Preschoolers’ competence to use advice in everyday decision contexts

Abstract

When relying on the advice of others in decision making, one must consider the fact that advice-givers may vary in terms of predictive accuracy, that is, their history of being correct. We investigated 5- and 6-year-olds’ competence in weighting advice in decision making according to predictive accuracy. Contrary to previous child decision research that draws a rather cautious picture on preschoolers’ weighting competence, we created a child-friendly decision paradigm with an everyday context based on preparatory studies (e.g., observational study in daycare). In the role of the main character of an illustrated, interactive children’s book, participants made a series of multiple-cue inference decisions during a daycare day. In each decision, they could ask for advice regarding two decision options from two advice-givers who differed in terms of predictive accuracy (p = .17 vs. p = .83). Contrary to previous findings in child decision research, many preschoolers prioritized the advice of the more accurate advice-giver and systematically used predictive accuracy as a decision weight for their choices in an everyday context. At the same time, preschoolers displayed difficulty in focusing their information search and often unnecessarily asked the less accurate advice-giver. We present our findings with respect to two contradictory research fields: child decision-making research and trust-in-informants research. Implications for decision-making theories are discussed.