How children form impressions
Uli Solovieva is a doctoral student in developmental psychology at the University of Chicago. She studies children's ideas about ability and how they update impressions of other people. Asking children what they think takes care: the same answer can arise from different reasons, and some influences are difficult to put into words.
A study still taking shape
One project examines adults' gestures in television programmes for children. Solovieva describes documenting patterns and planning laboratory work to investigate their effects. Observing a pattern does not yet establish what children learn from it. She also stresses testing alternatives to a favoured explanation, without making a theory's success a measure of personal worth.
What teaching brought to research
Before her doctorate, Solovieva studied neuroscience and worked in teaching and school administration. That experience helps her recognise when a child in a study needs a break. An activity that looks like a short, carefully designed game to a researcher can feel different to a tired child.
Confidence needs practice
Her advice about speaking is concrete: practise saying the words aloud, not only writing them down. She does not describe confidence as something that arrives automatically with age or practice as a promise that nerves disappear. For her, preparation makes it possible to take part even when speaking still feels difficult.