What did the parents and friends do?

For English speaking 4- to 8-year-olds!

Your child will watch two videos about different children. In these videos, a child will encounter a novel toy and the toy will be described as either "bad and dangerous" or "good and safe". The child will then have the toy taken away by one of two people and your child will be asked who they believe is the child's parent or friend.

The role of a parent includes protecting one's child from harm. In this study, we explore whether very young children (1) hold this same intuition and (2) use this core belief about a parents' role to make judgments about people (i.e., who would take/give something bad) and about the world itself (i.e., which novel objects are potentially unsafe). This study and its findings will increase our understanding of not only how children think about their caregivers but also whether these early beliefs shape how they learn from them.

10 minutes

We will email you a $5 Amazon gift card within a week of participation.

To be eligible for the gift card: (1) your child must be in the age range for this study, (2) English is (one of) your child's first language(s), (3) you need to have submitted a valid consent statement, and (4) we need to see that there is a child with you during the experiment. Each child is eligible to participate in the study and receive a gift card only once.