Safe and Not Safe Goals

5-year-old children

This study will take place on a Zoom video call 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 best for you.

The present study tests how children evaluate parents who help or do not help their babies, 5-year-olds, or grown up children achieve unsafe goals. A live researcher will read your child some short stories about parents whose children want to play with some things (like not safe tools). Your child will evaluate parents who either help or do not help their children from playing with the not safe items in question. Our primary questions of interest are: Do children think it is generally good for a parent to help their child and bad for a parent to not help their child, regardless of whether a child's goal is not safe? Or, are children's evaluations of helping and not helping sensitive to the danger and risk of particular goals, as well as different ages of children who are helped or hindered?

From past research we know that even in infancy, humans prefer helpful over hindering individuals: They prefer those who help others achieve their goals and disfavor those who prevent others from achieving their goals. But not all goals are safe. For instance, sometimes naïve children want to play with things they do not yet know are dangerous. The present study aims to answer whether children’s evaluations of helpful and hindering individuals are more nuanced. That is, do children think all helping is good and all hindering is bad? Or, do they think that helping is bad and hindering is good when the goal in question is not safe? Do they demonstrate different evaluations of helpful and hindering parents depending on the age of the child they are helping or hindering? This study will help us better understand how children reason about caregivers, particularly their protective behaviors.

10 minutes

Participants will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card for completing the study. The gift card will be sent within 24 hours after the appointment is complete. Only one gift card per participant and the participant must be in the study age range in order to receive the gift card.