UCSB Child Studies Lab

Partnering with researchers and scientists from the University of California Santa Barbara, Science in Action invites guests to play, participate, or watch live research highlighting the science of child development.

Topics for Fall

What is their identity? In this research game, your child (6-13) will hear a story where a character chooses to identify with one or more ethnic backgrounds and we will ask some questions about what your child thinks about the character and his/her choice. We are interested in whether children are more likely than adults to think that it is OK for people to be flexible in how they identify.

Why did they correct their friend? In this research game, your child (3-12) will hear a story about characters from the same class. One character will say something that the other thinks is wrong, and they will either correct the person in front of the whole class, or in private. We are interested in how children understand the correcter’s decision, and why they think someone might be motivated to correct someone else.

Who did that? In this research game, your child (5-13) will hear about two characters: one who believes in God and one who does not. We will ask your child to guess which character acted in a certain way (e.g., shared toys with a friend). In a previous study, we found that children expect believers to follow rules. We are interested in whether these expectations vary with children’s own experiences with religion, so in this version of the study, parents will fill out a survey (anonymous) about their child’s religious exposure. This project is part of cross-cultural work with collaborators in Turkey, where children have very different religious experiences.