Oops or Awesome?

For 5-year-olds

Your child will be presented with scenarios that have different outcomes, and tell us why they think things happened. During the session, they will watch different animated stories: an apple falling from a tree, a ball rolling on the ground, a bubble floating in the air, and a cake falling off a cart. For each scenario, your child will see either a positive or negative outcome. For example, they might watch a ball rolling into mud and splashing dirt onto someone's shirt, or see a cake fall off a shopping cart becoming an unexpected treat for a lucky dog. After watching each story, your child will be presented with different types of explanations to choose from. Your child will select the explanation they think best accounts for what happened.

This study explores how children understand the causes of everyday events, particularly when the true cause is ambiguous. We're particularly interested in whether children consider the actions of agents – such as people, animals, or even personified objects – or the characteristics of the situation or environment itself (like a windy day or a bumpy surface) when explaining why something happened. We present children with scenarios where multiple potential causes are offered and observe whether the valence of the outcome (good or bad) influences their choice of explanation. For instance, are children more likely to attribute a positive outcome to an agent's actions and a negative outcome to environmental factors, or vice versa? Some studies with adults suggest that adults often lean towards explanations that are positive or self-serving, even if they might not be the most accurate. While the adult literature is growing, there's very little work looking at how children use valence when generating explanations, particularly in situations where the cause is not immediately obvious. By investigating this, we aim to gain insights into their developing causal reasoning abilities, how they make sense of the world around them, learn from their experiences, and form judgments about causality.

15 minutes

You will receive a $5 Tango gift card for completing this study. To be eligible for the gift card, your child must be in the age range for this study and you must submit a valid consent statement. Also, your child must be visible during study. Each child is eligible to participate in the study and receive a gift card only once. We will send a gift card redemption link even if you do not finish the whole study or we are not able to use your child's data. Gift cards will be sent within one week of study completion.