Risk-seeking behavior of preschool children in a gambling task

Bruno Moreira, Raul Matsushita and Sergio Da Silva

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: A recent neurobiology study showed that monkeys systematically prefer risky targets in a visual gambling task. We set a similar experiment with preschool children to assess their attitudes toward risk and found the children, like the monkeys, to be risk seeking. This suggests that adult humans are not born risk averse, but become risk averse. Our experiment also suggests that this behavioral change may be due to learning from negative experiences in their risky choices. We also showed that though emotional states and predetermined prenatal testosterone can influence children’s preferences toward risk, these factors could not override learning experiences.

Keywords: Risk; Children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D81 D87 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-11-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-neu and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15516/1/MPRA_paper_15516.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Risk seeking behavior of preschool children in a gambling task (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:15516

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().