Thinking About People

3- to 6-year-old children and their caregivers who are participating in Project GARDEN and are able to understand and answer questions in English. Project GARDEN is not currently recruiting new families. If you’re already in Project GARDEN and you want to see which study your child can do next, visit https://childrenhelpingscience.com/garden, click "Start Now", and select your child's name under "Find studies for..."

In this Project GARDEN study, your child will watch short videos about individuals from a fictional group called Zarpies. These Zarpies will be presented doing various activities like bouncing a ball on their head or sleeping in a tree. Then, your child will be asked short questions about the attributes of Zarpies as a whole.

We know from previous research that children form essentialist beliefs at a very young age. Essentialist beliefs are the idea that certain social categories like gender and race mark fundamentally distinct kinds of people. We are interested in how children may form essentialist beliefs when they have very little information about a given group and how this may change with age. In order to explore this, we introduce individuals from a fictional group named Zarpies and ask children about the group as a whole.

10 minutes

You will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card (usable on the U.S. website only) as soon as possible after participating in the study (within 7 business days).