The costs of social actions

For 4- to 5-year-olds

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. One of our researchers will read stories aloud to your child during the scheduled Zoom session. The stories will be about different friends going through conflicts. Then, the researcher will ask what your child thinks the friends will do, how they will feel, and why your child thinks that.

We all know that toys, snacks, and video games cost money. But did you know that our behavior can have a price tag too? We’re talking about “social costs”, meaning the downsides that we sometimes experience when interacting with our peers.
In this study, your child will help us understand many of the important social tradeoffs that every kid faces. In these tricky situations, we are interested in what children think people will do, what people will think, and how they will feel. To get a full look at children’s social worlds, we go both inside and outside the classroom, capturing many settings where children interact. At school, we look at how jumping in to assist a classmate can backfire, making her look less smart than she really is. On the playground, we look at how making new friends can be fun, but makes old friends feel left out. Finally, we go online to social media to look at how children may ignore their friends if they feel embarrassed by them. By asking about these different contexts, we hope to capture how children have strong ideas about some of these tradeoffs and may be less sure of others.

15 minutes

Each family will receive a prize of a $10 Amazon.com gift card per child that participates, sent via email within the week after you participate. Participants must be in the age range for this study, visible in the consent video, and have never participated in this study before. Participants must also complete our own consent form.