Partition dependence in development: Are children’s decisions shaped by the arbitrary grouping of options?

Abstract

The grouping of options into arbitrary categories influences adults’ decisions about allocating choices or resources among those options; this is called “partition dependence.” Partition dependence has been demonstrated in a wide range of contexts in adults, and is often presented as a technique for designing choice architectures that nudge people toward better decisions. Whether children also make partition dependent decisions is unknown, as are potential patterns of developmental change. In this experiment (N = 159), we examined whether children exhibit partition dependence using a novel resource allocation task. This novel task, distributing food tokens to zoo animals, did elicit partition dependence in our developmental sample. Both older children (ages 7-10 years), and younger children (ages 3-6 years) made partition dependent allocations, and younger children exhibited a larger partition dependence effect than did older children. This work provides the first evidence that children’s decisions, like adults’, are influenced by the arbitrary grouping of the options, and suggests that younger children may be more susceptible to this influence, at least in the context explored here.

Partition dependence in financial aid distribution to income categories

“…In this game, children (preschoolers to elementary school age) were asked to distribute food tokens to different types of zoo animals, categorized in different manners. Children's allocations revealed strong partition dependence effects at all ages tested, and younger children showed greater effects than did older children [7]. Thus, this recent evidence shows that partition dependent decisions are made early in life and continue throughout the lifespan, at least under some conditions.…”

“…People may diversify their choices over both individual options and over arbitrary or subjective groupings of options, and because of this, different groupings can lead to different choices: a phenomenon called partition dependence [1,5]. Partition dependence has been demonstrated across a wide range of contexts in adults (e.g., [1,6]), and, recently, in a study of resource allocation by children [7].…”

“…Because many adult studies make use of relatively complex verbal instructions and concepts that are not available to young children, the range of possible paradigms that can be used with child participants is more limited. However, Reichelson and colleagues [7] recently developed a novel paradigm based on the structure of previous adult studies that would allow for testing of partition dependence in children's choices during a simple resource allocation game. In this game, children (preschoolers to elementary school age) were asked to distribute food tokens to different types of zoo animals, categorized in different manners.…”

Framing and insurance choices

“…Finally, our paper is also related to experimental evidence of “partition dependence,” where the grouping of options into arbitrary categories influences decisions requiring multiple selections from several alternatives (Fox et al, 2005; Reichelson et al, 2018; Sonnemann et al, 2013), and framing effects of bundles (Chakravarti et al, 2002; Harlam et al, 1995; Soman & Gourville, 2001). Additionally, Johnson et al (1999) and Janiszewski and Cunha (2004) explain observed framing effects within the context of the mental accounting model of Thaler (1985) where agents integrate multiple losses and segregate multiple gains.…”