Young children use supply and demand to infer desirability

In 4 experiments, we show that young children (total N = 290) use information about supply and demand to infer the desirability of resources. In each experiment, children saw scenarios about sandwiches from different shops, which varied in supply (number of sandwiches produced for the day) and demand (number of customers attracted). In Experiments 1 and 2, 5- to 6-year-olds gave higher desirability ratings for sandwiches from shops with greater than lesser demand when supply was held constant. In Experiment 3, 5- to 7-year-olds gave higher desirability ratings for sandwiches from shops with less than more supply when demand was held constant. Finally, in Experiment 4, 5- to 6-year-olds were more likely to judge that sandwiches came from a good shop (rather than from a bad one) when demand exceeded supply than when supply exceeded demand. Together, the findings reveal a way that children can infer how desirable resources are, without needing to incur the costs that would normally be required to obtain and sample the resources themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).