Developmental and Gender Differences in Future-Oriented Decision-Making During the Preschool Period

Abstract

A child version of the Iowa Gambling task was used to explore the developmental and gender differences in decision making of 4-year-olds (N = 141). The task required children to choose between two decks: a deck with higher immediate rewards and a deck with higher future rewards. Developmental differences between young (4.0–4.5) and older (4.6–4.11) children were found, with older 4-year-olds choosing more from the deck with higher future rewards. Gender differences were found for decision-making strategy. It is suggested that these differences in approaches might account for the pattern of gender differences found in past research.

Keywords:

• Iowa Gambling task
• decision making
• development
• preschool
• gender

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by an NSERC and Killam scholarship to the first author and a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the second author.

Notes

Lemmon, K. (2003). The future is now: The development of future reasoning in preschool children. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis.