Emotions before actions: When children see costs as causal

Adults expect people to be biased by sunk costs, but young children do not. We tested between two accounts for why children overlook the sunk cost bias. On one account, children do not see sunk costs as causal. The other account posits that children see sunk costs as causal, but unlike adults, think future actions cannot make up for sunk costs. These accounts make opposing predictions about whether children should see sunk costs as affecting emotions. Across three experiments, 4-7-year-olds (total N = 320) and adults (total N = 429) saw stories about characters who collected items that were easy or difficult to obtain, and predicted characters' emotions and actions. At all ages, participants anticipated that characters would feel sadder about high-cost objects, but only adults predicted that characters would keep high-cost objects. Our findings show that children see incurred costs as causal, and that costs are integrated children's and adults' theory of emotions. Moreover, the findings suggest that developmental differences in sunk cost reasoning may rest in children's incomplete mental accounting. We also discuss children's reasoning about rational and irrational action.

People accept breaks in the causal chain between crime and punishment

Crime and punishment are usually connected. An agent intentionally causes harm, other people find out, and they punish the agent in response. We investigated whether people care about the integrity of this causal chain. Across seven experiments, participants (total N = 1,709) rated the acceptability of punishing agents for one crime when the agents had committed a different crime. Overall, participants generally approved of such wayward punishment. They endorsed it more strongly than punishing totally innocent agents, though they often approved of punishing agents for their correct crimes more strongly. Participants sometimes supported wayward punishment when wrongdoers were punished for a different kind of crime than the one committed, and they supported several different kinds of wayward punishments. Together the findings show that people often tolerate breaks in the causal chain between crime and punishment.

Close counterfactuals and almost doing the impossible

Can we feel that an unrealized outcome nearly happened if it was never possible in the first place? People often consider counterfactual events that did not happen, and some counterfactuals seem so close to reality that people say they "almost" or "easily could have" happened. Across four preregistered experiments (total N = 1,228), we investigated how judgments of counterfactual closeness depend on possibility, and whether this varies across two kinds of close counterfactuals. In judging whether outcomes almost happened, participants were more strongly impacted by possibility than by incremental manipulations of probability. In contrast, when judging whether outcomes easily could have happened, participants treated the distinction between impossible and possible like any other variation in probability. Both kinds of judgments were also impacted by propensity, though these effects were comparatively small. Together, these findings reveal novel differences between the two kinds of close counterfactuals and suggest that while possibility is privileged when judging what almost happened, probability is the focus when judging what easily could have happened.

When children choose fantastical events in fiction

Although stories for children often feature supernatural and fantastical events, children themselves often prefer realistic events when choosing what should happen in a story. In two experiments, we investigated whether 3- to 5-year-olds (total N = 240 from diverse backgrounds) might be more likely to include fantastical events in stories about familiar fantasy characters. In Experiment 1, children saw stories about fantasy or real-world characters (e.g., a mermaid or an ordinary woman) and judged whether they would achieve goals using fantastic or realistic methods. Children were more likely to choose fantastic methods for the fantasy characters, and this tendency was more common in older children. In Experiment 2, children were asked yes/no questions about whether characters could use fantastic, realistic, and unusual methods to achieve goals. Children more often affirmed fantastic methods for fantasy than real-world characters. These findings contrast with previous work suggesting children avoid including fantastic events in fiction and suggest that children use precedent and familiarity to decide what can happen in a story. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Improbable but possible: Training children to accept the possibility of unusual events

Young children tend to deny the possibility of events that violate their expectations, including events that are merely improbable, like making onion-flavored ice cream or owning a crocodile as a pet. Could this tendency be countered by teaching children more valid strategies for judging possibility? We explored this question by training children aged 4-12 (n = 128) to consider either the similarity between the target event and unusual events that have actually occurred or causal mechanisms that might bring the target event about. Both trainings increased children's acceptance of improbable events but only for the types of events addressed during training. Older children were more likely to accept improbable events, as were children who scored higher on a measure of cognitive reflection, but neither age nor cognitive reflection moderated the effects of training. These findings indicate that children can use both similarity and causality to assess possibility, but the use of this information is highly circumscribed, further demonstrating how robustly children conflate improbability with impossibility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Local or foreign? Flexibility in children's preference for similar others

