How do you feel about getting bugs and candy?

For 6- to 10-year-olds who are English-speaking

In this study, your child will first do an emotion game, where they will see prompts like, “This girl just watched her sister win a raffle. How does this girl feel?”. with accompanying illustrations and answer questions about feelings. Your child will then play the main game, where they will watch a cartoon character (the Giver) share candy or bugs and will rate how they feel about what the Giver shares. Sometimes your child will be on the receiving end of the Giver’s shares and they rate their feelings about what they got. Sometimes they will also act as a third-party observer and make ratings about how a cartoon receiver feels about what they got.

Fairness is foundational to everyday moral and social life. Psychology research on children’s understanding of fairness shows that as infants, we expect people to share fairly. However, it is not until age 8 that children begin acting on this knowledge, for example, responding to fairness violations by administering a punishment. This reveals an interesting developmental gap between what a child knows and what they do—one has yet to be fully explained in scientific research. A possible explanation has to do with children’s developing emotional worlds. If children do not fully understand the emotional “consequences” of unfairness, they may not be able to respond to violations of it. This research tests this gap, providing insight into the changes in a child’s mind that allows them to bridge the gap between what they know and what they do.

20 minutes

$7 Tango Global Link Gift Card that is reimbursable as a digital gift card for over 2000 brands in 200+ countries across 55+ currencies. These will be sent within a week of participation . Limited to one gift card per participant, and the child must be within the specified age range and visible in the consent video to qualify.