Mika Asaba
Biographic Data
| ID | 5714138 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mika Asaba |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mika |
| FAMILY NAME | Asaba |
| SIGNATURE | ASABA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8071-1675 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 7 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Children Understand How Adults’ Achievement Goals Drive Actions
Adults often hold different goals for children’s achievement: Sometimes they want a child to learn and develop their skills as much as possible (i.e., a learning goal), while other times they may forego a child’s learning in favor of successful performance (i.e., a performance goal). How do children think these achievement goals influence adults’ child-directed behaviors? Across two preregistered experiments (n = 90 adults; n = 160 5- to 8-year-o…
When Success Is Surprising
How do we learn who is good at what? Building on the idea that humans draw rich inferences from others’ emotional expressions, here we ask whether others’ surprised reactions to performance outcomes can elicit inferences about competence. Across three experiments, participants were asked to choose “who is better” in scenarios where two students performed identically on the same task but their teacher expressed surprise to only one of them. In Exp…
Detecting social biases using mental state inference
Social biases are prevalent in everyday social interactions, but they are often expressed in subtle ways that can make them difficult to detect. Yet, intuitively, people often recognize when they are the subject of a bias, even when those biases are not explicitly communicated (e.g., sexist or racist slurs). While much research has focused on the negative consequences of social biases, less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that allow peopl…
Young children infer the informativeness of others’ praise
Praise is not only rewarding but also informative. It can provide children with information about their competence, especially when they are uncertain or unable to judge for themselves. Not all praise is equally meaningful, however: someone who praises only high-quality work is more informative than someone who praises indiscriminately. Across four experiments, we find that 4- to 5-year-old U.S. children-from both in-person preschool and online s…
Adolescents report being most motivated by encouragement from people who know their abilities and the domain
Students often receive encouragement but do not always find it motivating. Whose encouragement motivates students and what cognitive mechanisms underlie this process? We propose that students' responses to positive feedback (e.g., encouragement) hinge on mental state representations, specifically what the speaker knows. Across three studies, we find that U.S. adolescents ( n = 581-759 11- to 19-year-olds per study, preregistered; > 80% racial/eth…
Pointing out learning opportunities reduces overparenting
Overparenting—taking over and completing developmentally appropriate tasks for children—is pervasive and hurts children's motivation. Can overparenting in early childhood be reduced by simply framing tasks as learning opportunities? In Study 1 (N = 77; 62% female; 74% White; collected 4/2022), US parents of 4-to-5-year-olds reported taking over less on tasks they perceived as greater learning opportunities, which was most often the case on academ…
Integrating expectations and outcomes
People's emotional experiences depend not only on what actually happened, but also on what they thought would happen. However, these expectations about future outcomes are not always communicated explicitly. Thus, the ability to infer others' expectations in context and understand how these expectations influence others' emotions is an important aspect of our social intelligence. Prior work suggests that an abstract understanding of how expectati…
Integrating expectations and outcomes
People's emotional experiences depend not only on what actually happened, but also on what they thought would happen. However, these expectations about future outcomes are not always communicated explicitly. Thus, the ability to infer others' expectations in context and understand how these expectations influence others' emotions is an important aspect of our social intelligence. Prior work suggests that an abstract understanding of how expectati…
Integrating expectations and outcomes
People's emotional experiences depend not only on what actually happened, but also on what they thought would happen. However, these expectations about future outcomes are not always communicated explicitly. Thus, the ability to infer others' expectations in context and understand how these expectations influence others' emotions is an important aspect of our social intelligence. Prior work suggests that an abstract understanding of how expectati…
When Success Is Surprising
How do we learn who is good at what? Building on the idea that humans draw rich inferences from others’ emotional expressions, here we ask whether others’ surprised reactions to performance outcomes can elicit inferences about competence. Across three experiments, participants were asked to choose “who is better” in scenarios where two students performed identically on the same task but their teacher expressed surprise to only one of them. In Exp…
Detecting social biases using mental state inference
Social biases are prevalent in everyday social interactions, but they are often expressed in subtle ways that can make them difficult to detect. Yet, intuitively, people often recognize when they are the subject of a bias, even when those biases are not explicitly communicated (e.g., sexist or racist slurs). While much research has focused on the negative consequences of social biases, less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that allow peopl…
Young children infer the informativeness of others’ praise
Praise is not only rewarding but also informative. It can provide children with information about their competence, especially when they are uncertain or unable to judge for themselves. Not all praise is equally meaningful, however: someone who praises only high-quality work is more informative than someone who praises indiscriminately. Across four experiments, we find that 4- to 5-year-old U.S. children-from both in-person preschool and online s…
Adolescents report being most motivated by encouragement from people who know their abilities and the domain
Students often receive encouragement but do not always find it motivating. Whose encouragement motivates students and what cognitive mechanisms underlie this process? We propose that students' responses to positive feedback (e.g., encouragement) hinge on mental state representations, specifically what the speaker knows. Across three studies, we find that U.S. adolescents ( n = 581-759 11- to 19-year-olds per study, preregistered; > 80% racial/eth…
Pointing out learning opportunities reduces overparenting
Overparenting—taking over and completing developmentally appropriate tasks for children—is pervasive and hurts children's motivation. Can overparenting in early childhood be reduced by simply framing tasks as learning opportunities? In Study 1 (N = 77; 62% female; 74% White; collected 4/2022), US parents of 4-to-5-year-olds reported taking over less on tasks they perceived as greater learning opportunities, which was most often the case on academ…
Children Understand How Adults’ Achievement Goals Drive Actions
Adults often hold different goals for children’s achievement: Sometimes they want a child to learn and develop their skills as much as possible (i.e., a learning goal), while other times they may forego a child’s learning in favor of successful performance (i.e., a performance goal). How do children think these achievement goals influence adults’ child-directed behaviors? Across two preregistered experiments (n = 90 adults; n = 160 5- to 8-year-o…
Psychology (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (3 works) · Cognitive psychology (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (2 works) · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness (2 works) · Academic achievement (1 work) · Artificial Intelligence (1 work)