Where orchids and dandelions grow: investigating differential susceptibility to environmental influences during early learning

This study proposes to investigate two areas. First, for the first time, children's small-scale fluctuations in physiological stress and attention, learning and social behaviours in indoor and outdoor settings will be recorded. This will allow for the assessment of how small-scale fluctuations in children's levels of physiological stress differ between indoor and outdoor settings, and to measure how these fluctuations influence children's cognition and social behaviour. Second, the research will investigate whether the educational environment influences physiological stress, attention and learning in some children more than others. Previous research has suggested that some children are phenotypically sensitive to environmental influences (known as 'orchid' children) and others are less so ('dandelions') [9]. However, no previous research has, to our knowledge, investigated whether children's phenotypical sensitivity influences their behaviour within educational settings.