How do we cheer others up?

For 5 to 10 year olds who are fluent in English

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. In the study session, your child will be introduced to fictional schools and learn about the emotions of a fictional child. Then, they will be introduced to another fictional child and told about that child’s popularity status. After seeing the second child’s reaction to the first child’s emotions, your child will be asked what they think.

The purpose of this study is to understand how children think about emotions and how emotions are impacted by other people. By seeing how children infer emotional states about fictional children after being comforted by other children of varying popularity status, we can understand how children form concepts of other people’s emotions, and what factors influence children’s thinking about emotions. This helps us understand how children interact with others, including in school environments, and how to support the development of interpersonal emotion recognition and regulation.

15 minutes

To thank you and your child for participating, we will send you a $5 Amazon gift card within one week of participation. To be eligible for the gift card, your child must be in the age range for this study, you need to submit a valid consent statement, we need to see that there is a child with you, and your child cannot have participated before in the study. We will send a gift card even if you do not finish the whole study or we are not able to use your child's data.