Poster #45 - Children’s Sensitivity Toward the Lack of Significance in Productive Activities

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

To live a meaningful life, we need to pursue work and activities with significance (i.e., the sense that something matters beyond the trivial or momentary) (Martela & Steger, 2016). The presence of significance and meaning may provide intrinsic motivation for engaging in productive activities (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Are we sensitive toward the lack of significance from early in life? Across three studies (two preregistered, total N = 319), we investigate 4-9-year-old children’s evaluation and decisions about activities without significance vs. with minimal significance.
Study 1 presented children (N = 81) with two games in which they could put together heart puzzles, one without significance (their work is taken apart, coded as 0), and one with minimal significance (their work is kept, coded as 1). Children were randomly assigned to play these games in two contexts: repetitively or for one round. Binomial tests indicated that children across ages were more likely to evaluate the game with minimal significance as being better and mattering more than the game with no significance across contexts (M = 0.70, p < 0.001). Study 2 (N = 139) found similar patterns in children’s motivation to play games containing minimal significance ((M = 0.79, p < 0.001), Figure 1. The results suggest that children value even minimal significance over non-significance in productive activities.
Study 3 (N = 99, target N = 120, data collection ongoing) examined children’s decisions when doing the activities involved a cost to the self, as well as the boundary effect. Children were randomly assigned to either a create condition (i.e., create puzzles) and a watch condition (i.e., watch puzzle pieces move). In both conditions, children first completed a baseline trial, in which they chose between a costly game (i.e., they have to give up a sticker) and a non-costly game, and their work is kept in both games. They made similar choices between a costly game and a non-costly game in the test trial, except their work would only be kept for the costly game. Preliminary results revealed that children were more likely to play the costly game in the test trial (M = 0.53) than in the baseline (M = 0.2) in the create condition, but not in the watch condition, Figure 2. This suggests that perceiving the lack of significance motivates children to pay a cost to choosing productive activities with (even minimal) significance, an effect only applying to creative activities not passive watching activities.
Taken together, the results provide evidence that children are sensitive toward the lack of significance in productive activities, such that they are more likely to choose activities with even minimal significance over activities with no significance, even when the such choice involves a cost to the self. The findings help illuminate children’s valuation of significance, which has implications for promoting motivation and productive efforts during childhood.

Authors

• Yilin Liu, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Fan Yang, University of Chicago