer a few short questions.

Young children enter the world as novices; once they begin trying their hand at new things, they start experiencing success on tasks they did not know they could succeed on (e.g., getting a lucky draw of stars in a card game with only few stars). These 'unexpected success' experiences are joyful and surprising. Here, we investigate what brings about such 'unexpected success' experiences, and how young children respond to them. This study will help us understand what sparks children’s surprise and enhances their desire to continue learning about themselves and the world.

10 minutes

We will send you a $5 Amazon.com gift card within a week. To be eligible for the gift card, (1) your child must be in the age range for this study, (2) you need to submit a valid consent statement, and (3) we need to see that there is a child with you during the experiment. Each child can only participate in this study once.