SKL Newsletter Winter 2013,14.2-4
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Transcript of SKL Newsletter Winter 2013,14.2-4
Visit the Social Kids Lab in the Madison Children’s Museum!
Last year our lab started a partnership with the Madison Children’s Museum (MCM).
Researchers from our lab are at the MCM four days a week to conduct some of our shorter
studies with children who visit during the day. If you see researchers in the “Cozy Cottage” at the MCM, it’s probably us—please feel free to
come and say “hi”!
In addition to our researchers at the MCM, one of our former undergraduate lab
members, Leah Dornbusch, is now the Museum Intern! Leah is stationed next to the Cozy Cottage and is working with “research
toys”, such as the ramp in this photo. The purpose of the research toys at the MCM is to teach parents and other community members
about research in child development. If you see Leah in the museum, be sure to ask her for
more information about what she’s up to.
Hello and Thank You from the Social Kids Lab!
Dear Parents, Friends, and Teachers,
We’ve been busy since our last newsletter! Thank you for all of your help and support! Without families and schools like yours, we would not be able to conduct our research.
This newsletter summarizes findings from studies we conducted over the past year and previews some ideas for future research in our lab. If you have any questions as you read, please feel free to contact us for more information!
Best wishes,
Kristin Shutts, Director of the Social Kids Lab & Assistant Professor of Psychology Ashley Jordan, Lab Manager of the Social Kids Lab
Congratulations to our student lab members on their accomplishments!
Maggie Renno received a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to support her salary and research for the next 3 years.
Marissa Johnson (our lab manager from 2011-‐2013) was accepted to the Counseling Psychology program at the University of North Carolina—Charlotte.
Maddie Spencer received an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar Award from the UW Psychology Department
Gabi Fihn was accepted to a study abroad program in Galway, Ireland for the spring of 2014.
Rachel King received the Thomas W. Parker Scholarship for high-‐achieving juniors and seniors.
Congratulations and best wishes to our December 2013 graduates: Katerina Novakova and Erica Ross!
Meet the Newest Member of the Social Kids Lab! Karissa Propson, Associate Research Specialist
I am working with one of our graduate students, Maggie Renno, on her projects for preschool-‐age children, including studies investigating young children's sharing behaviors and social preferences. As an undergraduate, I majored in Human Development & Family Studies and Psychology at UW-‐Madison. I also worked in a laboratory at the Waisman Center that studies marital quality in parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Children’s Choices and Actions in the Food Domain (Lead Researcher: Ashley Jordan) Children learn a great deal about eating by watching the choices and actions of others. Over the past year, we have been piloting studies designed to ask if children consider social category information when deciding whether and how to eat different foods.
In our studies assessing food choices, 3-‐ to 6-‐year-‐old children viewed two short video clips. Each clip showed a different adult eating and talking about a different food. The adults in the videos differed by gender, race, or accent. After the videos, the experimenter presented the child with actual copies of the two foods (organic fruit purée). Children were then asked to choose which one they would like to try. To our surprise, children were just as likely to choose foods endorsed by adults who matched their own gender, race, or accent vs. those who differed from them on these dimensions. One possibility is that children disregard social category information when they encounter two friendly adults who like different foods. We think it would be interesting to repeat the study with child actors in the videos rather than adults.
In other studies assessing children’s tendency to copy other people’s actions, children also viewed videos of two different adults. The adults were both women speaking in English, but they differed in the accent with which they spoke (American or French). Each woman demonstrated a different action on a food (for example, tapping a spoon on the side of a cup versus scraping it along the side of the cup). Preliminary results show that children tend to imitate the native-‐accented speaker. These findings support the idea that when faced with unknown information, children copy the actions of cultural in-‐group members. We are currently designing new research to extend these findings.
Infants’ Food Choices (Lead Researchers: Marissa Johnson, Mitch Markham, Ashley Jordan)
In addition to our studies focused on older children, we are also interested in knowing whether social categories influence infants’ food preferences. In one study, infants see clips of two kinds of videos: One video features a woman who talks to the infant in English and eats one kind of food, while the other video features a woman who talks to the infant in French and eats a different food. During the “test trial”, infants are encouraged to reach out and choose between real copies of the two foods. Our findings show that infants tend to choose the food that is associated with the person who speaks their native language, perhaps because this person seems most familiar or trustworthy.
