Abstract
We investigated whether the developmental emergence of episodic future thinking (EFT) is associated with performance on a type of delay of gratification task: a delay choice task that involved choosing between a small reward now or a larger reward the next day. In Study 1, 4-to-5-year-olds’ (N = 99) EFT as measured by a tool saving task was significantly associated with performance on the delay choice task, but this was not the case for other EFT measures. Study 2 compared the performance of 4-to-5-year-olds (N = 130) on the delay choice task when cued to think about either a future, past, or habitual event versus a no-cue baseline. Overall, cueing impaired performance on the delay choice task. While EFT does show a relation to performance in a delay choice task in pre-schoolers, deliberately engaging in thought about future events may be too taxing in young children to reliably enhance the ability to make future-oriented decisions.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 976-990 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Developmental Psychology |
Volume | 57 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 01 Jun 2021 |
Keywords
- Thinking
- Reward
- Humans
- Child
- Child, Preschool
- Decision Making
- Cues
- Forecasting
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The role of mental representations of order in mathematical cognition: A developmental approach
O'Connor, P. A. (Author), Morsanyi, K. (Supervisor) & McCormack, T. (Supervisor), 2019Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy
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