The influence of desires on young children’s reasoning

Previously developmental psychologists have explored how young children reason aboutdesires, and how desires constrain children’s inferences. For example, early research on theory ofmind explored when young children come to understand that people have different desires, andhow young children reason about conflicting desires across individuals or over the course of time(e.g. Wellman and Liu, 2004). Relatedly, studies have explored how desires influence children’sinferences about actions, finding that young children generally believe that people actconsistently with their desires (e.g. Kushnir, Gopnik, Chernyak, Seiver, and Wellman, 2015).Studies on wishful thinking and optimism, on the other hand, have found that desires may morebroadly constrain inferences across a variety of domains. In particular, studies have shown thatdesires bias older children’s and adults’ predictions about stochastic events (e.g. Krizan andWindschitl, 2009). In Chapter 1 I outline previous research exploring how young children reasonabout desires.In Chapters 2 through 4 I present a series of cross-cultural developmental studiesexploring how desires impact children’s inferences. In Chapter 2, I explore the development ofbeliefs about agency in Chinese and U.S. 4- and 6-year-old children, and if children believe thatpeople can ‘choose to’ act inconsistently with a desire, or practice self-control. Findings suggestboth differences and similarities across groups of children.In Chapter 3, I present a similar study contrasting Peruvian and U.S. 4- to 7-year-olds. Ialso explore if developmental changes in beliefs about self-control are related to first personexperiences practicing self-control. When contrasting Peruvian and U.S. children, findingssuggest differences in beliefs about self-control, however children demonstrated comparableself-control skills. In addition, cultural group mediated the relationship between children’s 1stperson experiences practicing self-control, and their corresponding beliefs about self-control.In Chapter 4, I present a series of studies exploring the influence of desires on youngPeruvian and U.S. children’s (3-to 7-year-olds) predictions about stochastic events. Findingssuggest that desires strongly constrain young children’s inferences across cultures.Finally, in Chapter 5 I discuss the implications of these findings, as well as presentseveral avenues for future research. These findings more broadly contribute to our scientificunderstanding of how young children reason about desirable possibilities, and how cultureimpacts conceptual development