Children are adaptive decision-makers: how environment shapes decision preferences

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B.29020222117http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2117SectionYou have accessCommentaryChildren are adaptive decision-makers: how environment shapes decision preferences Rosa Li Rosa Li http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9601-6020 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270, USA [email protected] Contribution: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Rosa Li Rosa Li http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9601-6020 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270, USA [email protected] Contribution: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Published:22 March 2023https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2117 Review history Review history is available via Web of Science at https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1098/rspb.2022.2117 Diminishing marginal utility, in which each additional unit of a good brings incrementally less additional utility (or subjective value) than the one before it, is a classic law of economic theory. The first piece of candy is great, the second piece is slightly less great, the third piece even less great, and so on. This drives decision-makers to be averse to taking risks, as the potential increased gains of a risk bring diminishing potential increased utility. For example, a 50% chance of 2 pieces of candy yields an average of 1 piece of candy, but 50% of the utility of 2 pieces of candy is less than the utility of 1 piece of candy. Thus, 1 piece of guaranteed candy is more attractive than a 50% chance of 2. This economic perspective has motivated a large body of work investigating decision preferences across human development, with a focus on attributing age differences in risk-aversion to cognitive or affective processes [1]. By contrast to classic economic theory, risk sensitivity theory draws on behavioural ecology and animal foraging behaviour to consider risk preferences in the context of resource availability. Under risk sensitivity theory, diminishing marginal utility and risk aversion are exhibited by well-fed animals or those in resource-rich environments. If an animal is near-starving or in a resource-poor environment, however, a small certain gain in calories would be insufficient to meet energy needs and result in certain starvation. In such situations, the adaptive choice would be to choose risky but larger gains for a chance to stay alive, especially when the potential risky gains are high, thus demonstrating risk-seeking behaviour [2] (figure 1). Though evidence supporting risk sensitivity theory has been found in both animals and adult humans [3], the literature on economic risky decision-making in children has largely neglected to consider the potential impacts of resource availability or socioeconomic status (SES) on their decision preferences. Figure 1. Risk preferences vary as a function of resource availability and stakes. If 10 units are required for survival, a low resource individual (centre left) would be risk-seeking in high-stakes scenarios (top row) when the gamble represents a chance of survival while the certain gain represents certain starvation. The same low-resource individual would be risk-neutral in low-stakes scenarios (bottom row) when both the gamble's potential gain and the certain gain are too small to meet resource needs and would still result in starvation. By contrast, a high-resource individual (centre right) would be risk-averse in both high- and low-stakes scenarios when the certain gain offers certain survival while the gamble offers a chance of starvation.Download figureOpen in new tabDownload PowerPoint A recent paper by Harvey & Blake in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B made a novel investigation into whether children made decisions in accordance with risk sensitivity theory [4]. They recruited 4- to 10-year-olds of varying SES (as measured by their mothers' education level) to assess sure and risky gambles for potential rewards (low or high amounts of candy or tokens that they could trade in for prizes). Their data (openly available) showed that all of the lowest-SES children in their sample were risk-seeking for high-stakes gains but risk-neutral when the stakes were lower. By contrast, the highest-SES children in their sample were significantly less risk-seeking for high-stakes gains, compared to lowest-SES children. The highest-SES children also had consistent risk preferences regardless of whether the gains were of high or low stakes. These findings support risk sensitivity theory, as children from the lowest-SES families—and thus presumed to have grown up in environments with fewer available resources—exhibited risk-seeking for high-stakes gains and sensitivity to the size of potential risky gains, whereas children from the highest-SES families did not. Harvey & Blake's findings [4] can also be considered through the lens of ecological rationality, which considers behaviour in the context of what is adaptive in different environments [5]. This approach can yield broader insights than just labelling decision-making tendencies as always 'good' or 'bad' or 'irrational'. For example, the classic 'marshmallow task' paradigm asks young children (often 4-year-olds) to forgo eating one marshmallow now in order to receive a second marshmallow later. Children who are able to wait for a second marshmallow are often assigned the virtue of self-control, while those who just eat the first marshmallow are deemed impatient [6]. However, when researchers varied the reliability of the experimenters administering the marshmallow task, children who interacted with a reliable experimenter who fulfilled prior promises waited significantly longer for a promised second marshmallow than those who interacted with an unreliable experimenter who had made promises that they did not keep. This demonstrates the ability of even young children to adapt their behaviour to environmental context [7]. Similarly, risk-seeking is often conceptualized in a negative way, and studies often endeavour to draw links between laboratory risk-seeking and reckless and potentially dangerous everyday behaviors. Harvey & Blake's findings support the idea that risk-seeking can be adaptive in certain contexts, which aligns with calls to consider how risk-taking can also be a positive means of promoting growth and exploration [8]. Harvey & Blake's study [4] motivates new lines of inquiry in the effort to better understand human decision-making. Are there critical periods in childhood in which adversity or environmental instability affect decision preferences in a manner that continues into adulthood [9]? One possibility is that preferences that are ecologically rational in childhood may persist into adulthood, even when such preferences may be maladaptive in the adult environment [10]. Harvey & Blake's study [4] only examined participants at one point in childhood and thus cannot test this directly. A study with adults, however, did find that their economic risk preferences varied as a function of their childhood SES but not their adult SES [11],1 suggesting that efforts to understand adult decision preferences—as well as efforts to change or improve decision-making—could be bolstered by considering a lifespan perspective. On the other hand, the temporal stability of economic measures of risk preference has been found to be relatively poor in adults, and to be far lower than the temporal stability of self-reported propensity of engaging in everyday risk-seeking behaviors [12,13]. It therefore remains an open question as to whether and to what degree the effect of childhood SES on economic and everyday risk preferences persists over time. Finally, this paper highlights the importance of recruiting diverse samples in research with human participants. Most psychology and developmental psychology studies draw from so-called WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) samples [14]. Primarily studying developmental participants from families with the time and means to visit research laboratories on college campuses can further compound such sampling biases. Harvey & Blake [4] diversified their sample by recruiting from local public parks and museums, though their sample still skewed white, educated and high income. Work studying children in non-Western countries and cultures has also shown risk-preferences to vary as a function of environment [15], demonstrating cross-cultural studies as another means of testing risk sensitivity theory. Additionally, income mobility, a measure of generational change in income, varies significantly across countries, and even among WEIRD countries [16]. As a result, cross-cultural and cross-country comparisons provide another opportunity for measuring the applicability of risk sensitivity theory across the lifespan. Future work should continue to move beyond convenience sampling to strive for more equitable representation in who is studied, both to better inform our understanding of all humans' behaviour and so that our research findings can serve broader populations. Data accessibility This article has no additional data. Authors' contributions R.L.: conceptualization, writing—original draft. Conflict of interest declaration I declare I have no competing interests. Funding I received no funding for this commentary. FootnotesEndnote 1 It should be noted that Amir et al. [11] found that lower childhood SES was associated with greater risk aversion, though that study used hypothetical rather than realized measures of risk preferences, as well as subjective and retrospective assessments of childhood SES. © 2023 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.References1. Defoe IN, Dubas JS, Figner B, van Aken MAG. 2015 A meta-analysis on age differences in risky decision making: adolescents versus children and adults. Psychol. Bull. 141, 48-84. (doi:10.1037/a0038088) Crossref, PubMed, ISI, Google Scholar2. Stephens DW. 1981 The logic of risk-sensitive foraging preferences. Anim. Behav. 29, 628-629. 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