Children have a robust social preference for people similar to them, like those who share their language, accent, and race. In the present research, we show that this preference can diminish when children consider who they want to learn about. Across three experiments, 4- to 6-year-olds (total N = 160; 74 female, 86 male, from the Waterloo region in Canada, a predominantly White and middle-class region) and adults (N = 103) saw pairs of characters. One character was from nearby and had characteristics typical of the participating child's location (e.g., playing soccer), whereas the other character was from far away and had characteristics atypical of children's location (e.g., playing hurling). In Experiment 1, children had no preference when judging who they liked better, but preferred foreign characters when judging who they wanted to learn about. Experiments 2 and 3 followed up by using procedures where participants were not told anything about the characters besides whether they were local or foreign. Children and adults preferred local characters when choosing who they liked, but preferred local characters less when choosing who to learn about. These findings show that children's preferences for similar others are flexible and depend on the judgment they are making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Calculated Feelings: How Children Use Probability to Infer Emotions

Developing the ability to accurately infer others' emotions is crucial for children's cognitive development. Here, we offer a new theoretical perspective on how children develop this ability. We first review recent work showing that with age, children increasingly use probability to infer emotions. We discuss how these findings do not fit with prominent accounts of how children understand emotions, namely the script account and the theory of mind account. We then outline a theory of how probability allows children to infer others' emotions. Specifically, we suggest that probability provides children with information about how much weight to put on alternative outcomes, allowing them to infer emotions by comparing outcomes to counterfactual alternatives.

Can compression take place in working memory without a central contribution of long-term memory?

Information is easier to remember when it is recognized as structured. One explanation for this benefit is that people represent structured information in a compressed form, thus reducing memory load. However, the contribution of long-term memory and working memory to compression are not yet disentangled. Previous work has mostly produced evidence that long-term memory is the main source of compression. In the present work, we reveal two signatures of compression in working memory using a large-scale naturalistic data set from a science museum. Analyzing data from more than 32,000 memory trials, in which people attempted to recall briefly displayed sequences of colors, we examined how the estimated compressibility of each sequence predicted memory performance. Besides finding that compressibility predicted memory performance, we found that greater compressibility of early subsections of sequences predicted better memory for later subsections, and that mis-recalled sequences were simpler than the originals. These findings suggest that (1) more compressibility reduces memory load, leaving space for additional information; (2) memory errors are not random and instead reflect compression gone awry. Together, these findings suggest that compression can take place in working memory. This may enable efficient storage on the spot without direct contributions from long-term memory. However, we also discuss ways long-term memory could explain our findings.

Ownership and willingness to compete for resources

Boyer proposes that ownership intuitions depend on tracking cues predictive of agents' motivations to compete for resources. However, the account may mis-predict people's intuitions about ownership, and it may also be too cognitively costly to be feasible. Even so, alternative accounts could benefit by taking inspiration from how the account handles thorny issues in the psychology of ownership.

Perceived similarity explains beliefs about possibility

No one has ever performed a successful brain transplant or traveled the Milky Way, but people often see these events as within the realm of possibility. Across six preregistered experiments (N = 1,472) we explore whether American adults' beliefs about possibility are driven by perceptions of similarity to known events. We find that people's confidence in the possibility of hypothetical future events is strongly predicted by how similar they think the events are to events that have already happened. We find that perceived similarity explains possibility ratings better than how desirable people think the events are, or how morally good or bad they think it would be to accomplish them. We also show that similarity to past events is a better predictor of people's beliefs about future possibilities than counterfactual similarity or similarity to events in fiction. We find mixed evidence regarding whether prompting participants to consider similarity shifts their beliefs about possibility. Our findings suggest that people may reflexively use memories of known events to guide their inferences about what is possible. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Why Children Believe They Are Owned

Owners decide what happens to their property, and so adults typically view autonomous beings as non-owned. If children likewise consider autonomy when judging what is owned, this may have implications for how they view themselves. If children believe that parents have power over them, that they themselves lack autonomy, and that only the autonomous cannot be owned, this may lead them to believe that they are owned by their parents. Across three experiments, we found that 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 206) consistently affirm that children are owned by their parents. In Experiment 1, children judged that children and domesticated animals are owned, but denied this for adults and wild animals. In Experiment 2, children were more likely to see children as owned by their parents than by their teachers, and also denied that children own either kind of adult. Finally, in Experiment 3, children were less likely to view a child who makes decisions against parental authority as owned. These judgments are unlikely to mirror what children have been told. Instead, they likely result from children spontaneously using autonomy principles, and possibly other principles of ownership, in reasoning about the ownership of living entities.

The second-order problem of other minds

The target article proposes that people perceive social robots as depictions rather than as genuine social agents. We suggest that people might instead view social robots as social agents, albeit agents with more restricted capacities and moral rights than humans. We discuss why social robots, unlike other kinds of depictions, present a special challenge for testing the depiction hypothesis.

Probability and intentional action

How does probability affect attributions of intentionality? In five experiments (total N = 1410), we provide evidence for a probability raising account holding that people are more likely to see the outcome of an agent's action as intentional if the agent does something to increase the odds of that outcome. Experiment 1 found that high probability without probability raising does not suffice for strong attributions of intentionality. Participants were more likely to conclude a girl intentionally obtained a desired gumball from a single gumball machine when it offered favorable odds for getting that kind of gumball compared with when it offered poor odds, but their attributions of intentionality were lukewarm. Experiments 2 and 3 then found stronger attributions of intentionality when the girl raised her probability of success by choosing to use machines offering favorable odds over machines offering poor odds. Finally, Experiments 4 and 5 examined whether these effects of probability raising might reduce to consideration of agents' beliefs and expectations. We found that although these mental states do matter, probability raising matters too-people attribute intentional actions to agents who increase their odds of success, rather than to agents who merely become convinced that success is likely. We discuss the implications of these findings for claims that control and skill contribute to attributions of intentional action.

Two kinds of counterfactual closeness

People often consider counterfactual events that did not happen, and some counterfactuals seem so close to actual events that they are described as aspects of reality. In five preregistered experiments (N = 1,195), we show there are two kinds of counterfactual closeness. These two kinds of closeness are inferred from different causes, elicit different emotions, and are described using different linguistic expressions. Distance-based closeness is inferred from the distance between the counterfactual and reality, is expressed by saying the counterfactual almost happened, and is more strongly linked with disappointment than surprise. Meanwhile, odds-based closeness is inferred from prior odds, is expressed by saying the counterfactual easily could have happened, and is more strongly linked with surprise. Even without information about the distance between outcomes and prior odds, people more strongly link expressions of whether something almost happened with disappointment and link expressions of whether something easily could have happened with surprise. In sum, counterfactual closeness is not perceived on a single dimension. Instead, there are at least two forms of closeness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Anchored in the present: preschoolers more accurately infer their futures when confronted with their pasts

People often speculate about what the future holds. They wonder what will happen tomorrow, and what the world will be like in the distant future. Nonetheless, people's ability to consider future possibilities may be restricted when they consider their own futures. Adults show the 'end of history' illusion, believing they have changed more in the past than they will in the future. Further, preschoolers are even more limited in anticipating future change, as 3-year-olds insist their current desires will persist later in life. These findings suggest a deficit in children's and adults' abilities to simulate alternative possibilities that pertain to themselves. However, we report four experiments (n = 233) suggesting otherwise, at least for children. We find that 3-year-olds accurately infer their futures when prompted to consider their past rather than present preferences. Children also succeed at inferring their past preferences when not shown items they currently prefer. This shows that children can reason about their pasts and futures, though this ability is hindered when they are shown items that anchor them to the present. Our findings suggest that children's difficulties with mental time travel reflect a failure to shift away from the present rather than an inability to simulate alternative possibilities. This article is part of the theme issue 'Thinking about possibilities: mechanisms, ontogeny, functions and phylogeny'.

The social network: How people infer relationships from mutual connections

People infer that individuals are socially related if they have overlapping preferences, beliefs, and choices. Here we examined whether people also infer relationships by attending to social network information. In five preregistered experiments, participants were shown the social networks of two target people and their friends or acquaintances within a group, and judged if the targets were socially related to one another. In the first three experiments, adults (total N = 528) were more likely to judge that individuals were friends when a high rather than low proportion of their friendships were mutual. Adults also considered other factors when inferring friendships, such as the number of friends each individual had. In the final two experiments, 5-7-year-olds (total N = 135) were also sensitive to the proportion of mutual relationships. Together, our work suggests that people use proportional information and statistical inferences when assessing whether individuals are socially related. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The odds tell children what people favor

In pursuing goals, people seek favorable odds. We investigated whether young children use this fact to infer goals from people's actions across two experiments on Canadian 3- to 7-year-old children (N = 316; 167 girls, 149 boys). Participants' demographic information was not formally collected, but the region is predominantly middle-class and White. In Experiment 1, 3-year-old children saw a story where one agent went to a gumball machine with mostly red gumballs and another agent went to a machine with mostly purple ones. When asked which agent wanted a red gumball, children mostly selected the agent who chose the mostly red machine. Moreover, children responded at chance in a control condition where they judged which agent knew they would get a red gumball. In Experiment 2a, 3- to 7-year-old children saw a story where an agent either chose between two gumball machines or two open bowls of gumballs. In both conditions, the agent chose a location with mostly red gumballs over one with mostly blue gumballs but ended up with a blue gumball. Children were more likely to infer the agent had wanted a red gumball when the agent had made a probabilistic choice (machines) than a determinative choice (bowls), though inferences that the red gumball was preferred also increased with age. In Experiment 2b, a preregistered follow-up, American adults responded similarly to the older children. Together our findings suggest that children infer goals by drawing on the understanding that people seek favorable odds, though the clearest findings come from children aged 6 years and older. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Easy or difficult? Children's understanding of how supply and demand affect goal completion

