How are we (de)motivated by thoughts?

For 4- to 9-year-olds who speak English

In this session, your child will listen to several stories about thoughts and motivation. Each story features child characters who either want or do not want to do an activity and have specific thoughts about the activity. These thoughts are intended to either increase or decrease the character's motivation. After each story, your child will be asked to predict whether the character would want to do the activity based on their thoughts.

Numerous studies have explored how parents and teachers can motivate children, but little is known about how children themselves understand motivation and whether they believe it can be changed. Previous research has shown that children can change their emotions and understand that our thoughts can influence our feelings. In this study, we aim to replicate these findings and examine whether children understand that what we think about an activity can influence our motivation to do it. For example, thinking about the benefits of an activity may boost motivation to engage in a challenging task, whereas focusing on the challenges may discourage someone from participating in an otherwise fun activity. Do children understand these associations? Understanding children's perceptions of how motivation works could have important implications for how we educate them about motivation and help them build their ability to regulate it when needed.

10 minutes

Families will receive one entry for a draw to win a $25 Amazon.com gift card (used for US Amazon.com only) for every child who participates in the study and meets the reliability criteria. Children must be visible in the consent video in order to be eligible to be entered into the draw. Children can only participate in this study once. The draw will be ran for every 10 participants, and winners will be notified within 2 weeks of participating.