In addition to the study described in the previous paragraph, we are also conducting research designed to ask whether social categories (like gender and race) guide infants’ toy choices. Look for future findings on our infant studies in our next newsletter!
Getting Noticed (Lead Researcher: Ashley Jordan) Previous research shows that very early in development, children do not pay a great deal of attention to other people’s race (for example, whether someone is White or African-‐American). However, older children do eventually notice race and begin to use it to guide their social preferences and thoughts about other people. In new lines of research, we are interested in understanding why and how a property that isn’t noticed at first (for example, race) becomes meaningful to children.
To answer this question, we have been using computer programs to make pictures of people who differ in appearance (for example, some people wear blue shirts and some people wear orange shirts). Piloting has shown that children initially don’t make much of these differences in clothing. Thus, we now are using these pictures to ask what might turn clothing color into a meaningful distinction for children (as a way to ask how any property might become meaningful). We are trying several different procedures – including showing that clothing color is correlated with patterns of cooperation (for example, people in blue shirts work together and people in orange shirts work together). We look forward to updating you on this study in the next newsletter.
A look at our recent studies…
Changing Social Attitudes and Giving Behaviors (Lead Researchers: Maggie Renno and Karissa Propson) Many studies in our lab suggest that young children use information about the social identity of others to guide their friendship preferences and helpful gestures. Two of our more recent studies are looking at the ways in which we might alter these preferences and behavioral tendencies in the lab. How can we encourage children to be more open to individuals from a variety of backgrounds?
In one experiment, we are testing whether receiving help (in a computer game) from members of a racial outgroup changes children’s racial attitudes. In another experiment, we are testing whether experiencing the generosity of racial outgroup members changes children’s willingness to share resources with people from different backgrounds. Although it is too early to draw conclusions, the results of the research are promising so far. Broadly, we are hoping to identify the sorts of experiences that might prompt children to be open to people from different backgrounds.
Thinking About Access (Lead Researcher: Leah Dornbusch) In our community—and across the globe—people differ in their level of access to resources, their amount of material wealth, and the types of challenges that they face. These are features of many children’s social environments, but we know little about how children think about others who differ along these dimensions. A recent senior honors thesis project in the lab explored how children think about various markers of social status and whether they impact children’s social actions.
In this study, 5-‐ to 9-‐year-‐old participants heard short descriptions about unfamiliar children depicted in a photograph. The descriptions were designed to convey information about one’s level of access to resources or opportunities (for example, clothing or travel). After hearing descriptions about several children, participants rated how much they liked each child on a “smiley face scale” and also had the chance to select how many toys they wanted to give to each child.
Overall, participants expressed some degree of liking across the children who were displayed. Participants tended to prefer children who were described as having more access to resources over children who were described as having less access to resources. However, participants distributed more toys to children described with less access to resources over children described with more access. These findings revealed that children attend to information about differences in access or opportunity at a young age and use that information differently in relation to liking and giving.
Power and Body Language (Lead Researcher: Libbie Brey) A person’s body language can reveal a great deal about what they are thinking and feeling. Several studies in our lab are currently asking whether children pay attention to body language information to figure out how two people are related to one another. In particular, we have been interested in whether children can use body language to guess who might have more power in a social interaction between two people.
In one study, young children watched videos featuring real people who displayed different kinds of body language. One person displayed cues that are usually associated with a person who has more power (for example, shoulders back, head tilted up), while the other person displayed cues that are usually associated with a person who has limited power (for example, shoulders slumped down, head tilted down). Older children (5 and 6 years of age) were quite accurate at guessing which people were “in charge” in these videos, but younger children (3 and 4 years of age) had some difficulty. Older children were also able to guess which people were in charge when we showed them photographs (rather than videos) of adults.
In another study, we asked younger children to guess who was in charge after watching videos where there were both body language and language cues (one person told the other person what to do) about power. In these videos, young children were able to determine who was in charge.
The findings show that by 5 years of age, children are quite skilled at using subtle cues to figure out how people relate to one another. Younger children understand what it means to be “in charge”, but do not seem as sensitive to relevant body language cues. One possibility is that children learn these cues gradually over time by observing how people in different positions act toward one another.
Here’s one of mine!