A freshly baked perspective on how we measure risk propensity in children

Children are notoriously fearless; running across slippery grass, eating bugs, and climbing up to the top of trees while their anxious parent yells at them to get down. Research on the development of risk propensity suggests that as we get older, risk aversion increases. However, there is little research on risk aversion within the preschool age range. The current study introduces the Child Risk Utility Measure (CRUM), a developmentally sensitive, dynamic task that measures risk propensity. We develop a novel cognitive modeling perspective to interpret our behavioral data and segregate the effects of risk propensity, probability learning, contaminant processes, and age effects within a unified framework. Unlike previous studies of risk propensity, we found reasonable evidence suggesting that preschool-aged children do not become more cautious as they get older. Any effect of age was attributed to confounds due to contaminant behavior. We suggest this as an alternative explanation for age effects in risk propensity during early childhood.