Children's reasoning about the efficiency of others' actions: The development of rational action prediction

Goenuel G., Paulus M.

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, cilt.204, 2021 (SSCI, Scopus) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 204
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105035
  • Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, PASCAL, BIOSIS, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), EMBASE, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), MEDLINE, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Psycinfo
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

The relative efficiency of an action is a central criterion in action control and can be used to predict others' behavior. Yet, it is unclear when the ability to predict on and reason about the efficiency of others' actions develops. In three main and two followup studies, 3-to 6-year-old children (n = 242) were confronted with vignettes in which protagonists could take a short (efficient) path or a long path. Children predicted which path the protagonist would take and why the protagonist would take a specific path. The 3-year-olds did not take efficiency into account when making decisions even when there was an explicit goal, the task was simplified and made more salient, and children were questioned after exposure to the agent's action. Four years is a transition age for rational action prediction, and the 5-year-olds reasoned on the efficiency of actions before relying on them to predict others' behavior. Results are discussed within a representational redescription account. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).