Awareness and Symbol Use Improves Future-Oriented Decision Making in Preschoolers

Abstract

A child version of the Iowa Gambling task was used to explore the development of decision-making during the preschool period in two experiments. One hundred eighty-one children, 3.5 and 4.5 years of age, were asked to choose between a “bad” deck with higher immediate but lower long-term rewards and a “good” deck with lower immediate but higher long-term rewards. Experiment 1 explored age differences and the association of the gambling task with a delay of gratification task. Age differences in performance were found, supporting previous findings (Kerr & Zelazo, 2004) of a development difference between 3- and 4-year-old children in future-oriented decision making. Performance on the gambling task was found to be significantly associated with delay of gratification for 3.5-year-old children only. Experiment 2 explored the effect of labeling and symbol use on performance. Although having 4.5-year-old children label decks as good or bad improved their performance on the task, this labeling had no effect on 3.5-year-old children's performance. However, having 3.5-year-old children place a symbol representing “good” and “bad” next to the decks did improve performance, but only for those children who were able to correctly label the decks. These results suggest an interaction between conscious awareness, symbol use, and making advantageous future-oriented decisions during the preschool period.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Killam scholarships to Nancy Garon and Grant No. 410-2004-1252 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to Chris Moore.