Eliciting time, risk, and social preferences in children: a validated survey
Helene Willadsen & Marco Piovesan
Abstract
We develop and validate a survey instrument to elicit six key economic preferences in children: undefined time preferences, risk preferences, altruism, positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity, and trust. The survey was administered to a sample of 339 nine-year-old children, for whom we also collected behavioral data through incentivized choice experiments targeting the same preferences. Our econometric analysis allows us to identify a set of 14 survey items that best predict children’s experimental behavior. For each preference, we also compare the predictive power of this 14-item validated survey to a shorter 9-item self-evaluation version. Our results demonstrate that these surveys provide a simple and reliable tool for measuring individual preferences in children – enabling researchers to account for heterogeneity when designing and evaluating policies targeting younger populations.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.