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Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects.
Rosa Li1, Rachel C Roberts2, Scott A Huettel3
1Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|April 1, 2017
Summary
Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion, unlike adults. Researchers developed a new object-based method to study this, finding individual differences in children's preferences, suggesting aversion develops later.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Behavioral economics
Background:
- Ambiguity aversion, a preference for known risks over unknown ones, is well-documented in adults.
- Previous studies faced challenges in assessing ambiguity aversion in young children due to methodological limitations in representing probabilities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a novel method for measuring ambiguity aversion in young children using physical objects.
- To investigate the presence and developmental trajectory of ambiguity aversion in 5-year-olds.
Main Methods:
- A new task was designed using physical objects to represent risk and ambiguity, overcoming prior methodological hurdles.
- Choice preferences of 5-year-old children were recorded in controlled experimental conditions.
- Adults were tested under similar conditions for comparative analysis.
Main Results:
- Individual 5-year-olds demonstrated consistent choice preferences.
- As a group, 5-year-olds did not exhibit ambiguity aversion in the task.
- Five-year-olds showed greater variability in ambiguity preferences compared to adults.
Conclusions:
- Ambiguity aversion appears to be absent in early childhood (around age 5).
- The development of ambiguity aversion likely occurs later in childhood.
- The novel object-based method is effective for assessing ambiguity aversion in young children.