Decomposing Decision-making in Preschoolers: Making Decisions Under Ambiguity Versus Risk

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2024 Sep 30

PMID 39348387

Authors

Nancy Garon

Ellen Doucet

Bronwyn Inness

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Decision-making in the real world involves multiple abilities. The main goal of the current study was to examine the abilities underlying the Preschool Gambling task (PGT), a preschool variant of the Iowa Gambling task (IGT), in the context of an integrative decision-making framework. Preschoolers (n = 144) were given the PGT along with four novel decision-making tasks assessing either decision-making under ambiguity or decision-making under risk. Results indicated that the ability to learn from feedback, to maintain a stable preference, and to integrate losses and gains contributed to the variance in decision-making on the PGT. Furthermore, children's awareness level on the PGT contributed additional variance, suggesting both implicit and explicit processes are involved. The results partially support the integrative decision-making framework and suggest that multiple abilities contribute to individual differences in decision-making on the PGT.

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