Three experiments examined children's understanding of how supply and demand affect the difficulty of completing goals. Participants were 368 predominantly White Canadians (52% female, 48% male) tested in 2017-2022. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds recognized that obtaining resources is easier where supply exceeds demand than where demand exceeds supply. However, in Experiment 2, 3-year-olds were insensitive to supply and demand when comparing situations where demand exceeded supply to a greater or lesser degree. Finally, Experiment 3 revealed a developmental lag in 3- to 7-year-olds' understanding of how supply and demand affects goal completion: Children succeeded when contrasting a surplus and a shortage of supply relative to demand at 4;2. But they only succeeded when contrasting degrees of greater supply than demand at 5;10.

Young children infer psychological ownership from stewardship

Although people take care of their own possessions, they also engage in stewardship and take care of things they do not own. Here, we examined what young children infer when they observe stewardship behavior of an object. Through four experiments on predominantly middle-class Canadian children (total N = 350, 168 girls and 182 boys from a predominantly White and middle-class region), we found that children as young as 4 or 5 infer feelings of ownership from stewardship behaviors and distinguish between psychological and legal ownership. They also understand that psychological and legal ownership are independent as one can exist without the other, and children as young as 3 may link stewardship with welfare concerns. We also suggest that while stewardship has been shown to be a consequence of psychological ownership, it is also likely to be an antecedent. As future stewards of our resources, young children's understanding of the link between psychological ownership and stewardship links directly to sustainability concerns. We contribute theoretically both to the child development and psychological ownership literatures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Causal knowledge and children's possibility judgments

Children often say that strange and improbable events, like eating pickle-flavored ice cream, are impossible. Two experiments explored whether these beliefs are explained by limits in children's causal knowledge. Participants were 423 predominantly White Canadian 4- to 7-year-olds (44% female) tested in 2020-2021. Providing children with causal information about ordinary events did not lead them to affirm that improbable events are possible, and they more often affirmed improbable events after merely learning that a similar event had occurred. However, children were most likely to affirm events if they learned how similar events happened (OR = 2.16). The findings suggest that knowledge of causal circumstances may only impact children's beliefs about the possibility after they are able to draw connections between potential events and known events.

Blind to Bias? Young Children Do Not Anticipate that Sunk Costs Lead to Irrational Choices

Young children anticipate that others act rationally in light of their beliefs and desires, and environmental constraints. However, little is known about whether children anticipate others' irrational choices. We investigated young children's ability to predict that sunk costs can lead to irrational choices. Across four experiments, 5- to 6-year-olds (total N = 185) and adults (total N = 117) judged which of two identical objects an agent would keep, one obtained at a high cost or one obtained at a low cost. In Experiment 1, adults predicted that the agent would choose the high-cost object over the low-cost one, whereas children responded at chance. Experiment 2 replicated these findings in children, but also included another condition which showed they were sensitive to future costs. They predicted that an agent would be more likely to seek out a low-cost item than a high-cost item. Experiments 3 and 4 then found that children do not anticipate the sunk cost bias in first person scenarios, or in interpersonal sunk cost scenarios, where costs are sunk by others. Taken together, our findings suggest that young children may struggle to understand and predict irrational behavior. The findings also reveal an asymmetry between how they consider sunk costs and future costs in understanding actions. We propose that this asymmetry might arise because children do not consider sunk costs as wasted.

Preauricular Aging: A Three-Point Grading System to Guide Treatment in Facial Rejuvenation

BACKGROUND

Aging affects the face in all its dimensions. However, more has been published about the improvement of the periocular, midface, and perioral aging changes. We believe the profile view, particularly the preauricular area, is of great value when assessing the need for facial contouring procedures, as well as their effectiveness.

OBJECTIVE

To develop and evaluate a classification based on the aging changes around the preauricular area, which aims to provide an objective direction to the appropriate treatment method.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

All patients who attended the clinic for different aesthetic procedures between June 2019 and January 2020 were photographed. Two non-treating dermatologists and two non-treating plastic surgeons were asked to evaluate the perceived aging of the preauricular area using a three-point grading system. The assessment of each photograph was made once by each evaluator, and the inter-rater correlation was calculated.

