Self-relevance does not moderate choice blindness in adolescents and children

Abstract

In two experiments we tested the choice blindness phenomenon in adolescents aged 11-16 years (Experiment 1, N = 87) and children aged 7-10 years (Experiment 2, N = 117) for the first time. Analogous to previously reported findings with adult participants, we expected to replicate the robust effect in these age groups. Furthermore, we investigated the hypothesis that self-relevance of choices, defined as the extent to which the self is implicated in a choice, moderates the choice blindness effect in adolescents and children. To this end, we directly compared high and low self-relevance conditions. As expected, the choice blindness effect was robust across age groups. Little support was found for the idea that self-relevance moderates the choice blindness effect. Specifically, no effect of self-relevance on choice blindness was found in adolescents, while the findings in the child sample were inconsistent. Different possible interpretations of the results as well as the possible role of ambiguity for the choice blindness effect are discussed. © 2014 Sauerland et al.