Once failed, twice shy: How group-based competition influences risk preference in young children.

Abstract

Recent developmental research demonstrates that young children tend to be risk-seeking. However, very little is known about the extent to which such a capacity varies with children's group-based experience. Given that between-group competition is a central feature of human social life, this study aimed at examining the influence of group-based competition over risk preference in young children. In total, 234 children from 3 age groups (2-4-year-olds, 5-6-year-olds, and 8-9-year-olds) engaged in an intergroup competition manipulation, which was followed by a prosocial game assessing children's ingroup egalitarianism and a gambling task measuring children's risk preference. We found that children in the intergroup competition condition tended to be risk-averse compared with those who were in the nonintergroup competition condition. Furthermore, we found that an aversion to risk in the intergroup competition condition was driven by such an aversion observed in children from the losing group. In addition, we found a positive relationship between ingroup egalitarianism and risk preference in children from the winning group rather than those from the losing group. Together, our results contribute to the understanding of the effects of group-based experience on children's risk preference and may have important implications for understanding individuals' risky decisions.

Rank among Peers during Game Competition Affects the Tendency to Make Risky Choices in Adolescent Males

“…Intriguingly, compared to winners or control participants who performed the task without inter-group competition, it was observed that losers became risk-averse. This differs from our results, and this might be explained by several important differences between the two studies, including the age of participants (adolescents aged 14–15 in the current experiment vs. children 2–9 years old in Zhu et al, 2016), inter-individual vs. inter-group competition, multiple choices with risky options made during and affecting the competition vs. a single choice made after the competition, and whether the ranks (winning/losing) presented were fake or real. Exploring how these factors relate to risk-taking tendencies would be important in clarifying the relationships between risky behavior in adolescents and peer competition.…”

“…A recent study (Zhu et al, 2016) examined how winning/losing in a task with inter-group competition affects the tendency for risk-taking in subsequent choice opportunities in children. Intriguingly, compared to winners or control participants who performed the task without inter-group competition, it was observed that losers became risk-averse.…”

Decision‐making under risk of gain in young children and mangabey monkeys

“…The fact that toddlers in Experiment 1 preferred the risky option to the certain option with the same EV suggests that toddlers are risk prone in gain contexts. The current study extends to toddlers the findings providing evidence that risk proneness is a common strategy in children (e.g., Harbaugh et al, ; Paulsen et al, ; van Leijenhorst et al, ; Zhu et al, ). In Experiment 1, findings indicate that mangabeys show a trend to preferentially select the risky option when tested with the carrot reward.…”

“…In contrast to human adults, risk proneness in the gain domain is usually observed in both young children and non-human primates (e.g., Harbaugh et al, 2002;Long et al, 2009;McCoy & Platt, 2005;O'Neill & Schultz, 2010;Paulsen et al, 2011;So & Stuphorn, 2010;van Leijenhorst et al, 2010;Xu & Kralik, 2014;Zhu, Wang, Lv, & Li, 2016). It is currently unclear what mechanism might be underlying such economic preferences.…”

“…It is important because studies involving several sessions in order to stabilize individuals’ preferences may influence risk attitude in primates (Heilbronner & Hayden, ). To measure children's risk preference, a recent study (Zhu et al, ) only used one shot gambling task. In the present study, as in some recent studies involving manual search tasks for hidden objects with toddlers (e.g., Rivière & Brisson, ; Rivière & David, ), only two test trials were performed.…”