Links Between Preschoolers’ Reasoning About Changes in Their Future and Past Preferences

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Reflecting on the past and thinking about the future are abilities that emerge in parallel during the preschool years, suggesting an important relation between mentally pre-experiencing and re-experiencing the self through time (e.g., Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007; Quon & Atance, 2010). Between ages 3 and 5, children begin to talk about their personal pasts and futures and anticipate their future needs (e.g., Busby & Suddendorf, 2005; Scarf, Gross, Colombo, & Hayne, 2013), but less is known about when children begin to reason about changes in their past and future mental states (e.g., preferences). Notably, in a recent study (Bélanger et al., 2014), children were presented with child- (e.g., picture book) and adult- (newspaper) preferable items and asked to select the items they currently liked best (self-now trials) and the items they would like best when they were all grown up (self-future trials). Whereas 5-year-olds were able to predict that their current and future preferences would differ (e.g., although they currently preferred Kool-Aid, they would prefer coffee when all grown up), 3- and 4-year-olds were not.
In the current study we explored whether children’s reasoning about past preferences shows a similar developmental trajectory to their reasoning about future preferences, and whether these two abilities are related. Ninety-two 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with child- (e.g., juice box) and baby- (e.g., milk in a bottle) preferable items and were asked to indicate their preference now (self-now trials) and when they were a baby (self-past trials). In a second block of trials, children were presented with adult-preferable items (e.g., coffee) and the same child-preferable items as in the past preferences block (e.g., juice box), and were asked to indicate their preference now (self-now trials) and when they are all grown-up (self-future trials). Children received two “perspective-taking” scores that corresponded to the number of correctly selected (1) baby-preferable items in the past trials and (2) adult-preferable items in the future trials divided by the number of correct child-preferable items within each block of trials. These scores thus reflected the extent to which children appreciated that their preferences had changed (“past” score) or would change (“future” score). We hypothesized that preschoolers’ ability to reason about their past and future preferences would improve with age, and that these two abilities would be related. Results showed that children’s performance on the self-past trials and self-future trials differed significantly as a function of age [F(2, 90) = 8.87, p < .05, η2 = 0.17; F(2, 91) = 3.83, p < .05, η2 = 0.08, respectively]. Further, we found a significant correlation between children’s past and future scores, and that this correlation remained significant when we partialed out age in months, r(88) = .25, p < .05. This study extends our understanding about the relationship between reflecting on past mental states and predicting future ones, and leads into further research about what common underlying mechanisms may be.

Authors

• Lojain Hamwi, Carleton University
  Presenting Author

• Leia Kopp, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danielle Ovtsyn, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cristina Atance, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author