Child Dev. 2015 Sep-Oct;86(5):1434-48. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12401. Epub 2015 Aug 12.

Knowing When to Be "Rational": Flexible Economic Decision Making and Executive Function in Preschool Children.

Child development

Wendy S C Lee, Stephanie M Carlson

PMID: 26264807 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12401

Abstract

Failure to delay gratification may not indicate poor control or irrationality, but might be an adaptive response. Two studies investigated 3.5- and 4.5-year-old children's ability to adapt their delay and saving behavior when their preference (e.g., to delay or not delay) became nonadaptive. In Study 1 (N = 140), children's delay preference was associated with a risk of losing rewards. In Study 2 (N = 142), children's saving preference was associated with an inability to play an attractive game. Whereas baseline delaying and saving preferences were unrelated to a standardized executive function measure, children who switched to their nonpreferred choice scored higher, suggesting flexibility of decision-making may be a more meaningful dependent variable than baseline performance in developmental research on self-control.

© 2015 The Authors. Child Development © 2015 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

MeSH terms

• Adaptation, Psychological / physiology
• Child Development / physiology
• Child, Preschool
• Decision Making / physiology
• Delay Discounting / physiology
• Executive Function / physiology
• Female
• Humans
• Male

Publication Types

• Journal Article
• Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Grant support

• R01HD1495/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States