How do children think about changing their beliefs?

6-to-10 year-olds who eat meat (i.e., not vegetarian)

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. During the study, your child will listen to short stories about characters who hear new information about eating meat. Some characters change their minds and actions, while others don't. After each story, your child will share their thoughts about the characters and evaluate whether it is good or bad for the characters to maintain or change their beliefs or actions. We will also ask your child questions about their food choices and how they themselves think about new information in general (e.g., “I will probably change my ideas if I learn something new that shows me that I am wrong.” How much is this like you? )These background questions help us understand if children's own experiences and attitudes might influence how they think about the story characters.

In this study, we are interested in how children think about changing their beliefs when they learn new information from other people. Prior work suggests that children sometimes resist changing their beliefs, especially when new ideas conflict with what the people around them believe. We focus on the topic of eating meat to understand how kids judge whether it is good or bad to change what someone believes or does when their ideas are different from others around them.In this study, we're interested in understanding how children think about people who change their minds after learning new information. In everyday life, children see people make different choices when they learn something new – sometimes people change what they think or do, and sometimes they don't. Research shows that children and adults notice when people's actions match (or don't match) what they say they believe. We also know that as children grow, they become more sophisticated in understanding why people might resist changing their minds. However, we don't yet fully understand how children judge these different responses to new information. We chose the topic of eating meat because it's something children this age are familiar with and understand that people sometimes have different opinions about, just like they see in their own families, schools, and communities where people make different food choices for different reasons.

15-20 minutes

Families will receive a small thank-you gift in the form of a $5 gift card to Amazon.com within 2 weeks of participation. Compensation is provided once your child, who must be within the study’s age range, attends the scheduled Zoom session and is present and visible during the study.