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Children do not exhibit ambiguity aversion despite intact familiarity bias.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Li, R; Brannon, EM; Huettel, SA
Published in: Frontiers in psychology
January 2014

The phenomenon of ambiguity aversion, in which risky gambles with known probabilities are preferred over ambiguous gambles with unknown probabilities, has been thoroughly documented in adults but never measured in children. Here, we use two distinct tasks to investigate ambiguity preferences of children (8- to 9-year-olds) and a comparison group of adults (19- to 27-year-olds). Across three separate measures, we found evidence for significant ambiguity aversion in adults but not in children and for greater ambiguity aversion in adults compared to children. As ambiguity aversion in adults has been theorized to result from a preference to bet on the known and avoid the unfamiliar, we separately measured familiarity bias and found that children, like adults, are biased towards the familiar. Our findings indicate that ambiguity aversion emerges across the course of development between childhood and adolescence, while a familiarity bias is already present in childhood.

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Published In

Frontiers in psychology

DOI

EISSN

1664-1078

ISSN

1664-1078

Publication Date

January 2014

Volume

5

Start / End Page

1519

Related Subject Headings

  • 52 Psychology
  • 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
 

Citation

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Li, R., Brannon, E. M., & Huettel, S. A. (2014). Children do not exhibit ambiguity aversion despite intact familiarity bias. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1519. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01519
Li, Rosa, Elizabeth M. Brannon, and Scott A. Huettel. “Children do not exhibit ambiguity aversion despite intact familiarity bias.Frontiers in Psychology 5 (January 2014): 1519. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01519.
Li R, Brannon EM, Huettel SA. Children do not exhibit ambiguity aversion despite intact familiarity bias. Frontiers in psychology. 2014 Jan;5:1519.
Li, Rosa, et al. “Children do not exhibit ambiguity aversion despite intact familiarity bias.Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 5, Jan. 2014, p. 1519. Epmc, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01519.
Li R, Brannon EM, Huettel SA. Children do not exhibit ambiguity aversion despite intact familiarity bias. Frontiers in psychology. 2014 Jan;5:1519.

Published In

Frontiers in psychology

DOI

EISSN

1664-1078

ISSN

1664-1078

Publication Date

January 2014

Volume

5

Start / End Page

1519

Related Subject Headings

  • 52 Psychology
  • 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology