IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v9y2018i1d10.1038_s41467-018-07138-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early childhood investment impacts social decision-making four decades later

Author

Listed:
  • Yi Luo

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

  • Sébastien Hétu

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute
    Université de Montréal)

  • Terry Lohrenz

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

  • Andreas Hula

    (Austrian Institute of Technology)

  • Peter Dayan

    (University College London
    University College London)

  • Sharon Landesman Ramey

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

  • Libbie Sonnier-Netto

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

  • Jonathan Lisinski

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

  • Stephen LaConte

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

  • Tobias Nolte

    (University College London
    Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families)

  • Peter Fonagy

    (Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families
    University College London)

  • Elham Rahmani

    (Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine)

  • P. Read Montague

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute
    University College London)

  • Craig Ramey

    (Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

Abstract

Early childhood educational investment produces positive effects on cognitive and non-cognitive skills, health, and socio-economic success. However, the effects of such interventions on social decision-making later in life are unknown. We recalled participants from one of the oldest randomized controlled studies of early childhood investment—the Abecedarian Project (ABC)—to participate in well-validated interactive economic games that probe social norm enforcement and planning. We show that in a repeated-play ultimatum game, ABC participants who received high-quality early interventions strongly reject unequal division of money across players (disadvantageous or advantageous) even at significant cost to themselves. Using a multi-round trust game and computational modeling of social exchange, we show that the same intervention participants also plan further into the future. These findings suggest that high quality early childhood investment can result in long-term changes in social decision-making and promote social norm enforcement in order to reap future benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Yi Luo & Sébastien Hétu & Terry Lohrenz & Andreas Hula & Peter Dayan & Sharon Landesman Ramey & Libbie Sonnier-Netto & Jonathan Lisinski & Stephen LaConte & Tobias Nolte & Peter Fonagy & Elham Rahmani, 2018. "Early childhood investment impacts social decision-making four decades later," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07138-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07138-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07138-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-018-07138-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leonardo M. R. Ferreira & Giovanni A. Carosso & Natalia Montellano Duran & Soad V. Bohorquez-Massud & Gustavo Vaca-Diez & Laura Ines Rivera-Betancourt & Yara Rodriguez & Dalila G. Ordonez & Diana K. A, 2019. "Effective participatory science education in a diverse Latin American population," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Frédérick Morasse & Miriam H Beauchamp & Élise Désilets & Sébastien Hétu, 2022. "How do children adapt their fairness norm? Evidence from computational modeling," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(11), pages 1-18, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07138-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.