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The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
Published on: August 25, 2023
Children's and adults' social partner choices are differently affected by statistical information
Rongzhi Liu1, Gil Diesendruck2, Fei Xu3
1Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Abstract:
The current study investigated how U.S. adults (N = 99) and 5- and 6-year-old children (N = 112) use statistical information in their social partner choices. We found that children integrated base rate information (the distribution of traits within groups) and individual-level statistical information (the frequency of an individual's past behaviors) in their partner choices, but adults only relied on the individual-level statistical information and neglected base rate information. In addition, adults and children were affected by non-statistical information: Adults showed risk-seeking and risk-averse tendencies, and children showed only risk-seeking tendencies in their partner choices. These findings provide evidence that both statistical and non-statistical information affect social decisions, and adults and children are influenced by each type of information in distinct ways. The current study suggests future directions to further investigate the role of statistical learning in our social cognition and to develop a unifying account of how non-statistical information interacts with statistical information in our social decisions.
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