Skip to content
Bored Studies
RecruitingAccepts healthy volunteers

Engaging Mental Effort: Process- and Person-Based Reward Experiences, Effort Reinforcement Intervention, and Cascading Effects on Challenging Tasks

University of California, Davis · with Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) · NCT07557732

View Study & Apply (opens in a new tab)

Opens the official ClinicalTrials.gov record, with the study team’s contacts. Bored Studies doesn’t enroll anyone.

Key facts

Compensation
Not posted. Ask the study team before screening.
Who can join
Ages 9–13 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
180
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
April 8, 2026
Record last updated
April 29, 2026

Status re-checked against ClinicalTrials.gov within the last 12 hours.

What the study is about

Brief Summary: The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate the influences of children's prior experiences with rewards following successes at school and interventions aimed at influencing children's preferences for challenging cognitive tasks.

The main questions this study aims to answer are as follows:

  • Does the frequency of process-based rewards (e.g., rewards for working hard) vs. outcomes-based rewards (i.e., rewards for a good grade) predict children's preferences for challenging cognitive tasks?
  • Does providing rewards for taking on effortful cognitive tasks increase children's preferences for challenging cognitive tasks more than providing rewards for performing well on cognitive tasks?
  • Does receiving rewards for taking on effortful cognitive tasks increase children's challenge-seeking in novel tasks and questionnaires relevant for academic achievement that have not been previously linked with rewards?

Participants will complete the following tasks:

  • A matrix completion problem solving task, with options to seek tips for solving problems and options to quit early.
  • A response inhibition task, with options to complete a harder or easier version of the task.
  • A cognitive flexibility task, with options to complete a harder or easier version of the task.
  • A puzzle completion task, with an option to quit early.
  • Answer a set of questions about academic effort
  • Parents will complete a set of questions about how they responded to children's recent successes and failures at school.

Being studied: Performance Rewards; Effort Rewards

Conditions: Performance vs. Effort Rewards

Eligibility criteria

Copied from the official record. The study team makes the final decision at screening.

Show full criteria

Inclusion Criteria

  • Children aged 9.00-13.00 years

Exclusion Criteria

  • Known or diagnosed developmental disorder (autism, ADHD, other learning disorders or developmental delays)

Recruiting US locations

  • Center for Mind and Brain

    Davis, CA 95616

    Site contact: Laura Birch · 530-752-1011 · cmbadmin@ucdavis.edu

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Jesse C Niebaum, PhD · 530-752-1011 · jcniebaum@ucdavis.edu
  • Yuko Munakata, PhD · ymunakata@ucdavis.edu
All healthy volunteers studies in California →
Engaging Mental Effort: Process- and Person-Based Reward… (NCT07557732) | Bored Studies