“These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty”: Older Children and Adults Struggle With Induced-State Episodic Foresight Article

Kramer, HJ, Goldfarb, D, Tashjian, SM et al. (2017). “These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty”: Older Children and Adults Struggle With Induced-State Episodic Foresight . CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 88(5), 1554-1562. 10.1111/cdev.12700

cited authors

  • Kramer, HJ; Goldfarb, D; Tashjian, SM; Lagattuta, KH

abstract

  • We explored children's and adults’ ability to disengage from current physiological states when forecasting future desires. In Study 1, 8- to 13-year-olds and adults (N = 104) ate pretzels (to induce thirst) and then predicted and explained what they would want tomorrow, pretzels or water. Demonstrating life-span continuity, approximately 70% of participants, regardless of age, chose water and referenced current thirst as their rationale. Individual differences in working memory and undergraduate grade point average were positively related to performance on the pretzel task. In Study 2, we obtained baseline preferences from adults (N = 35) and confirmed that, prior to consuming pretzels, people do not anticipate wanting water more than pretzels the next day. Together, these findings indicate that both children and adults are tethered to the present when forecasting their future desires.

publication date

  • September 1, 2017

published in

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 1554

end page

  • 1562

volume

  • 88

issue

  • 5