Psychological Science ›› 2014, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (6): 1372-1376.

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The Effect of Framing and Confidence on Risky Decision Making in Children from Different Grade

  

  • Received:2013-07-09 Revised:2013-12-21 Online:2014-11-20 Published:2014-11-20
  • Contact: Xiao-Ming WANG

损益框架和损益概率对不同年级儿童风险决策的影响

王晓明1,顾子贝1,杨昭宁2   

  1. 1. 曲阜师范大学教育科学学院
    2. 曲阜师范大学
  • 通讯作者: 王晓明

Abstract: Abstract In our daily life, individuals are likely to make judgments and decisions under uncertain situations. Thus, the individual is faced with the uncertain risk to gain or to lose during the process of making the decisions. Children’s risk decision affects their life and learning, the risk decision made by the children in their experiment situation and the framing effect can well predict children’s risky decisions and behavior in their real life, but the study about this is hard to see in our country. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to discuss the development character of the risk decision under the effect of task framework and confidence on the risky decision made by children from different grade. In the research we used the between-group design of 3 (Grade: grade two/ four/ six)×2 (task framework: gains/ losses)×2 (confidence level: overconfidence/ under confidence), according to the method of random sampling to choose 59 people in grade two as same as in grade four and grade six, We investigated the development characteristics of the risky decision made by 177 children. The participants accomplished five situational experiment tasks alone according to the instructions with the guidance of the experimenters, reported his own confidence level. MANOVA were conducted by SPSS13.0 statistical software to analyse the collected data . Here are the results: (1) Children of different grades show significant difference in conservative decision (F=3.207,p<.05,η2=.036,1-β=.581), risk decision (F=3.034,p<.05,η2=.038,1-β=.606) and preference shift (F=3.122,p<.05,η2=.037,1-β=.594), the further multiple comparisons found that children from grade two have lower score in conservative decision than children from grade six (p<.05), but the situation is just the other way around when it comes to the risk decision (p<.05) and the preference shift (p<.05), however, the difference between grade two and grade four is not significant (p>.05) and so is grade four (p>.05) and grade six (p>.05); (2) Under different task framework, the conservative strategy under benefit framework is far more higher than the loss framework (F=22.422,p<.01,η2=.120,1-β=.997), however, the risk strategy is lower (F=22.911,p<.01,η2=.123,1-β=.997), the score of risk preference shift is obviously lower (F=22.680,p<.01,η2=.121,1-β=.997); (3) Risky decision (F=1.186,p>.05,η2=.007,1-β=.191), conservative decision (F=1.078,p>.05,η2=.007,1-β=.178) and preference shift (F=1.132,p>.05,η2=.007,1-β=.185) made by children with different confidence level is of no significant difference. The interaction of confidence level and grade on children’s conservative decision, risk decision and preference shift is not significant difference, and so as the confidence level and task framework, grade and task framework (p>.05). The main conclusions of the present study are as follows : (1) Children in different grades show different development tendency in risk decision, the younger children of grade two are more likely to take risks than the older children of grade six, grade four is a critical period during the development period of risk decision; (2) The framing effect appears in children’s risk decision shows the phenomenon of preference shift under the gain framework and loss framework; (3) Confidence level show no effect on children’s risk decision.

Key words: children, risky decision, age, framing effect, confidence

摘要: 摘 要 为探讨任务框架和自信水平对不同年级儿童风险决策的影响,采用3(年级:二/四/六年级)×2(任务框架:获益/损失)×2(自信水平:过度自信/自信不足)的组间实验设计,在情境性实验任务中探查177名儿童风险决策的发展特点。结果表明:(1)不同年级儿童在风险决策中表现出不同的发展特点,二年级儿童比六年级儿童更倾向于冒险,而四年级前后则是儿童风险决策发展的关键期、转折期;(2)儿童风险决策中存在框架效应,表现出偏好反转现象,与在获益情境下更偏好于保守决策相比,在损失情境下的儿童更偏好冒险决策;(3)自信水平并未对儿童的风险决策产生影响。

关键词: 儿童, 风险决策, 年龄, 框架效应, 自信

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