The Influence of Eco-cultural contexts in shaping the development of Risk-Preferences and Explorative Tendencies

This project is a follow-up to my previous study, “The Impact of Eco-Cultural Environment and Information Source on the Ontogeny of Elective Flexibility” (see osf.io). This project aims to explain the differences in elective flexibility found in the previous study by investigating: (1) how risk proneness/aversion and (2) explorative tendencies develop through childhood. Since elective flexibility (i.e., the capacity to forego a working strategy for a better, alternative one) may be dependent on, first, having the predisposition to look for alternatives and, second, having the willingness to use the found alternatives even if the environment does not demand a change of strategy. Thus, explorative tendencies (looking for new strategies) and risk preference (using new, unknown strategies) may be correlated with elective flexibility abilities. For this, the present project uses a task battery composed of two tasks: A Risk Preference game to assess how risk-prone children are at different ages; and a Foraging game to evaluate differences in explorative tendencies across development. Specifically, this project will investigate the ontogeny of risk preference and explorative tendencies in children ages 4-14. In particular, this study will focus on children from three societies: (1) western, urban, industrialized children from Leipzig in Germany and; (2) two Congolese societies living in the same village in the Likouala region in the Republic of the Congo, the Bandongo (hierarchical, fisherman-farmers) and the BaYaka (egalitarian, hunter-gatherers). Following previous results on elective flexibility between these communities, we expect that these societies' means of subsistence (hunter-gathering, farming, and market economy) and the food security presented to them will shape exploration and risk preference through development.