Winning or losing: Children’s proportional reasoning across motivational contexts

Abstract

Children tend to prioritize whole number information over relational information in proportional reasoning tasks, such that they judge a spinner with $4/10$ red pieces as more likely to land on red than a spinner with $2/3$ red pieces, because 4 > 2 (e.g., Hurst & Cordes, 2018a; Jeong et al., 2007). This whole number bias is hypothesized to be a driven by fluency in verbal counting in early childhood, which is thought to promote attention to whole number information. In this study, we explored (1) the relation between verbal counting abilities and whole number biases and (2) whether distinct framing contexts – either encouraging children to maximize the number of stickers won, or minimizing the number of stickers lost - differentially impact children’s proportional reasoning. Three- to nine-year olds (N = 210, M_age = 5.7 years) chose which of two spinners they preferred to spin. Children in the Gain condition learned that if the spinner landed on red, they would win a sticker and if it landed on blue, nothing would happen; children in the Loss condition learned that if the spinner landed on red, nothing would happen, but if it landed on blue, they would lose a sticker. Counter to prior work, performance of both older (6–9 year olds) and younger (3–5 year olds) children revealed whole number biases. Notably, whole number biases were not related to counting abilities. Importantly, we find framing the task in a Loss scenario lessened whole number biases, suggesting that task framing can alter children’s attention to whole number information in a proportional reasoning context.