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The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

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Published on: April 6, 2018

Effects of explaining on children's preference for simpler hypotheses.

Caren M Walker¹, Elizabeth Bonawitz², Tania Lombrozo³

¹Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gillman Dr., # 0109, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0109, USA. carenwalker@ucsd.edu.

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

|February 9, 2017

Summary

Prompting children to explain observed effects encourages them to favor simpler causal hypotheses. This developmental trend shows 5-year-olds benefiting from explanation prompts, while 6-year-olds favor simplicity regardless.

Keywords:

Causal inference Cognitive development Explanation Simplicity

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Development
Causal Reasoning
Developmental Psychology

Background:

Explanation is a key component of causal reasoning.
Simplicity is a feature of "good" explanations.
Understanding how explanation prompts influence children's hypothesis selection is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if prompting children to generate explanations enhances their preference for simpler causal hypotheses.
To examine developmental changes in this preference across ages 4, 5, and 6.

Main Methods:

Children (4, 5, 6 years) observed outcomes explained by simple or complex hypotheses.
Experimental manipulation: children either explained observations or reported them (control).
Children made inferences based on competing hypotheses.

Main Results:

Four-year-olds did not favor simpler hypotheses in either condition.
Five-year-olds favored simpler hypotheses only when prompted to explain.
Six-year-olds favored simpler hypotheses irrespective of explanation prompts.

Conclusions:

Explanation prompts can foster a preference for simpler causal hypotheses in children.
This effect demonstrates developmental differences in the impact of explanation on causal reasoning.
Six-year-olds show a more robust preference for simplicity, independent of explicit prompting.