


Five and 6-year-olds were combined for recruitment Participants Children were recruited from low, mixed, and mid/high income schools in St Louis from 2016 to 2018 with the goal of enrolling 24 children each from low and mid/high socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds at each of three age groups (3-years, 4-years, 5- & 6-years see S1.1 for additional design details). Participants were a community-based sample of 152 3- to 6-year-old children enrolled in a larger study that broadly investigated early optimism. The current study presents two experiments designed to assess three questions: (1) When given probabilistic information about the likelihood of events occurring, do children’s outcome predictions reflect an optimism bias or are they realistic?, (2) Are children more likely to make optimistic predictions about outcomes relevant to themselves than others?, and (3) Can we begin to identify individual difference factors that might facilitate the development of optimism in early childhood? To Main study sample and design Research suggests infants are capable of rudimentary probabilistic reasoning such as making inferences about the population from which a sample was drawn (Xu & Garcia, 2008), and reason correctly about single event probabilities with The present study The optimism bias is predicated on under/over-estimating the likelihood of events occurring relative to a known base-rate thus a key question is whether stronger probabilistic reasoning skills lead children to make more realistic (vs. On one hand, children are adept at seeking out and acquiring accurate information about the world. This raises intriguing questions about how a bias toward optimism might shape how children learn from and about the world. Optimistically biased processing of information contrasts with the prevailing view that accurate beliefs – those that best approximate reality – are most adaptive and that our cognitive systems have evolved to form accurate beliefs about the world (McKay & Dennett, 2009). Moreover, biases toward optimistic expectations extend to situations in which only base-rates (known probabilities) – and not Optimism and learning These include better than average effects and comparative optimism in which individuals believe they are better than others and also less likely to experience negative events (Chambers and Windschitl, 2004, Jefferson et al., 2017).

In adults, the optimism bias has most commonly been characterized by positive assessments of self-risk relative to the average other.

There is a wealth of research demonstrating that young children hold The optimism bias in adults For example, children who expect a positive outcome might be more likely to try and achieve that outcome, which could lead to direct success (as even unlikely outcomes do sometimes occur), or to learning from the attempt and failure.
#Blind optimism trial
Section snippets Positivity biases and optimism in young childrenīroadly positive assessments of abilities and outcomes, including optimistic expectations, may promote trial and error learning and enhance perseverance in young children (e.g., Bjorklund, 1997). These findings provide insight into how children reason about the future and elucidate key factors that impact optimistic predictions in childhood. Differences in optimism were found in children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and those with different levels of depressive symptoms. The results systematically demonstrate that children are optimistic, even more optimistic for themselves than others, and increasingly integrate probabilistic information into their predictions with age. A racially and socioeconomically diverse community sample of 152 three- to six-year-old children participated in two experiments (one story-based, one numeric probability-based) that assessed expectations of event outcomes when the likelihood of the outcome occurring either matched or conflicted with the most desirable outcome. Although approximately 80% of adults are optimistic, childhood optimism is understudied. Optimism, a bias to overestimate positive and underestimate negative outcomes, may shape how children learn, confront challenges, and overcome setbacks.
