In their verbal responses, children and adults mention motivation at similar rates. However, with increasing age, children are more likely to reference intrusive thoughts as a source of distraction (e.g., “She will be thinking about what made her happy instead of listening to the teacher”).

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5yos think that the happier you are, the easier it will be to pay attention. In contrast, adults believe attentional performance peaks in a mildly positive mood.

With age, children become increasingly skeptical about the benefits of intense positive emotions for cognitive performance. Why?

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5yos and adults reason similarly about emotional valence: they believe paying attention is easy if you’re happy and hard if you’re sad. By age 5, they also understand that intensity matters: the sadder you are, the harder it will be to focus.

However... 🧵3/6

We asked 5- to 8-year-olds and adults to predict which of two characters would be better at paying attention to a new topic (Study 1) and how easy or hard it would be to pay attention in different emotional states (Study 2).

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