A unified account of why optimism declines in childhood

2024/11/18 by Julia Leonard, Julia A. Leonard, Jessica A. Sommerville · 1 voice · 9 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Developmental psychology #Early Childhood Education and Development #Optimism #Optimism bias #Optimism, Hope, and Well-being #Pace #Perspective (graphical) #Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research #Psychology #Social learning #Social psychology #Wishful thinking

paper · doi:10.1038/s44159-024-00384-z

published in Nature Reviews Psychology 4(1), 35-48 (Nature Portfolio)

openalex publication_date 2024/11/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Citations

• Children balance theories and evidence in exploration, explanation, and learning
• Enhancing cognitive and social–emotional development through a simple-to-administer mindfulness-based school program for elementary school children: A randomized controlled trial.
• Environmental enrichment induces optimistic cognitive bias in rats
• Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
• Differentiating “could” from “should”: Developmental changes in modal cognition

Cited by

• Stable intuition and the rise of deliberative prosociality in childhood
• What predicts girls' and boys' political ambition? Evidence from the United States and China. [europepmc]
• Children Understand How Adults' Achievement Goals Drive Actions. [europepmc]

Discussions

• scratch for defense 🦠🛡️ Scientists had an itch to know why scratching feels so good. Their study in mice showed that scratching, in addition to removing parasites, has an antibacterial effect & boo [bsky, 28 points, 3 comments]