What do they believe?

What do they believe?

UCSB Child Studies Lab (University of California Santa Barbara)

Who Can Participate

For 3- to 13- year olds living in the United States of America

What Happens

Your child will learn about characters with different beliefs, including beliefs some people have about god, germs, and the tooth fairy. After we tell your child one thing each character believes, we are interested in what other beliefs your child thinks the character might have. We will also ask your child other questions about the character, like how nice they are and if they do well in school. Finally, we will ask your child some questions about their own beliefs. We will also ask you to fill out a short survey about your child’s demographics, your beliefs, and your family’s religious background.

What We're Studying

Children learn about religion and science early in life, but we know much less about how these beliefs shape the way children think about other people. In this study, we examine whether children make different judgments about people who hold different kinds of beliefs such as religious, non-religious, scientific, or non-scientific beliefs.

Duration

About 15 minutes

Compensation

You will receive a $5 gift card for Amazon.com for your time. Gift cards are sent within one week of participation. We ask that each sibling participate separately and not watch each other’s session to avoid any interference. To be eligible for compensation: 1) your child must be in the age range for this study, 2) you must submit a valid consent statement, 3) your child must be present and visible during the experiment session, and 4) each child can only participate once.

This study is conducted by Dr. Zoe Liberman (contact: ucsbchildstudies@ucsb.edu).

Would you like to participate in this study?