Childhood Unpredictability Linked to Reduced Exploration in Decision-Making

Decision-making is a nuanced process that involves the delicate balance between exploiting familiar options with proven positive outcomes and exploring new possibilities that may yield better or worse results. This tension is exemplified in scenarios such as choosing between a reliable favourite dish at a restaurant and experimenting with a new special offering.

In early development, these decisions play a pivotal role in how humans learn, with children generally being more inclined than adults to explore new options and consider novel hypotheses. However, this natural inclination for exploration is not solely dependent on intrinsic tendencies but is significantly influenced by the surrounding environment.

The predictability of the environment plays a crucial role in facilitating learning by enabling children to form expectations based on their experiences. In predictable settings, there is inherent value in attempting to discover relationships, structure, or interesting outcomes, as these learned aspects can later be exploited for decision-making. 

The study at hand delves into the impact of chronic early childhood unpredictability on children’s decisions to explore. Exploration, a vital learning mechanism in childhood, is essential for adaptive decision-making, requiring children to recognize probabilistic associations between cues and outcomes. For instance, children learn what to eat and touch based on bodily reactions and navigate the social world by inferring others’ mental states from their behaviours. 

Childhood experiences are shown to influence exploratory behaviours, with children feeling safe in the presence of caregivers being more inclined to approach novel objects, even if initially aversive. Conversely, those who experience unstable caregiving, such as in orphanages, tend to exploit options with known rewards, regardless of the context. This suggests that predictable environments facilitate learning by encouraging exploration and discovery. 

The study employed tasks to elicit exploration behaviours in children, examining the effectiveness of task manipulations, including uncertainty, rewards, and the length of the horizon. The results indicated that children strategically used exploration more in long-horizon games than in short-horizon games, demonstrating a nuanced approach to decision-making. 

To investigate the association between childhood unpredictability and reduced exploration, the study regressed the average rate of choosing the more informative option on childhood unpredictability. The findings revealed that children who reported more childhood unpredictability were less likely to choose the informative option, highlighting a correlation between a perceived lack of predictability and reduced exploration. 

This association persisted even when controlling for individual differences such as anxiety or subjective stress, indicating the specific impact of environmental unpredictability on information-seeking behaviour. The study contributes valuable insights into the understudied component of childhood adversity, emphasizing how experiences of unpredictability shape parameters of human learning. 

The sense of environmental unpredictability appears to influence cognitive flexibility and sensitize individuals to uncertainty over potential rewards. Notably, unpredictability affected children’s information-seeking behaviour and not their foraging behaviour, indicating a specificity in the effects of this experience. 

The study’s broader implications suggest that individuals who perceive their environment as unpredictable may develop a behavioural preference for familiarity, limiting their ability to sample information flexibly and respond to circumstances. This insight extends beyond childhood, emphasizing the importance of exploration in various facets of life, from discovering the physical world to formal educational settings, and impacting socio-emotional learning crucial for later stages of life. 

This study provides a comprehensive exploration of the association between childhood unpredictability and reduced exploration, shedding light on how early experiences exert broad effects on the development of decision-making and adaptation to changing circumstances. The findings underscore the intricate interplay between environmental factors and human behaviour, contributing to our understanding of the complex dynamics involved in decision-making processes. 

Journal Reference  

Yuyan Xu et al, Childhood unpredictability and the development of exploration, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2303869120.