Varieties of Value: Factors Influencing Children's Differing Forms of Regard for Objects

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

People value objects in different ways and tend to value some objects more than others. For instance, some objects are liked and valued because of their physical properties, whereas others are cared for and valued for more intangible reasons, such as ownership. The papers in this symposium examine the broad range of ways these factors affect how objects are valued by typically developing children and adults, and by children with autism spectrum disorder.

Paper 1 reveals that American 5-8-year-old's valuations of objects incorporate the economic principle of diminishing marginal utility—they understand that people's reactions to losses and gains of resources depend on how many resources those individuals initially possess, as well as their preferences for those objects. Paper 2 utilizes explicit and implicit measures and shows that American 4-8-year-olds, in contrast with adults, do not believe that celebrity possessions improve people's performance on tasks (ability contagion), or are more valuable or museum worthy. Paper 3 shows that ownership and object desirability influence which objects typically developing children in the UK like, but do not influence the object preferences of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Paper 4 shows that Canadian 3-7-year-olds and adults differentiate liking from caring and believe these valuations are separately influenced by desirability and ownership.

Together these findings highlight developmental changes in how typically and non-typically developing children in different countries decide which objects are valued, and show children's sophistication in considering resource quantity, desirability, and ownership when making valuations.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Madison Pesowski, University of California - San Diego

Individual Presentations

• Knowing What it's Worth: Children Flexibly Integrate Information to Infer Others' Resource Valuations - Presenting Author: Richard E Ahl, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Cook, Boston College; Non-Presenting Author: Paloma Garcia, Brown University; Non-Presenting Author: Katherine McAuliffe, Boston College

• Can Serena Williams' Tennis Racquet Improve My Performance? Children's and Adults' Preference for Celebrity Objects - Presenting Author: Kristan Marchak, University of Alberta; Non-Presenting Author: Merranda McLaughlin, University of Miami; Non-Presenting Author: Susan A Gelman, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Exploring the Influence of Autism on Children's Ownership Identification and Object Preferences - Presenting Author: Calum Hartley, Lancaster University; Non-Presenting Author: Laura-Ashleigh Bird, Durham University

• Children Differentiate Caring from Liking When Reasoning About Objects - Presenting Author: Madison Pesowski, University of California - San Diego; Non-Presenting Author: Venus Ho, University of Waterloo; Non-Presenting Author: Ori Friedman, University of Waterloo