How do thoughts change our motivation and emotions?

For 4.5- to 5-year-olds who speak English

In this session, your child will hear several stories about thoughts, motivation, and emotions. Each story features child characters who have different perspectives about the same event. After listening to each story, your child will be asked questions about how the characters might feel or what they might want, based on their thoughts.

Many studies have explored how parents and teachers motivate children, but less is known about how children themselves understand motivation or their ability to self-motivate. Our previous research suggests that children may recognize that one's thoughts can influence motivation. In this study, we aim to further investigate whether children understand that different types of thoughts can shape motivation and emotions in distinct ways. Additionally, we are interested in how children think about various strategies for enhancing motivation to persist in a challenging task.

25 minutes

We will send you a $5 Amazon gift card (used on Amazon US only) after your participation within 2 weeks. To be eligible for this compensation, your child needs to fit our participation eligibility, the child’s legal guardian needs to provide a valid consent for participation, and the child must be visible in the consent video. Additionally, the child must not have participated in this study before.