Who's Feeling What?

For 5- to 7-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. Before the session, we will ask you to complete a 15-minute survey that includes a questionnaire about your opinions and feelings in different scenarios, basic demographic information, and questions about your child’s language background, along with a vocabulary checklist. During the video chat with you and your child, your child will look at puppy faces and identify their gender. Then, your child will hear stories and be asked to look at pictures of emotional situations and answer questions about how the characters feel and whether they want to help the characters.

Children's ability to understand and empathize with others' emotions is a critical foundation for their social, cognitive, and psychological development. Past research has found that children and adults tend to associate certain emotions with girls and women, and other emotions with boys and men. However, this research is decades old, and we don't yet know whether these patterns still hold true for children today, or how these beliefs might shape children's empathy and helping intention toward others. In this study, children will think about how different characters might feel in a range of situations and explain their reasoning. This helps us understand whether children's beliefs about gender shape how they interpret others' emotions and, ultimately, how willing they are to help or comfort someone based on their gender.

35 minutes total (about 10 min for the survey you complete before the video chat, and about 25 minutes for the video chat)

After you participate, we will email you a $5 gift code for Amazon.com within five days to thank you for your time (only one per child). To be eligible for compensation, we ask that you: (1) ensure that your child is in the specified age range, (2) make sure that your child is visible during the study session, (3) your child is able to understand the simple English instructions used in the task. Compensation is provided for participation and is not based on your child’s performance.