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Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Li, R; Roberts, RC; Huettel, SA; Brannon, EM
Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology
July 2017

Ambiguity aversion arises when a decision maker prefers risky gambles with known probabilities over equivalent ambiguous gambles with unknown probabilities. This phenomenon has been consistently observed in adults across a large body of empirical work. Evaluating ambiguity aversion in young children, however, has posed methodological challenges because probabilistic representations appropriate for adults might not be understood by young children. Here, we established a novel method for representing risk and ambiguity with physical objects that overcomes previous methodological limitations and allows us to measure ambiguity aversion in young children. We found that individual 5-year-olds exhibited consistent choice preferences and, as a group, exhibited no ambiguity aversion in a task that evokes ambiguity aversion in adults. Across individuals, 5-year-olds exhibited greater variance in ambiguity preferences compared with adults tested under similar conditions. This suggests that ambiguity aversion is absent during early childhood and emerges over the course of development.

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Published In

Journal of experimental child psychology

DOI

EISSN

1096-0457

ISSN

0022-0965

Publication Date

July 2017

Volume

159

Start / End Page

319 / 326

Related Subject Headings

  • Young Adult
  • Uncertainty
  • Risk-Taking
  • Psychology, Child
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Gambling
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
 

Citation

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Li, R., Roberts, R. C., Huettel, S. A., & Brannon, E. M. (2017). Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 159, 319–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.013
Li, Rosa, Rachel C. Roberts, Scott A. Huettel, and Elizabeth M. Brannon. “Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 159 (July 2017): 319–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.013.
Li R, Roberts RC, Huettel SA, Brannon EM. Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects. Journal of experimental child psychology. 2017 Jul;159:319–26.
Li, Rosa, et al. “Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 159, July 2017, pp. 319–26. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.013.
Li R, Roberts RC, Huettel SA, Brannon EM. Five-year-olds do not show ambiguity aversion in a risk and ambiguity task with physical objects. Journal of experimental child psychology. 2017 Jul;159:319–326.
Journal cover image

Published In

Journal of experimental child psychology

DOI

EISSN

1096-0457

ISSN

0022-0965

Publication Date

July 2017

Volume

159

Start / End Page

319 / 326

Related Subject Headings

  • Young Adult
  • Uncertainty
  • Risk-Taking
  • Psychology, Child
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Gambling
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology