Have you ever felt undeserving, pressured, frustrated, or inadequate when receiving a gift? These feelings can all be understood as Gift Malaise – the discomfort in receiving an unexpected gift – and we want to understand how and when this complicated social emotion emerges in development. Moreover, we want to learn how and when children begin to ascribe moral character to others based on how they respond to receiving unexpected gifts in four social contexts. The four social contexts stem from our former Honors Thesis student, Hallie Toren’s, Gift Malaise scenarios previously tested with adults: 1) Merit 2) Inequity Aversion 3) Social Obligation, and 4) Shortcut of Reciprocity.

In each of the four scenarios, a “gifter” will be presented along with a backstory aligning to their respective condition (i.e., a very poor classmate gives a gift to three other classmates, evoking Gift Malaise in the recipients via inequity aversion). The three recipients of the gifts will have varying responses, one of which expresses Gift Malaise, the other two being a swift acceptance and rejection of the gift. Then, participants are asked to choose one of the three recipients/classmates to be friends with, and a subsequent ranking of preference and affiliation is created by the participant. 

This study just begins Summer 2024, and we look forward to sharing our findings with everyone in the future!  

If you and your child are interested in being a part of this study, please click on the button in the bottom of this page for more information, the age group for this study is 3-10 years old.