RESULTS

A total of 158 profile pictures of the preauricular area of 158 patients were evaluated by two non-treating dermatologists and two non-treating plastic surgeons. The inter-rater correlation was excellent at 0.942. The mean grading system of the patient samples was 1.42, with a standard deviation of 0.9 and a variance of 0.001.

CONCLUSIONS

The preauricular area is often overlooked and undertreated. Our results demonstrate an excellent inter-rater correlation between plastic surgeons and dermatologists at assessing the degree of aging in the area. This relatively hidden lateral area can serve as a test point, evaluating response to selected treatment before proceeding to full-face intervention. We suggest using a simple three-point scale to help guide treatment of the preauricular area and as part of our holistic approach to facial rejuvenation.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE IV

This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these evidence-based medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

Oh … so close! Children's close counterfactual reasoning and emotion inferences

How we feel about an outcome often depends on how close an alternative outcome was to occurring. In four experiments, we investigated whether predominantly White, middle-class, Canadian children (N = 425, Experiments 1-3) and American adults (N = 227, Experiment 4) consider close counterfactual alternatives when inferring other people's emotions. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds (but not 4- and 5-year-olds) inferred that an agent would feel sadder about winning a mediocre prize if she later found out that a more attractive one could have easily been won. However, children of all ages failed to judge whether the better outcome could have easily happened. In Experiment 2, when 5- and 6-year-olds knew the locations of the prizes beforehand, they inferred that an agent would be equally happy about winning a mediocre prize, regardless if she almost won a better prize or not. Again, they did not recognize when the better outcome was a close counterfactual possibility. In Experiment 3, we included extra cues to the closeness of the alternative and both 5- and 6-year-olds inferred that she would feel sadder about winning a mediocre prize, and 6-year-olds acknowledged that the attractive prize was a close counterfactual alternative. In Experiment 4, adults considered close counterfactuals when inferring emotions. Our findings suggest that close counterfactuals influence children's emotion inferences before they become able to acknowledge their closeness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Toddlers and Preschoolers Understand That Some Preferences Are More Subjective Than Others

Four experiments examined Canadian 2- to 3-year-old children's (N = 224; 104 girls, 120 boys) thoughts about shared preferences. Children saw sets of items, and identified theirs and another person's preferences. Children expected that food preferences would be more likely to be shared than color preferences, regardless of whether the items were similar or different in appeal (Experiments 1-3). A final study replicated these findings while also exploring children's expectations about activity and animal preferences. Across all studies, children expected shared preferences at surprisingly low rates (never higher than chance). Overall, these findings suggest that young children understand that some preferences are more subjective than others, and that these expectations are driven by beliefs about domains of preferences.

A Similarity Heuristic in Children's Possibility Judgments

Children often judge that strange and improbable events are impossible, but the mechanisms behind their reasoning remain unclear. This article (N = 250) provides evidence that young children use a similarity heuristic that compares potential events to similar known events to determine whether events are possible. Experiment 1 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds who hear about improbable events go on to judge that similar improbable events can happen. Experiment 2 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds more often affirm that improbable events can happen if told about related improbable events than if told about unrelated ones. Finally, Experiment 3 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds affirm the possibility of improbable events related to known events, but deny that related impossible events can happen.

Children's Beliefs About Possibility Differ Across Dreams, Stories, and Reality

Are children's judgments about what can happen in dreams and stories constrained by their beliefs about reality? This question was explored across three experiments, in which four hundred and sixty-nine 4- to 7-year-olds judged whether improbable and impossible events could occur in a dream, a story, or reality. In Experiment 1, children judged events more possible in dreams than in reality. In Experiment 2, children also judged events more possible in dreams than in stories. Both experiments also suggested that children's beliefs about reality constrain their judgments about dreams and stories. Finally, in Experiment 3 children were asked about impossible events more typical of dreams and stories. In contrast with the other experiments, children now affirmed the events could happen in these worlds.

Expert or Esoteric? Philosophers Attribute Knowledge Differently Than All Other Academics

Academics across widely ranging disciplines all pursue knowledge, but they do so using vastly different methods. Do these academics therefore also have different ideas about when someone possesses knowledge? Recent experimental findings suggest that intuitions about when individuals have knowledge may vary across groups; in particular, the concept of knowledge espoused by the discipline of philosophy may not align with the concept held by laypeople. Across two studies, we investigate the concept of knowledge held by academics across seven disciplines (N = 1,581) and compare these judgments to those of philosophers (N = 204) and laypeople (N = 336). We find that academics and laypeople share a similar concept of knowledge, while philosophers have a substantially different concept. These experiments show that (a) in contrast to philosophers, other academics and laypeople attribute knowledge to others in some "Gettier" situations; (b) academics and laypeople are much less likely to attribute knowledge when reminded of the possibility of error, but philosophers are not affected by this reminder; and (c) non-philosophy academics are overall more skeptical about knowledge than laypeople or philosophers. These findings suggest that academics across a wide range of disciplines share a similar concept of knowledge, and that this concept aligns closely with the intuitions held by laypeople, and differs considerably from the concept of knowledge described in the philosophical literature, as well as the epistemic intuitions of philosophers themselves.

Unsolicited but acceptable: Non-owners can access property if the owner benefits

People are normally restricted from accessing property without permission from the owner. The principle that nonowners are excluded from property is central to theories of ownership, and previous findings suggest it could be a core feature of the psychology of ownership. However, we report six experiments on children (N = 480) and adults (N = 211) showing that this principle may not apply for actions that benefit the owner-actions like repairing broken property. In Experiment 1, 3-5-year-olds judged it more acceptable for a nonowner to repair broken property than to move it. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this with 4-6-year-olds using different question wordings and showed that children also approve of replacing broken property. Experiment 4 showed these findings replicate regardless of whether the nonowner and owner are acquainted. Finally, Experiments 5 and 6 revealed a boundary condition on approval of unsolicited beneficial actions: Both 4-6-year-olds and adults judged repairing property more acceptable than modifying it to suit the owner's preferences. These findings suggest that restrictions on nonowners are less absolute than often claimed, and that participants' judgments depended on generic information about which actions are typically beneficial, rather than on consideration of owners' specific preferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Disgust and Moral Judgment: Distinguishing Between Elicitors and Feelings Matters

We investigated the scope of the effect of disgust on moral judgments. In two field experiments (Experiment 1, N = 142, Experiment 2, N = 248), we manipulated whether participants were exposed to a disgusting odor. Participants then rated the permissibility of actions in two kinds of moral problems: dilemmas and transgressions. In both experiments, disgust did not affect moral judgments when we compared across exposure levels. However, self-reported disgust did predict moral judgments in the following cases: In Experiment 1, it was linked with decreased acceptability for dilemmas and transgressions alike; in Experiment 2, it was linked with decreased acceptability for dilemmas only. Findings also differed across the experiments when we regressed feelings of disgust onto participants’ utilitarian and deontological inclinations. Overall, the findings suggest that subjective feelings of disgust may provide a more sensitive measure of the effect of disgust on moral judgment than basing analysis on the presence of disgust elicitors.

Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use

People sometimes feel as if they own items that do not actually belong to them. These feelings of ownership affect people in diverse contexts and provide a striking example of how feelings can conflict with reality. Across 6 experiments, we investigated young children's (N = 614) and adults' (N = 243) understanding of these feelings. In Experiment 1, children aged 4 to 7 inferred that an agent who habitually used a publicly owned item would have feelings of ownership for it, and children distinguished these feelings from actual ownership. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated these findings and also found that children were less likely to attribute feelings of ownership when the agent used the item nonhabitually. Experiments 4 and 5 further found that children and adults also distinguish feelings of ownership from false beliefs of ownership. Finally, in Experiment 6, even younger children showed signs of understanding feelings of ownership. Children aged 3 and 4 predicted that an agent who habitually used an item would be upset to discover someone else using it. Together, these findings suggest that young children are aware of the psychological component of ownership. The findings are also informative about their understanding of habits and repeated actions and the potential for feelings to conflict with beliefs, knowledge, and reality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Young Children Use Probability to Infer Happiness and the Quality of Outcomes

Happiness with an outcome often depends on whether better or worse outcomes were initially more likely. In five experiments, we found that young children ( N = 620, Experiments 1–4) and adults ( N = 254, Experiment 5) used probability to infer emotions and assess outcome quality. In Experiments 1 and 2, 5- and 6-year-olds (but not 4-year-olds) inferred that an agent would be less happy with an outcome if a better outcome were initially more likely. In Experiment 3, 4- to 6-year-olds used probability to assess quality. These findings suggest a developmental lag between 4-year-olds’ assessments of quality and happiness. We replicated this lag in Experiment 4. In Experiment 5, adults used probability to assess both quality and happiness. We suggest that children and adults may use probability to establish a standard against which actual outcomes are compared. Doing so might allow them to make probability-based inferences of happiness without drawing on counterfactual reasoning.

