Children’s and Teens’ Views on Bioethical Decisions

For 13- to 17-year olds living in the United States

We are doing a study about how people evaluate others responding to someone’s suffering. In a series of five short stories, a terminally-ill patient requests a special medicine from two observers in order to end their life peacefully. One of the observers will agree to help the patient, while another will refuse. Participants will be asked to make judgements about the observers' choices (i.e., whether they were "good" or "bad" decisions; which observer they prefer; etc.) from a third-party perspective, which total to twelve brief questions repeating for each short story.

In developmental psychology, we've begun to understand how children and adults make hypothetical decisions concerning a variety of moral dilemmas. However, we know less about the values and attitudes guiding these decisions across development. In our study, we want learn how children and teens make judgements regarding challenging bioethical decisions, such as whether it is right or wrong for someone suffering from a terminal illness to die with dignity. Our goal is to understand how judgements and expectations about suffering change with age, as well as how values motivate these judgements.

15 minutes

A $10 electronic Amazon.com gift card will be sent via email within 7 days of study participation. Eligible participants include those who are 1) US residents, and 2) ages 13-17 years old.