Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play
Do children use private information to their own advantage? Is this ability related to emotional intelligence? To answer these questions, we conduct a large lab-in-the- eld experiment with 1662 participants from 8 to 18 years old who play a game with two-sided private information. We show that parti...
| Authors: | ; ; ; ; ; |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Publication date: | 2025 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universidad Loyola Andalucía |
| Repository: | Brújula |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:repositorio.uloyola.es:20.500.12412/6585 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12412/6585 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Developmental decision-making Private information Rationality Theory-ofmind |
| _version_ | 1878729467838332929 |
|---|---|
| author | Alfonso Costillo, Antonio |
| author2 | Brañas Garza, Pablo Ernesto Brocas, Isabelle Carrillo, Juan D. Gonzalez, Juan B. Vázquez-De Francisco, María José |
| author2_role | author author author author author |
| author_browse | Alfonso Costillo, Antonio Brañas Garza, Pablo Ernesto Brocas, Isabelle Carrillo, Juan D. Gonzalez, Juan B. Vázquez-De Francisco, María José |
| author_facet | Alfonso Costillo, Antonio Brañas Garza, Pablo Ernesto Brocas, Isabelle Carrillo, Juan D. Gonzalez, Juan B. Vázquez-De Francisco, María José |
| author_role | author |
| collection | Brújula |
| description | Do children use private information to their own advantage? Is this ability related to emotional intelligence? To answer these questions, we conduct a large lab-in-the- eld experiment with 1662 participants from 8 to 18 years old who play a game with two-sided private information. We show that participants of all ages understand the fundamental relationship between action and private information. The ability to select payo -enhancing strategies steadily increases with age but the capacity to recognize subtle variations in incentives triggered by changes in game structure remains elusive even for individuals at their peak cognitive capacity. Remarkably, participants of all ages who have heightened emotional intelligence exhibit a greater tendency to anticipate the behavior of others, best respond to them and, consequently, achieve higher payo s. The paper thus reveals a strong, robust connection between a ective and cognitive-theory-of-mind in young populations. It also highlights the importance of empathic skills for decision making |
| eu_rights_str_mv | openAccess |
| format | article |
| id | ES_08856fda4e829681ff2c8b32220eb4d4 |
| institution | Universidad Loyola Andalucía |
| instname_str | Universidad Loyola Andalucía |
| network_acronym_str | ES |
| network_name_str | España |
| oai_identifier_str | oai:repositorio.uloyola.es:20.500.12412/6585 |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| reponame_str | Brújula |
| spelling | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play Alfonso Costillo, Antonio Brañas Garza, Pablo Ernesto Brocas, Isabelle Carrillo, Juan D. Gonzalez, Juan B. Vázquez-De Francisco, María José Developmental decision-making Private information Rationality Theory-ofmind Do children use private information to their own advantage? Is this ability related to emotional intelligence? To answer these questions, we conduct a large lab-in-the- eld experiment with 1662 participants from 8 to 18 years old who play a game with two-sided private information. We show that participants of all ages understand the fundamental relationship between action and private information. The ability to select payo -enhancing strategies steadily increases with age but the capacity to recognize subtle variations in incentives triggered by changes in game structure remains elusive even for individuals at their peak cognitive capacity. Remarkably, participants of all ages who have heightened emotional intelligence exhibit a greater tendency to anticipate the behavior of others, best respond to them and, consequently, achieve higher payo s. The paper thus reveals a strong, robust connection between a ective and cognitive-theory-of-mind in young populations. It also highlights the importance of empathic skills for decision making Se trata de un working paper aún sin publicar https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12412/6585 |
| spellingShingle | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play Alfonso Costillo, Antonio Developmental decision-making Private information Rationality Theory-ofmind |
| title | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play |
| title_full | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play |
| title_fullStr | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play |
| title_short | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play |
| title_sort | Reading Minds to Win: The Power of Cognitive and Affective Skills in Children's Strategic Play |
| topic | Developmental decision-making Private information Rationality Theory-ofmind |
| topic_facet | Developmental decision-making Private information Rationality Theory-ofmind |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12412/6585 |