Preschoolers are sensitive to accent distance

Can children tell how different a speaker's accent is from their own? In Experiment 1 (N = 84), four- and five-year-olds heard speakers with different accents and indicated where they thought each speaker lived relative to a reference point on a map that represented their current location. Five-year-olds generally placed speakers with stronger accents (as judged by adults) at more distant locations than speakers with weaker accents. In contrast, four-year-olds did not show differences in where they placed speakers with different accents. In Experiment 2 (N = 56), the same sentences were low-pass filtered so that only prosodic information remained. This time, children judged which of five possible aliens had produced each utterance, given a reference speaker. Children of both ages showed differences in which alien they chose based on accent, and generally rated speakers with foreign accents as more different from their native accent than speakers with regional accents. Together, the findings show that preschoolers perceive accent distance, that children may be sensitive to the distinction between foreign and regional accents, and that preschoolers likely use prosody to differentiate among accents.

Young children use supply and demand to infer desirability

In 4 experiments, we show that young children (total N = 290) use information about supply and demand to infer the desirability of resources. In each experiment, children saw scenarios about sandwiches from different shops, which varied in supply (number of sandwiches produced for the day) and demand (number of customers attracted). In Experiments 1 and 2, 5- to 6-year-olds gave higher desirability ratings for sandwiches from shops with greater than lesser demand when supply was held constant. In Experiment 3, 5- to 7-year-olds gave higher desirability ratings for sandwiches from shops with less than more supply when demand was held constant. Finally, in Experiment 4, 5- to 6-year-olds were more likely to judge that sandwiches came from a good shop (rather than from a bad one) when demand exceeded supply than when supply exceeded demand. Together, the findings reveal a way that children can infer how desirable resources are, without needing to incur the costs that would normally be required to obtain and sample the resources themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

An advantage for ownership over preferences in children's future thinking

The ability to anticipate the future improves significantly across the preschool years. Whereas 5-year-olds understand that they will prefer adult items in the future, 3-year-olds indicate they will continue to prefer child items. We explore these age-related changes in future-oriented cognition by comparing children's inferences about their future preferences with judgments about their future ownership. In Experiment 1, we show that 3- to 5-year-olds (N = 120) exhibit an ownership advantage in their future thinking-they are better able to indicate which objects they will own as adults than to indicate which they will prefer. We propose 2 explanations for this finding. First, children may rely more heavily on their semantic knowledge when inferring ownership than when inferring preferences, allowing them to sidestep the difficult task of mentally projecting themselves into the future. Second, ownership inferences may involve less conflict than preference inferences (e.g., conflict between a child's present and future desires). In Experiment 2, we test these accounts by comparing 3-year-olds' (N = 120) judgments about their own future ownership and preferences with judgments about what a present adult owns and prefers. We replicate the ownership advantage from Experiment 1 and further find that the ownership advantage holds when reasoning about a present adult. Our findings therefore support the conflict account, suggesting children struggle to infer what they will prefer as adults because their present and future preferences are in conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Give and take: Ownership affects how 2- and 3-year-olds allocate resources

In three experiments, we investigated whether 2- and 3-year-olds (N = 240) consider ownership when taking resources for themselves and allocating resources to another agent. When selecting resources for themselves, children generally avoided taking resources that belonged to another agent and instead favored their own resources (Experiments 1 and 2). However, they did not avoid taking the agent's resources when the only other resources available were described as not belonging to the agent (Experiment 3). Children also selected fewer of the agent's resources when taking for themselves than when giving to the agent (Experiments 2 and 3). In giving to the agent, children were more likely to select the agent's resources than resources not belonging to the agent (Experiment 3). These findings show that ownership affects how 2- and 3-year-olds allocate resources. The findings also provide new evidence that 2-year-olds may respect others' ownership rights, at least to a limited degree, although we also consider an alternative explanation for the findings.

Children value objects with distinctive histories

From ancient objects in museums to souvenirs obtained on vacation, we often value objects for their distinctive histories. The present experiments investigate the developmental origins of people's feelings that objects with distinctive histories are special. In each of four experiments, 4- to 7-year-olds (total N = 400) saw pairs of identical-looking objects in which one object was new and the other had a history that was either distinctive or mundane. In the first experiment, the histories did not involve people; in the remaining experiments, the histories were personal and related the objects to particular people. Distinctive histories affected children's valuations of regular objects (all experiments), but not their valuations of stuffed animals. Both older and younger children viewed regular objects with distinctive histories as more special than those with mundane histories. Older children mostly viewed objects with distinctive histories as more special than new objects, and younger children showed similar judgments when judging which object a person cared about more. Together, the findings reveal a novel way that information about the past influences children's judgments about the present and suggest that young children's valuations of objects depend on objects' histories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Ownership Matters: People Possess a Naïve Theory of Ownership

