Emotions before actions: When children see costs as causal

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Development
• Behavioral Economics
• Psychology

Background:

• Adults often display sunk cost bias, continuing endeavors due to prior investment.
• Developmental differences in understanding sunk cost bias are not fully explained.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate why young children overlook sunk cost bias.
• Differentiate between children not seeing costs as causal versus believing future actions cannot compensate for sunk costs.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments involving 4-7-year-olds (N=320) and adults (N=429).
• Participants read stories about collecting items with varying acquisition costs.
• Evaluated predictions of characters' emotions and subsequent actions.

Main Results:

• All age groups predicted characters would feel sadder about high-cost objects.
• Only adults predicted characters would persist with high-cost objects.
• Children perceive incurred costs as causal and integrate them into emotional responses.

Conclusions:

• Children's sunk cost reasoning differs from adults due to incomplete mental accounting.
• Developmental differences in sunk cost bias may stem from accounting for future outcomes.
• Costs are integrated into children's and adults' theory of emotions.