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Young Children Are Wishful Thinkers: The Development of Wishful Thinking in 3‐ to 10‐Year‐Old Children
Author(s) -
Wente Adrienne O.,
Goddu Mariel K.,
Garcia Teresa,
Posner Elyanah,
Fernández Flecha María,
Gopnik Alison
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13299
Subject(s) - wishful thinking , psychology , developmental psychology , child development , cognitive psychology
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.