Why is Rowan Playing with Bugs?

For 4 to 9 year olds

Your child will hear a series of stories about novel characters. The novel character will do something a bit odd (like playing with bugs) and then your child will hear two explanations. One will use the person's name "Hmmm, Rowan must like to bounce balls on their head." The other will explain it with their group "Hmmm, Wugs must like to bounce balls on their head." Your child will see six stories where they guess who is in a closer relationship with the character, and six stories where they guess who is the character’s boss.

This study explores how children reason about social relationships — specifically, who is close to whom and
who has authority over whom. We are interested in whether children can infer these relationships from the way people explain each other's behavior. Some people explain behavior by pointing to a person's individual
preferences ("she just likes that"), while others explain it by pointing to their social group ("people like her tend to do that"). We want to know whether children pick up on this difference, and whether it affects how they think about closeness and authority.
Understanding how children reason about social relationships is important for understanding the development of social cognition more broadly.

25 minutes

To thank you for your participation, you will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card within 2 weeks of your participation. To be eligible for the gift card, your child must be in the age range for the study, you need to provide a valid consent statement, we need to see that there is a child with you during in the video, and this needs to be the first time that your child is participating in this study. We will also ask you to provide your email at the beginning of the study so that we can send you the gift card.