> Specifically, we found that after selecting from two equally attractive objects, infants subsequently devalued the initially unchosen object. We ruled out the possibility that this reflects a desire for novelty or any intrinsic preference
among the options.
The experimental design that allowed them to do this is simple, but pretty clever. The original version of the experiment is based on first letting the baby choose between toys A and B, and then demonstrating that if A was chosen, the baby prefers a new toy C over B. (All of the toys were equally likely to be preferred by a control group.)
Since it's not possible to know whether the initial choice was random or based on individual preference, they did a modified version of this experiment. After the baby is shown the first two toys, they are placed under boxes and secretly swapped. Despite originally having chosen B, the baby instead gets to interact with A. In this case, the babies still fairly consistently choose C (the new toy) over B (the one they originally preferred but didn't get to interact with).
And as the press release does mention, simply giving a baby a toy randomly chosen by the experimenter doesn't cause the same effect. So the reasonable inference is that the actual experience of making a choice (or at least having the illusion of doing so) reduces one's attachment to the option that wasn't chosen.
Thank you. It makes me sad that HN commenters rush to dismiss research because they had one idea in 5 seconds and didn't consider that the professionals working for months might have already thought of that.
The experiment still seems flawed, why can't the results be explained by "Some babies dislike certain toys and prefer new toys over those they dislike."
The fact that all the toys were equally preferred by a control group is an unconvincing control since individuals have different preferences.
It's swap methodology is also unconvincing. Why couldn't the baby simply be avoiding a toy that was effectively taken away?
> why can't the results be explained by "Some babies dislike certain toys and prefer new toys over those they dislike."
It actually is explained this way in the paper: "If infants do exhibit choice-induced preference change, they should prefer the novel toy and avoid the previously unchosen toy."
The thing is, they are not only testing for this "obvious" conclusion. Each subsequent experiment tries to invalidate the previous one's conclusions. They thought of 4 experiments, and maybe even more could be done.
> It's swap methodology is also unconvincing. Why couldn't the baby simply be avoiding a toy that was effectively taken away?
This is a good reasoning — if the infants are aware of the swap, their thinking could be "I chose that and didn't get it, now I don't like it / don't want it anymore". Even then, it still points to the same direction: the infants are changing their preferences based on their first choice, now rejecting something they wanted but didn't get.
I follow the logic, but I'm not sure homo economicus axioms about the transitivity of preferences necessarily applies to babies. (They also attempted to rule out infants just preferring novel toys, but I'm not sure 58% vs 70% is that decisive a difference for n<50, especially when you acknowledge you've excluded more than a third of the participants in some of the trials for not choosing or bursting into tears!)
I can imagine my brother's wife having fun testing with their daughter though :D
If the secret swapping wasn't as secret as the experimenters thought, these results seem consistent with the babies having a stable, random preference order among the blocks.
Otherwise, it does seem like they've demonstrated (something like?) choice induced preference change in babies, and it's additionally interesting that it can be tricked that way.
You mean the initial labeling happens (without loss of generality) such that the baby has always chosen A? That's not the swapping I was discussing.
I meant this bit:
> After the baby is shown the first two toys, they are placed under boxes and secretly swapped. Despite originally having chosen B, the baby instead gets to interact with A.
If the baby actually tracks the swapping (probably unlikely), then I think it's not the case that they "originally [chose] B" - unless (quite possible) I am misunderstanding something, which is why I seek clarification.
Since you posted the actual paper link I figured I would leave this here (https://osf.io/mfzg4/) The Open Science project page, they have some of their initial thoughts before the experiment as well as some data. Always interesting to poke around.
I'm having trouble understanding your description of the experiment. How does selecting C over B, after initially preferring B, support the thesis that random choices become preferences? Shouldn't the baby select B over C to support that thesis?
The idea is that the baby selected the box they believed contained B, but it actually contained A. Apparently the baby concluded that since they had opened the box that they chose, they must have chosen the toy inside, and they now like A better and B worse.
> Specifically, we found that after selecting from two equally attractive objects, infants subsequently devalued the initially unchosen object. We ruled out the possibility that this reflects a desire for novelty or any intrinsic preference among the options.
The experimental design that allowed them to do this is simple, but pretty clever. The original version of the experiment is based on first letting the baby choose between toys A and B, and then demonstrating that if A was chosen, the baby prefers a new toy C over B. (All of the toys were equally likely to be preferred by a control group.)
Since it's not possible to know whether the initial choice was random or based on individual preference, they did a modified version of this experiment. After the baby is shown the first two toys, they are placed under boxes and secretly swapped. Despite originally having chosen B, the baby instead gets to interact with A. In this case, the babies still fairly consistently choose C (the new toy) over B (the one they originally preferred but didn't get to interact with).
And as the press release does mention, simply giving a baby a toy randomly chosen by the experimenter doesn't cause the same effect. So the reasonable inference is that the actual experience of making a choice (or at least having the illusion of doing so) reduces one's attachment to the option that wasn't chosen.