What did the parents and friends do?

For English speaking 3- and 4-year-olds!

Your child will watch three videos about different children. In the first video, the child’s parent and a friend will take an object away before the child can reach it. Your child will be asked to choose the person they think took something "bad and dangerous" away. In the second video, your child will be asked to choose which object they think the parent will take away: a dangerous one or a safe one. In the third video, your child will be asked to choose which person, a parent or a friend, brought something “bad” and “dangerous.” Finally, after the videos, the study will end with two quick scenarios asking your child what they think about a parent's help.

The role of a parent includes protecting one's child from harm. In this study, we explore whether very young children (1) hold this same intuition and (2) use this core belief about a parents' role to make judgments about people (i.e., who would take/give something bad) and about the world itself (i.e., which novel objects are potentially unsafe). This study and its findings will increase our understanding of not only how children think about their caregivers but also whether these early beliefs shape how they learn from them.

15 minutes

We will email you a $5 Amazon gift card within a week of participation.

To be eligible for the gift card: (1) your child must be in the age range for this study, (2) English is (one of) your child's first language(s), (3) you need to have submitted a valid consent statement, and (4) we need to see that there is a child with you during the experiment. Each child is eligible to participate in the study and receive a gift card only once.