Young children’s understanding of future utility: A series of vignette tasks

Recognition of future utility is a critical step in elevating a mere problem-solution into an innovation. It motivates us to engage in behaviors like keeping useful tools for repeated use, sharing them with others who need them, and refining their design—for instance—to maximize efficiency or durability. While previous research has assessed children’s capacity to use and create solutions to novel problems, we do not know when they become able to recognize the future utility of such solutions. Across three experiments, we explored the development of this capacity in 4- to 9-year-olds ( N = 282) using vignette-based tasks. When asked to share a tool with another, children consistently selected the item with future utility above levels expected by chance alone. This behavior was found to increase with age in Experiments 2 and 3. Each experiment also included a series of secondary measures examining children’s understanding of other future-oriented behaviors—such as deliberate practice, deliberate study, mobile container use, and mental rehearsal. There were consistent positive correlations between performance on the tool-sharing vignette and children’s overall performance across the foresight measures, independent of age. This suggests that these are all expressions of children’s maturing foresight.