Research

Lab Experience Overview
Senior Research Assistant for Hilary Barth, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology. Wesleyan University Cognitive Development Lab, June 2012-May 2015.

October 2012 – May 2015: Development, design, data collection, presentation, drafting the manuscript for a social cognition study investigating the influence of minimal group membership on children’s developing perceptions of equality and fairness (Roberts, Taggart, & Barth, in progress). Conducted with 4- to 10-year-olds, in the Cognitive Development Lab, in various Central Connecticut preschools, and in the Connecticut Science Center through the Living Laboratory. This project is being developed into an undergraduate thesis, to be published in April 2015.

June 2012 – September 2012: Study design and data collection for a numerical and spatial cognition study measuring spatial estimation bias in 2- to 4-year-olds; conducted in Central Connecticut preschools and in the Cognitive Development Lab.

Presentations
Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) Conference, March 2014.
Howard Hughes Summer Research Fellowship Poster Session, August 2012 & 2013.
Selective Liberal Arts Colleges (SLAC) Cognitive Development Conference, July 2013.

Honors
Walkey Prize for Excellence in Psychology, May 2015.
Howard Hughes Summer Research Fellowship, May-August 2013.

Project Abstract
“Minimal Group Membership & Children’s Ideas of Equality”
Assigning children to value-neutral “minimal groups” can elicit bias toward ingroup members, even with no suggestion of competition or preexisting associations. The present studies seek to determine if minimal group membership influences children’s perceptions of equality when distributing resources. Four- to ten-year-old children were assigned to a blue or red group and saw a photo of two people, one in their group and one not. In Experiment 1, participants selected between two distributions of candy to give to the people. In Experiment 2, participants generated their own allocations of three kinds of craft supplies and then ranked the objects from favorite to third favorite. While most participants made some equal distributions, children ultimately gave more resources to ingroup members. The value assigned to a particular object did not influence allocations. While young children preferred to make unequal distributions over giving each recipient nothing, older children preferred equality even when both people received nothing, suggesting that a shift in children’s conceptions of equality occurs around age 8 (Blake & McAuliffe, 2011). Finally, while younger children tended to avoid equality that gave both parties nothing (0-0) in favor of equality that gave both parties one reward (1-1), older children did not, demonstrating a more sophisticated understanding of equality.

WesConnect Features
Connecticut Science Center
Eastern Psychological Association Conference