Psychology, Statistics and Preschool Children
What do preschoolers, psychology and statistics have in common? Well a new study published in 
Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that children figure out another person's preferences by using a topic you'd think they don't encounter until college: statistics.
Before exposure to the bell shaped curve or standard deviation, the preshcooler has entered the realm of statistical analysis.
Children are natural psychologists. By the time they’re in preschool, they understand that other people have desires, preferences, beliefs, and emotions.
The Squirrel puppet experiments reveals that children are able to distinguish which toys make others happy. A child picks a blue flower from a container of red circles and blue flowers when the child is conditioned to understand the squirrel likes to play with blue flowers. Four and Five year olds make this determination in the study. The conditioning is achieved by the child watching a puppet show where the squirrel is given a blue flower and enjoys playing with it.
Of course, statistical information isn’t the only way children learn about the preferences of other people. Emotion and verbalization are also important.
