A Cupcake In The Paper Bag Analysis

Each child heard the same story and the characters in the story matched the gender of the participant. The accidental transgression story was about a child named Tammy who brought a cupcake in a paper bag to school and left it on the counter and went to recess. Jane was helping the teacher clean up and threw the paper bag away. After hearing the story twice, the participant was asked: “What did Jane, the girl who threw out the paper bag, think was in the bag?” If the child did not give a response or the response didn’t make sense, the experimenter asked: “Did Jane think there was a cupcake in the bag or trash in the bag?” The questions assessed if the children understood Jane’s false-belief of the unexpected content in the paper bag. The following