Eliciting Time, Risk and Social Preferences in Children: A Validated Survey

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.