Young Children Are Wishful Thinkers: The Development of Wishful Thinking in 3- to 10-Year-Old Children
Child Development2019Vol. 91(4), pp. 1166–1182
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2019 papers
Adrienne Wente, Mariel K. Goddu, Teresa García, Elyanah Posner, María Fernández Flecha, Alison Gopnik
Abstract
Abstract Previously, research on wishful thinking has found that desires bias older children’s and adults’ predictions during probabilistic reasoning tasks. In this article, we explore wishful thinking in children aged 3- to 10-years-old. Do young children learn to be wishful thinkers? Or do they begin with a wishful thinking bias that is gradually overturned during development? Across five experiments, we compare low- and middle-income United States and Peruvian 3- to 10-year-old children (N = 682). Children were asked to make predictions during games of chance. Across experiments, preschool-aged children from all backgrounds consistently displayed a strong wishful thinking bias. However, the bias declined with age.
Related Papers
- → Parental Socioeconomic Status, Communication, and Children's Vocabulary Development: A Third-Generation Test of the Family Investment Model(2012)124 cited
- → Direct and indirect effects of socio-economic status on child development: is developmental parenting a relevant mediator?(2019)13 cited
- → Parenting behaviours and children’s development from infancy to early childhood: changes, continuities and contributions(2008)92 cited
- → Understanding positive parenting style and parenting efficacy in parents having children with disabilities in China: the mediating role resilience(2023)8 cited
- Child Development: Change over Time(1995)