Children's understanding of habitual behaviour

Goldwater, Micah B.; Gershman, Samuel J.; Moul, Caroline; Ludowici, Charles; Burton, Amy L.; Killer, Brittany; Kuhnert, Rebecca‐Lee; Ridgway, Kate

doi:10.1111/desc.12951

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…In our experiments, adults anticipated this irrational behavior, but children did not. This finding is consistent with recent work suggesting that 5-to 6-year-olds have difficulty understanding that habitual behavior can lead to suboptimal actions, but understand this by age 7 (Goldwater et al, 2020). It is possible that both findings (i.e., our sunk cost findings, and young children's difficulty anticipating nonoptimal habitual behaviors) arise because young children expect others to behave rationally in light of their beliefs and desires, and environmental constraints (e.g., Gergely & Csibra, 2003;Jara-Ettinger et al, 2016;Leslie et al, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

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

Sehl

Friedman

2021

Cognitive Science

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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.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…And infants expect others to take the most efficient, and least costly, path to a goal (e.g., Csibra & Gergley, 2007; Liu & Spelke, 2017). However, much less research has investigated whether children anticipate irrational behavior (see Goldwater et al., 2020 for an exception).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Sehl

Friedman

2021

Cognitive Science

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“…A more intermediate stance comes from recent empirical evidence showing that people expect agents to develop habits which, in novel situations, can lead to inefficient behavior (Gershman, Gerstenberg, Baker, & Cushman, 2016;Goldwater et al, 2020). While these findings have been presented as evidence that we do not always expect agents to act rationally, the same results might support the opposite conclusion: the expectation for rational action may extend to cognitive costs, as habits allow agents to avoid having to repeatedly solve the same planning problem.…”

Section: Role Of Rationality and Relation To Other Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Naïve Utility Calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding

Jara‐Ettinger

Schulz

Tenenbaum

2020

Cognitive Psychology

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The human ability to reason about the causes behind other people' behavior is critical for navigating the social world. Recent empirical research with both children and adults suggests that this ability is structured around an assumption that other agents act to maximize some notion of subjective utility. In this paper, we present a formal theory of this Naïve Utility Calculus as a probabilistic generative model, which highlights the role of cost and reward tradeoffs in a Bayesian framework for action-understanding. Our model predicts with quantitative accuracy how people infer agents' subjective costs and rewards based on their observable actions. By distinguishing between desires, goals, and intentions, the model extends to complex action scenarios unfolding over space and time in scenes with multiple objects and multiple action episodes. We contrast our account with simpler model variants and a set of special-case heuristics across a wide range of action-understanding tasks: inferring costs and rewards, making confidence judgments about relative costs and rewards, combining inferences from multiple events, predicting future behavior, inferring knowledge or ignorance, and reasoning about social goals. Our work sheds light on the basic representations and computations that structure our everyday ability to make sense of and navigate the social world.

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“…Human behavior is sometimes driven not by plans to achieve goals but by habits, which are formed over long periods of reinforcement. Habitual and goal-directed behaviors are often aligned with one another but can diverge when the optimal behavioral policy changes without being directly reinforced (thus specifically hobbling the habitual learning strategy) (Goldwater et al, 2020). An article conducted by Cantwell & Andrews (2002) stated that about two hundred and ninety students from grades 7 to 11 have completed surveys relating to social anxieties, affiliation, metacognitive awareness, and motivational feelings towards group work.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Student’s Perceptions on Group Work Amidst the Covid 19-Pandemic

Fabian¹,

Berida²,

Ramos³

et al. 2021

IJRP

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The study entitled "Student's Perceptions on Group Work Amidst the Covid 19-Pandemic" shows how each student participates in every aspect of group activity in the form of online learning. With the pandemic, the education sector all over the shifted from face-to face-classes to online learning. One of the disadvantages of online learning is having group work since it is susceptible to the impacts of a pandemic. Considering it often involves face-to-face interaction and coordination across people, time, and space, making social distancing and virtual work are a dramatic shift away from typical teamwork contexts. This study utilized the descriptive case study method of research in which it refers to the description, recording analysis, and interpretation of the present condition of research. The study is administered upon reaching saturation point wherein no new information is obtained resulting in data satisfaction. This study utilized the non-probability sampling technique, specifically convenience sampling hence the qualitative nature of the study. The convenience sampling technique is the most appropriate for the study as this method is conveniently available for the participants to suit the researchers' requirements, especially under the circumstances of the impossibility of face-to-face contact. This study utilized thematic analysis. The researchers were able to thematically organize the results to the particulars of the participant's responses.In conclusion, the researchers found that the students in Leyte Normal University Integrated Laboratory School, from grades 10 and 11, had the following occurrence in terms of group works being given, applied, and enacted. The first theme was the Disadvantages of Group Work amidst Pandemic consist Discomfort doing with Groupmates, Hard to do Group Work because of Problems in Internet Connection, Unstable Internet Connection, Lack of Communication, and Lack of cooperation. The second theme was the Resolutions of the Students with the Challenges Met, which consist the following, Volunteer/Participate in doing Group Work, Communicating with Groupmates, and Change in Perception on Group Work. However, even with these challenges, the students identified some ways or steps on how they cope with these challenges. The students mostly participate or volunteer in working with groups for them to contribute something to the group. The students also identified some solutions to cope with the challenges they're facing on the new modality. They try to communicate with their groupmates for them to have a good flow in doing the tasks and activities. Having good communication with each other is an instrument for their group to have solid teamwork and cooperation.

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Children's understanding of habitual behaviour

Cited by 7 publications

References 25 publications

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

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

The Naïve Utility Calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding

Student’s Perceptions on Group Work Amidst the Covid 19-Pandemic

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