Will they share a cookie?

For 14-to-18 month olds

In this study, your baby will watch a series of animated videos featuring two characters interacting with one another. In some of these videos, these characters might be nuzzling/dancing with one another, or pushing one another out of the way. In others, these characters will either be sharing or not sharing a cookie. During these sharing/not sharing interactions, you will be asked to keep track of how long your baby looks at the screen, pressing the spacebar after they look away for 3 seconds.

In this study, we are interested in whether infants have rich concepts of relationships. Specifically, we want to find out whether infants expect characters to relate to one another in similar ways across contexts -- for example, if the characters act like they are in a close relationship by nuzzling or mimicking one another, will infants also expect those characters to share food (in this case, a cookie)? We believe that, if they do, it might be because we are "born with" some basic idea of relationships.

15 minutes

You will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card after participating. Families will still receive compensation if they stop early. To be eligible, your child must be within the study age range and visible in the study video, including any portion recorded before stopping. Each child may participate and receive a gift card only once. The gift card will be sent through Children Helping Science within 2 weeks.