Think or Tell: Thinking or Sharing Unusual Ideas

For children 5-Years old to 9-years old

This study will take place on Zoom - 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 best for you and your child.

A researcher will have a short conversation with your child about each of the stories. In each story a character who does a job and believes something which is clearly not true, such as "Dinosaurs are still alive". Then the researcher will either explain that the character thinks it in their head, or shares it with others. Next, we will ask your child what they think about the character. We'll ask questions such as: "is it okay for the character to believe that dinosaurs are still alive?" We want to see how children differentiate between believing something and sharing it with others

In this study, we are interested in how children think about thinking something versus sharing something. Do children think that believing something wrong is okay, or is it only once it is shared that it is bad? How does this change with type of belief being either factual or moral? The stories told by the researcher investigate how children perceive the characters depending on the domain of the belief, and whether the character thinks or shares their beliefs. This helps us understand how children think about different people as they learn about the social world!

25 minutes

Families will receive a small thank-you gift in the form of a $5 Amazon gift card (Amazon.com) within 2 weeks of participation. Compensation is provided once your child, who must be within the study’s age range, has not previously participated in the study, and attends the scheduled Zoom session and is present and visible during the study.