Knowing When to Be "Rational": Flexible Economic Decision Making and Executive Function in Preschool Children

Failure to delay gratification may not indicate poor control or irrationality, but might be an adaptive response. Two studies investigated 3.5- and 4.5-year-old children's ability to adapt their delay and saving behavior when their preference (e.g., to delay or not delay) became nonadaptive. In Study 1 (N = 140), children's delay preference was associated with a risk of losing rewards. In Study 2 (N = 142), children's saving preference was associated with an inability to play an attractive game. Whereas baseline delaying and saving preferences were unrelated to a standardized executive function measure, children who switched to their nonpreferred choice scored higher, suggesting flexibility of decision-making may be a more meaningful dependent variable than baseline performance in developmental research on self-control.