Ownership is at the heart of people's daily activities and has been throughout history. People consider ownership when acting on objects, engaging in financial matters, and assessing the acceptability of actions. We propose that people's understanding of ownership depends on an early-emerging, causally powerful, naïve theory of ownership. We draw on research from multiple disciplines to suggest that, from childhood, a naïve theory of ownership includes ontological commitments, causal-explanatory reasoning, and unobservable constructs. These components are unlikely to stem from other core theories or from noncausal representations. We also address why people might have a naïve theory of ownership, how it develops across the lifespan, and whether aspects of this theory may be universal despite variation across cultures and history.

Distant lands make for distant possibilities: Children view improbable events as more possible in far-away locations

Young children often deny that improbable events are possible. We examined whether children aged 5-7 (N = 300) might have more success in recognizing that these events are possible if they considered whether the events could happen in a distant country. Children heard about improbable and impossible events (Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2) and about ordinary events (Experiment 2) and either judged whether the events could happen in a distant country or locally (Experiments 1A and 2) or with their location unspecified (Experiment 1B). Children were more likely to judge that extraordinary events could happen in a distant country than when the same events were described locally or with location unspecified; also, older children were more likely to deny these events could happen when they were local compared with when their location was unspecified. We also found some evidence that manipulating distance affects judgments more strongly for improbable events than for impossible one. Together, the findings show that children's assessments of whether hypothetical events are possible are affected by the geographic context of the events. The findings are consistent with accounts holding that children normally assess whether hypothetical events are possible by drawing on their knowledge of the ordinary world but further suggest that children modify this approach when considering events in distant lands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's accent-based inferences depend on geographic background

Young children make inferences about speakers based on their accents. Here, we show that these accent-based inferences are influenced by information about speakers' geographic backgrounds. In Experiment 1, 4- to 6-year-olds (N = 60) inferred that a speaker would be more likely to have the same cultural preferences as another speaker with the same accent than a speaker with a different accent; in Experiment 2 (N = 90), children made similar inferences about speakers' friendship preferences. Critically, in both experiments, children were less likely to make accent-based inferences when they were told that the speakers all came from different places (both experiments) or from the same place (Experiment 2). These results suggest that young children's accent-based inferences hinge on information about geographic background and provide insight into how and why children make accent-based inferences. These findings are also the first to show that young children use accent to infer other people's social preferences.

Children hold owners responsible when property causes harm

Since ancient times, legal systems have held owners responsible for harm caused by their property. Across 4 experiments, we show that children aged 3-7 (N = 572) also hold owners responsible for such harm. Older children judge that owners should repair harm caused by property (Experiments 1A and 1B), and younger children may do this as well (Experiment 4). Younger and older children judge that owners should apologize for harm (Experiments 2A and 3), even when children do not believe the owners allowed the harm to occur (Experiment 2B). Children are also as likely to hold owners responsible for harm caused by property as for harm caused by the owners themselves (Experiment 3). The present findings contribute to psychological accounts of ownership by showing that ownership not only confers rights to control property, but also responsibility for harm caused by property. The findings also contribute to our understanding of the attribution of responsibility, and challenge accounts claiming that directly causing harm, or allowing it to happen, is a prerequisite for responsibility. The findings provide support for an account claiming that property is an extension of its owner, and likewise reveal that responsibility for harm caused by property is an early developing aspect of the psychology of ownership. (PsycINFO Database Record

Beyond belief: The probability-based notion of surprise in children

Improbable events are surprising. However, it is unknown whether children consider probability when attributing surprise to other people. We conducted four experiments that investigate this issue. In the first three experiments, children saw stories in which two characters received a red gumball from two gumball machines with different distributions, and children then judged which character was more surprised. Experiment 1 (N = 120) shows development in children's use of probability to infer surprise. Children aged 7 correctly inferred that the character with a lower chance of getting a red gumball would be more surprised, but 4- to 6-year-olds did not. Experiment 2 (N = 120) shows that children's performance does not improve when the probability of getting a red gumball is zero and should be maximally surprising. Experiment 3 (N = 120) demonstrates that 6-year-olds' performance improves when they are prompted to consider probabilities, but not when they are prompted to consider the characters' beliefs. Experiment 4 (N = 60) replicates this finding, but using a new design in which children attributed emotions to just a single character. Together these findings suggest that by age 6, a conceptual shift occurs, in which children begin to integrate their understanding of probability with their understanding of surprise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).