‘Will I want these stickers tomorrow?’ Preschoolers’ ability to predict current and future needs

Abstract

Between 3 and 5 years of age, children develop the ability to plan for their own and others' future needs; however, they have great difficulty predicting future needs that conflict with current ones. Importantly, this ability has only been tested in the domain of physiological states (e.g., thirst). Therefore, it is still an open question whether in a different context preschoolers can disengage from their current needs to secure a different future one. In a Resource Allocation task, 4- and 5-year-olds had to distribute three types of rewards between themselves and another child for either 'right now' or 'tomorrow'. Children's current needs were manipulated by providing them (or not) with their preferred reward at beginning of the task. Only 5-year-olds could predict future needs that conflict with their current ones and act accordingly. Younger children's performance is discussed in the context of temporal and social distance. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? By the age of 4, children can plan for their own and others' future needs. Seven-year-old children still have difficulty predicting future physiological needs that conflict with their current ones. What does this study add? In a Resource Allocation task, preschoolers had to share rewards with another child for 'right now' or 'tomorrow'. Children's current needs were manipulated by providing them (or not) with their preferred reward. This study shows that 5-year-olds can predict future (non-physiological) needs that conflict with their current ones.

The effect of psychological distance on young children's future predictions

“…Control questions would be useful in future work to confirm children's understanding of both the experimenter's baseline preference and their current state. More generally, replicating current findings with states other than thirst, and from perspectives other than that of the experimenter, will be important in determining if similar effects exist when making future predictions in different contexts (see Martin‐Ordas, , for a novel paradigm to examine current‐future state conflict outside the physiological domain).…”

The effect of episodic future simulation and motivation on young children’s induced-state episodic foresight

“…However, part of the utility of the Pretzel task is that thirst is a powerful motivational state that impacts future choices. Nonetheless, EpF tasks that mimic the current-future state conflict that exists in the Pretzel task have been developed outside the physiological domain (see Belanger et al, 2014; Cheke & Clayton, 2019 ; Martin‐Ordas, 2017 ). Future work should examine the extent to which manipulations surrounding episodic simulation and motivation might increase EpF in the non-physiological domains.…”

“…One study showed that 8- to 13-year-old children and even young adults seem to fall prey to the presentism bias in the Pretzel task ( Kramer et al, 2017 ). Thus, so-called induced-state EpF does not show the usual developmental progression compared to other EpF tasks where a current state does not conflict with a future state (e.g., Atance & Meltzoff, 2005 ; Suddendorf et al, 2011 ) and potentially where the current-future state conflict is outside the physiological domain (e.g., Bélanger et al, 2014 ; Martin‐Ordas, 2017 , although see Lee & Atance, 2016 ). Interestingly, it seems to be the case that older children and perhaps even adults perform similarly to 3-year-olds on this task.…”

“…By the time children are 4- or 5-years-old, they show more advanced EpF and have the ability to select an item to satisfy a future need ( Atance & Meltzoff, 2005 ; Suddendorf, 2017 ; Busby & Suddendorf, 2005 ). Although there is development beyond 5 years of age (see Suddendorf, 2017 ), many EpF tasks show that 5-year-olds’ performance is well above chance (e.g., Atance & Jackson, 2009 ; Atance, Louw, & Clayton, 2015 ; Atance & Meltzoff, 2005 ; Bélanger, Atance, Varghese, Nguyen, & Vendetti, 2014 ; Martin‐Ordas, 2017 ; Martin-Ordas, 2018 ; Russell, Alexis, & Clayton, 2010 ).…”

“…There were significant age-related increases on this task between 3- and 5-year-olds, although no age-related differences were found between 3- and 4-year-olds in another study that used the same task ( Lee & Atance, 2016 ). In a resource allocation task developed by Martin‐Ordas (2017) , children’s current desires were either met or unmet when they made decisions for the future (deciding how they should allocate rewards). Five year olds were better than 4-year-olds in allocating future rewards if their current needs were met (i.e., children had present access to the reward).…”