Preschoolers' Saving Behavior: The Role of Planning and Self‐Control

Abstract

Planning and self-control were examined in relation to preschoolers' (41- to 74-months) saving behavior. Employing a marble run paradigm, 54 children participated in two trials in which they could use their marbles immediately on a less desirable run, or save for a more desirable run. Twenty-nine children received the opportunity to create a budget. On Trial 1, children in the budgeting condition saved significantly more than did children in the control condition, and their planning ability related to saving (after controlling for age and language). Those who consistently budgeted at least one marble for the more desirable run were more likely to save. Control children's performance improved across trials, with no between-condition differences on Trial 2. Self-control was not related to saving.

Future-Oriented Thinking: Saving, Prospective Memory, and Planning in Young Children

“…However, in DoG tasks, participants would get both the first marshmallow and the second marshmallow after waiting for the delay. Despite how intuitively these skills appear to be similar, previous research has not reported a relation between these abilities in preschoolers (Kamawar et al, 2019;Lee & Carlson, 2015). However, DoG and saving are similar in that both of these skills require the ability to consider oneself in the future in order to see the benefit of waiting for the reward.…”

“…Recall that saving refers to avoiding the immediate consumption of a resource in the present so that it can be used in the future (Metcalf and Atance, 2011). Though quite limited in number, studies employing a variety of saving measures have shown that children under the age of five are able to save in some capacity (e.g., Atance et al, 2017;Kamawar et al, 2019;Lee & Carlson, 2015;Mazachowsky & Mahy, 2020;Metcalf & Atance, 2011). The research that currently exists in this area now be discussed.…”

“…Atance et al (2017) suggest that their task may not have relied on inhibitory control, which was consistent with findings from other studies (e.g., Lee and Carlson, 2015), and that working memory was not related to saving. SAVING, PROSPECTIVE MEMORY, AND PLANNING IN YOUNG CHILDREN More recently, Kamawar et al (2019) included the opportunity for some of their three-to five-year-old participants to develop a spending plan (i.e., create a budget) before engaging in their marble savings task (based very closely on Metcalf & Atance, 2011). It was expected that participants who were given the option to plan their spending and saving (i.e., budget) before the task began would be more likely to save more marbles for their preferred marble run.…”

“…They further found that children in the control (non-budgeting condition) saved more on their second trial than their first, bringing their saving performance to about the same as children in the budgeting condition. Kamawar et al (2019) suggest that giving participants the opportunity to budget allowed them to be better able to consider their future selves and make a better plan about how they might spend their marbles, but that this advantage was not necessarily beyond what participants learned in their first trial. Kamawar et al (2019), in addition to including budgeting, also added measures of planning and self-control.…”

“…More specifically, the relations among saving, prospective memory, and planning is of interest. Previous research has suggested that saving and planning are related SAVING, PROSPECTIVE MEMORY, AND PLANNING IN YOUNG CHILDREN (Kamawar et al, 2019) and that prospective memory and planning are related (e.g., Mahy & Moses, 2015;Causey & Bjorkland, 2014), but little is known about the relation between saving and prospective memory or how these three future-oriented thinking skills are related to each other. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to determine if saving is related to these other more established future-oriented thinking skills (prospective memory and planning).…”