What do babies know about friendship?

For 18 to 23 month-olds.

In this study, your baby will sit in your lap and see a series of short videos showing animated shapes engaging in friendly actions (like imitating each other) or unfriendly actions (like hitting or ignoring each other). In other videos, a third shape will watch the interactions and display happy or sad emotions. During the study, we will record your child's looking behavior and ask you to help us keep track of when your child stops paying attention to the screen. After the study is over, we will ask you a few questions about your baby's social interactions (for example, information about siblings and daycare).

We are interested in how babies expect characters with friendly or antagonistic relationships to treat each other. For example, will someone be happy or unhappy if they see their friend and their rival behaving warmly towards each other? Your babies looking towards our videos will tell us about their expectations towards different social interactions. This research will help us understand how babies think about the social world.

15 minutes

You will be compensated with a $5 Amazon.com e-gift-card that you will receive over email within 1-2 weeks of participating in the study. To be eligible for this gift-card, you must submit a valid consent form, your child must be visible during the study, and your child must be in the correct age range for this study. Each child can only recieve a single gift-card.