Children Expect Others to Prefer Handmade Items

• Published in: Developmental psychology Vol. 58; no. 8; pp. 1441 - 1454
• Main Authors: DeJesus, Jasmine M, Gelman, Susan A, Lumeng, Julie C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01.08.2022
• Subjects: Age Differences; Asian; Child; Child, Preschool; Cognitive Development; Emotions; Expectation; Female; Food; Food Service; Gender Differences; Handicrafts; Humans; Male; Museums; Parents; Parents - psychology; Preadolescents; Preferences; Preschool Children; Social Cognition; Social Emotional Learning; Value Judgment; Visual Aids
• ISSN: 0012-1649; 1939-0599
• DOI: 10.1037/dev0001370

Although children frequently engage in creative activities (in which they make foods and objects by hand), the development and scope of children's thinking about handmade items is largely unexplored. In the present studies, we examined whether 4- to 12-year-old children at a local children's museum (54% girls, 46% boys; 51% White, 11% Asian/Asian American, 10% more than 1 group, 4% Latinx, 3% Black/African American, 18% did not report race/ethnicity) would expect other people to prefer handmade over factory-made items, including foods and nonfoods. In Experiments 1 (n = 124) and 2 (n = 122), participants expected a child character to prefer items the character made themselves and items made by the character's parent or a local person. However, this expectation did not persist at all costs: When considering imperfect handmade items in Experiment 3 (n = 122), children demonstrated a handmade preference when considering "nonfoods" made by a parent but demonstrated a factory-made preference when considering "foods" made by a parent. Children's explanations were associated with their choices: When children's explanations referred to emotions or relationships, they were more likely to select handmade items. When children referred to item features, they were more likely to select factory-made items. Across studies, we observed persistent age and gender effects: Children's handmade preference increased with child age and girls demonstrated a more robust handmade preference than boys. These findings highlight children's developing and nuanced reasoning about object value. At an early age, children consider who made an object as a contributor to its value.