Today I brought Kenan down to the U of M to participate in a child development study. We had a lot of fun. We got down there early so we played at the playground for a little bit. I was watching Micah and Lucy go down the slide and all of a sudden Kenan was out of sight. I looked for him and then I heard it. The sound of him peeing on the playground! He was just standing there, pants down just going unabashed. I couldn't believe it! I felt like every student in each of the buildings could see him. I had to do my best not to laugh at him, lest he think it okay to keep doing this at every playground we visit. He just smiled at me and said, "I had to go mama! I couldn't wait" Oh Kenan. So we played for a bit and then went in for the study.
The Study was basically to find out if children will automatically trust a speak or will they doubt the speaker's motives. Here is a description from their website: In this study we are looking at learning in young children and their ability to trust or doubt a speaker. We are interested in seeing if children can recognize motive and if they use this information to make decisions within the context of a game. You child will play a short game with the experimenter where the objective of the game is to collect the most treats. These are hidden behind one of two boxes. Your child will be given information from the experimenter, who can see the contents of each box, as to the location of the treats. Your child will then be asked to choose a box. If the child chooses correctly, he or she will get the treats. If your child chooses incorrectly, the treats go to the experimenter. We are interested in seeing whether children are willing follow the testimony of the speaker who has a motive (i.e., they would like to win the game) to provide them with false information.
It was quite entertaining to watch. I kept laughing to myself because it was funny to watching Kenan close his eyes really really tight and then try to peek. I kept having to tell Kenan to keep his eyes closed. The first game was done with stickers. The two researchers were Emily and Ali. Emily explained to Kenan that she was going to teach him and Ali how to play a game. Kenan and Ali would close their eyes and she would put a sticker in one box and a rock in the other and then they could open their eyes. Kenan would pick which box he thought the sticker was in. If he picked right he got to keep the the sticker. Then it was Ali's turn to guess which box the sticker was in. If Ali guessed the rock then Kenan got to keep the sticker. They did this for about 5 minutes and Kenan collected quite a few stickers. Then Emily said they would used candy instead of stickers and Ali (knowing what was in each box) would put a block on one of the boxes and Kenan would then get to guess which box had the candy. Every time he picked the box with the block on it and every time the rock was inside. I was waiting for Kenan to figure that out but he didn't. He just kept trusting them that the block was showing where the candy was. Ali's motive was to win the candy so he was tricking Kenan. This is where the main point of the study comes in. Does Kenan trust Ali, or will he notice that he gets it wrong when he trusts Ali and then decide to pick the box without the block. They switched roles and Kenan got to put the block on the boxes. The first time Kenan put the block on the box with the candy and and Ali picked the opposite box so Kenan won his first sucker. And his only sucker. The rest of the time he kept putting the block on the one with the rock and Ali would pick the opposite box. He is still so honest and trusting at this age and I think the concept of strategy is not quite grasped yet. That's okay with me.
Another game they did, that Kenan didn't quite get was a game where he had to say whatever Emily said but he had to say it backwards. If she said ball cup, Kenan had to say cup ball. He just kept repeating her so they moved on to the last game. This game was a sticker contest. Ali and Kenan each got 5 stickers to take out of their box and put however many into a bucket. Whoever put the least amount of stickers in the box got to keep their stickers. Kenan kept putting 5 in and Ali kept putting in 4. Kenan was starting to get frustrated that he wasn't winning any stickers. To be fair I don't think they made sure that the instructions were clear to Kenan. He did get to keep 2 stickers at the end for being a good sport. Kenan had fun and we helped these students with their research.
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