Introduction to special issue “Understanding Cognition and Decision Making by Children.” Studying decision-making in children: Challenges and opportunities

Isabelle Brocas and Juan D. Carrillo

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 179, issue C, 777-783

Abstract: Decision-making in children and adolescents is receiving increasing attention among economists. Studies shed light on opportunities for economists to understand the developmental causes of anomalous behavior in adults and to propose interventions at a young age capable of improving adult outcomes. Nevertheless, the study of children brings also new challenges that require methodological adjustments. Indeed, children are not little adults. They have their own ways of accounting for information, their own motivations, and their own limitations. These are critically linked to brain development and cognitive development, which operate in concert and shape behavior. These differences with respect to adult populations impose constraints on experimental designs. This special issue provides several examples of paradigms in which children behave differently from adults. All these studies share the need to account for age-related factors in the design of protocols. In this introduction, we discuss the pitfalls, challenges and opportunities associated with experiments in children and adolescents.

Keywords: Developmental decision-making; Experimental methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 C93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:179:y:2020:i:c:p:777-783

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.01.020

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