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Recruiting

NCT Number: NCT06550206

Toddlers' Responses to Strangers

The study will assess if toddlers show differences in stranger wariness according to race, temperament, social network diversity, and neighborhood diversity.

Recruiting

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Key information

Conditions

Social Behavior Behavior

Age range

13 month–24 month

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Observational

Primary location

Social Science 2 Building

Santa Cruz, California, 95064, United States

Location status: Recruiting

Location contact

Hyesung Hwang, PhD

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Ian Ferruci, BA

CONTACT

[email protected]

831-264-8155

Tobi Britton, BA

SUB_INVESTIGATOR

About this study

This study is investigating 13- to 24-month-old toddlers' reactions to meeting new people from familiar and unfamiliar racial backgrounds! Participation involves a 1-hour one-time visit to the researcher's lab, located on the UC Santa Cruz campus.

The study itself will take about 20 minutes, but will ask for a 1-hour visit to make sure child participants feel comfortable in the new space. The study will video record as child participants interact with two adults, who will play with the child and offer toys. Parent participants will also be asked to complete two surveys, one demographic survey and one social network survey, so that investigators can better understand how the people children see in their daily lives relate to how participants react to strangers from different racial backgrounds.

Who can participate

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • typically developing
  • age 13-24 months

Exclusion criteria

  • any known developmental delays

Treatment and study plan

Children's stranger wariness response to strangers

Behavioral

Children will see two strangers, one from a familiar racial background and one from an unfamiliar racial background. Familiar race stranger will be from the same racial background as the child's caregiver and unfamiliar race stranger will not.

Other names: Social bias

Primary outcomes

  1. Social Wariness

    Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 10 years

    children's social wariness as assessed by the time that the child first vocalized, touched the stranger, and the duration of time that the child stayed near their parent in seconds standardized and averaged to create a composite score.

  2. Social Preference

    Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 10 years

    Social preference will be coded by observing toddler behavior and assigning the following codes: 1 = did not take the toy from either stranger, 2 = took toy from familiar race stranger, 3 = took toy from unfamiliar race stranger, 4 = took toy or played with both strangers simultaneously.

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Seaera Juarez, BS

CONTACT

[email protected]

(760) 895-3878

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of California Santa Cruz

Other

Collaborators

  • New York University
  • University of Maryland, College Park

Registry information

Official study title

The Malleability of Social Group Understanding in Infancy and Early Childhood

Important dates

Study start
2024
Primary completion
2025
Study completion
2025
First posted
Aug 12, 2024
Registry last updated
Mar 11, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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