Something for the Kids
The Salience of Children Increases Adult Prosocial Values
Lukas Wolf et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Organizations often put children front and center in campaigns to elicit interest and support for prosocial causes. Such initiatives raise a key theoretical and applied question that has yet to be addressed directly: Does the salience of children increase prosocial motivation and behavior in adults? We present findings aggregated across eight experiments involving 2,054 adult participants: Prosocial values became more important after completing tasks that made children salient compared to tasks that made adults (or a mundane event) salient or compared to a no-task baseline. An additional field study showed that adults were more likely to donate money to a child-unrelated cause when children were more salient on a shopping street. The findings suggest broad, reliable interconnections between human mental representations of children and prosocial motives, as the child salience effect was not moderated by participants' gender, age, attitudes, or contact with children.
Do financial incentives aimed at decreasing interhousehold inequality increase intrahousehold inequality?
Amanda Chuan, John List & Anya Samek
Journal of Public Economics, April 2021
Abstract:
Research has shown that giving disadvantaged families financial incentives to invest in their children could decrease socioeconomic inequality by enhancing human capital formation. Yet, within the household how are such gains achieved? We use a field experiment to investigate how parents allocate time when they receive financial incentives. We find that incentives increase investment in the target child. But, parents achieve these gains by substituting away from time spent with the child's sibling(s). An unintended consequence is that intrahousehold inequality increases and aggregate gains from the program are overstated when focusing only on target children.
Watching television in a home environment: Effects on children's attention, problem solving and comprehension
Sarah Rose, Alexandra Lamont & Nicholas Reyland
Media Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Correlational studies have suggested some harmful effects of television viewing in early childhood, especially for the viewing of fast-paced entertainment programs. However, this has not been consistently supported by experimental studies, many of which have lacked ecological validity. The current study explores the effects of pace of program on the attention, problem solving and comprehension of 41 3- and 4-year-olds using an ecologically valid experimental design. Children were visited twice at home; on each visit they were shown an episode of a popular animated entertainment program which differed in pace: one faster paced, one slower paced. Children's behavior was coded for attention and arousal during viewing, attention, and effort on a problem-solving task after viewing, and performance on unrelated (problem-solving) and related (program comprehension) tasks. The faster-paced program was attended to more, while 3-year-olds showed more attention and effort on the problem-solving task after watching the slower program, but there were no significant differences in performance on unrelated or related tasks depending on pace. The lack of differences observed in this naturalistic setting together with the high levels of comprehension of the programs watched provides some evidence to counter the "harm" perceived in young children watching fast-paced entertainment programs.
Violent and non-violent virtual reality video games: Influences on affect, aggressive cognition, and aggressive behavior. Two pre-registered experiments
Aaron Drummond et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Immersive Ambulatory Virtual Reality (IA-VR) video games are relatively new and highly immersive. Given speculation that immersion may increase psychological effects of playing games, we examined whether violent IA-VR (cf. flat-screen) games increase aggression. Here, we report the first experimental studies to assess the effects of violent and non-violent IA-VR (cf. flat-screen) games on affect, aggressive cognition, and behavior. In Study 1, 200 participants played violent or non-violent IA-VR or flat-screen games in a pre-registered protocol. IA-VR was associated with slightly higher positive affect, but no higher aggression than comparable flat-screen games. Although violent games (IA-VR and flat-screen) increased aggressive cognition, this did not translate to hostile affect or aggressive behavior. In Study 2, 96 participants played a violent IA-VR or flat-screen video game. Again, no effects of IA-VR were observed on aggressive cognition, behavior, or hostile affect. In both studies, the relationship between aggressive cognitions, behavior and hostile affect was virtually nil. Though further replications are required with a greater variety of stimulus games, our studies provide early evidence against the notion that IA-VR increase aggression compared to flat-screen games. The lack of relationship between aggressive cognition and behavior suggests potential weaknesses in fundamental assumptions of the General Aggression Model.
Evaluating Teen Options for Preventing Pregnancy: Impacts and Mechanisms
Dara Lee Luca et al.
Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper presents findings from an experimental evaluation of the Teen Options to Prevent Pregnancy (TOPP) program, an 18-month intervention that consists of a unique combination of personalized contraceptive counseling, facilitated access to contraceptive services, and referrals to social services. We find that TOPP led to large and statistically significant increases in the use of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), accompanied by substantial reductions in repeat and unintended pregnancy among adolescent mothers. We provide an exploratory analysis of the channels through which TOPP achieved its impacts on contraceptive behavior and pregnancy outcomes. A back-of-the-envelope decomposition implies that the increase in LARC use can explain at most one-third of the reduction in repeat pregnancy. We provide suggestive evidence that direct access to contraceptive services was important for increasing LARC use and reducing repeat pregnancy. We did not find any spillover effects on non-targeted outcomes, such as educational attainment and benefit receipt.