Poster #43 - Young children’s concepts of luck: From nascent belief to emerging skepticism

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

References to luck are ubiquitous in Western society: College campuses ring with “good luck!” wishes before exams, and parents tell their child she’s a “lucky girl” when she receives gifts on her birthday. The New York Times even privileged luck over a natural explanation in their headline, “Luck, not tougher building standards, spared Mexico in quake” (New York Times, 9/23/2017). Research documents the apparent existence of beliefs in luck in adults (e.g., Darke & Freedman, 1997, Pritchard & Smith, 2004). From the scant literature on children, we know that some have good luck charms (Epstein, 1993), they endorse luck for certain events (Woolley and Cornelius, 2017), and they prefer lucky people (Olson, et al., 2008). Research also shows that children’s pre-existing beliefs about luck interfere with their learning of chance and probability (Amir & Williams, 1999), and that children who think they are unlucky are less engaged with school (Skinner, Wellborn & Connell, 1990). However, none of these studies provides information about what children think luck is, and the factors that drive children to assign it causal agency in their lives.

We gave 104 4- to 10-year-olds an interview and a story task. The interview asked children if they had heard of luck, what they thought luck was, if they had experiences with luck (e.g., whether they had good or bad luck, whether they tried to attain luck), and whether or not they believed in luck. The story task probed what parameters define an event purportedly caused by luck. We varied two main factors—emotional valence and expectations—and children rated their agreement regarding the causal role of luck in each event.

On the interview, familiarity increased with age, but belief formed an inverted U-shaped curve (Figure 1). Younger children had a simple concept of luck: when something good happens. By age 8, children conceived of it as a force that is sometimes magical, and by age 10, children began to see it as synonymous with chance. Many children responded benevolence toward others brings good luck. Children reported more often that they had experienced good than bad luck. On the story task, children used luck to explain emotional (both positive and negative) more than neutral events. Also, with age, children attributed events to luck more when they were unexpected vs. expected. However, children believed negative outcomes were the result of bad luck, regardless of expectation. Overall, use of luck to explain events decreased with age.

In summary, this study captured the developmental trajectory of children’s beliefs about luck, from nascent belief at age 4 to emerging skepticism at age 10. With age, children systematically narrowed the range of events for which they attributed luck a causal role. Future research will explore relations between beliefs about karma and luck, as well as potential sources of children’s luck concepts, including testimony (e.g., what types of events parents explain in terms of luck) and the media.

Authors

• Jacqueline D. Woolley, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Kelsey A. Kelley, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah George, University of Texas
  Non-Presenting Author