Project Summary

PROJECT TYPE

Commissioned Work @ Parsons

TEAM

1 Creative Technologist + 2 sociologist
My role: Visual Designer + Developer

DURATION

04.2022 - 09.2022

Economic insecurity is a prevalent issue in the United States, and it is intrinsically connected to social issues of resource distribution and systemic racism. Children across varied populations and social locations are affected by wealth disparities and economic racism indifferent ways. As children develop, broader social issues interact with, and impact, experiences of attachment relationships within families.

The researchers from Parsons school of social work seek to understand if attachment patterns among children affect their appraisals of a story stem task involving establishing equality through economic redistribution. To help with their study, I created the illustrations for the story stem tasks, and coded a mini-game for Robin Hood experiment, using skin color as an important variable for the stories.

The Full Research Paper

01. Robin Hood Task

For the Robin hood task, we introduced a redistributive act between the characters – via the entrance of a Robin Hood-like character who takes a portion of food and toys from the rich character and gives them to the poor character, so their resources become equal.

We also introduced a measure of participants’ attitudes about resource reallocation based on implicit appraisals of race and skin shade, to better understand the possible link between attachment, sharing behaviors, and social bias. I illustrated all the visuals required for this experiment, and coded them in an interactive format to visualize the process of redistribution better.

Here's a video demo of how the experiment looks like:

02. Story Stem Tasks

Story Stem Task (SST) is a commonly employed measure of attachment patterns in childhood in clinical and non-clinical samples. Story beginnings, all consisting of a common conflict or familial dilemma occurring at home and requiring solution on the part of the child character, are introduced to the child typically followed by the evocation, “show me and tell me what happens now.”

I illustrated four such story prompts derived from the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (Bretherton & Oppenheim, 2003; Bretherton, Ridgeway, et al., 1990); including “Spilled Juice,” “Burnt Hand,” “Bathroom Shelf,” and “Burglar in the Dark.” To eliminate the impact of characters’ skin color on kids’ response, we decide to use rabbits as the main characters.

1. SPILLED JUICE

2. HOT STOVE

3. BATHROOM SHELF

4. BURGLAR AT NIGHT

Project Summary

01. Robin Hood Task

02. Story Stem Tasks

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