Against the Odds

Children between 10 and 11 years of age

In this survey, your child will answer some questions about inequality and social mobility in a hypothetical society. They will also hear stories about characters with varying work ethics. From this, we will learn more about how children think about fairness and inequality! This study will begin with a brief demographic survey that you (the parent!) will complete for yourself and your child. Then, you will be directed to schedule a guided Zoom interview for your child with a trained research assistant. In the interview, your child will listen to a story read by the research assistant and answer questions about what societies look like, whether they are fair, and how characters within societies might behave.

The purpose of this research is to understand how children ages 6-11 perceive and evaluate fairness and inequalities within a society. While previous research has shown that children recognize and evaluate societal inequalities, it is not yet known how characters' work ethics and societal conditions may influence those evaluations. Therefore, we are interested in how learning about different outcomes for the people living in the society may change children’s fairness perceptions. This study will help us better understand children’s perceptions of inequalities and if examples of different outcomes for the characters influence these perceptions!

20-30 minutes

Within one week of participating, you will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card to thank you for your time. To receive compensation, you must be eligible to participate in the study. This means that you (the parent) are 18 years of age or older, have a child between 6 and 11 years of age, live in the United States, and are able to read and complete a short survey in English. Children must be between 6 to 11 years of age, live in the United States, be able to answer questions with an experimenter over Zoom, and have not participated in the study before.