Children's judgments of others' reasons

5-year-old UK children

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the URL link will send you to an online questionnaire where you can select a date and time that works for you. In this study, children will watch two short stories in which two individuals failed to fulfil their obligation and who then gave good vs. poor reasons for doing so. Children will then be asked to choose between and rate characters in this study in questions involving liking, trust, blameworthiness, and punishment.

By age 3, children start to understand the concept of obligation, like the obligation in a promise or the obligation to help others. Sometimes, people fail to fulfill their obligations and give reasons for it. In our study, we looked at how 5-year-old kids from different cultures felt about these unfulfilled obligations and the reasons given. This helps us understand how young children understand obligations and the effect of cultural context on children's understanding.

15 minutes

Every participants will be offered a £5 Amazon.co.uk voucher for your child. Eligibility criteria: only one gift card per participant, being in age range (5-year-old UK chidlren) for study, child being visible in consent video. For administrative reasons, the voucher allocation will take place only once all data collection has been completed, so this might happen some weeks or months after you participate.