Abstract While adults robustly seek variety and expect others to do so, it is unclear whether children expect others to enjoy and preferentially choose variety in the domain of food. Seventy-nine children encountered an agent, depicted by a puppet, who liked two diverse foods. The children themselves liked only one of these foods. Older children (M = 5;11) expected this agent to be happier with, and to preferentially choose, a serving of both foods rather than a serving of a single food type, consistent with variety-seeking preferences. Five- and 6-year-olds can therefore simultaneously represent others’ diverse desires as co-existing and causing preferences for variety over homogeneity. In contrast, younger children (M = 4;0) did not robustly attribute variety-seeking preferences to this agent. Predictions of variety-seeking food preferences may relate to children’s developing theory of mind abilities and could be harnessed in nutritional interventions to improve children’s diets.

中文翻译：

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有你的蛋糕，也有你的芦笋：年幼的孩子期望具有不同欲望的代理人寻求多样化的行为

摘要 虽然成年人强烈寻求多样性并期望他人这样做，但儿童是否期望他人享受并优先选择食物领域的多样性尚不清楚。七十九个孩子遇到了一个由木偶描绘的特工，他喜欢两种不同的食物。孩子们自己只喜欢这些食物中的一种。年龄较大的儿童 (M = 5;11) 预计该代理会更高兴并优先选择一份两种食物而不是一份单一食物类型，这与寻求多样化的偏好一致。因此，5 岁和 6 岁的孩子可以同时将其他人的不同愿望表示为共存并导致偏好多样性而不是同质性。相比之下，年幼的孩子 (M = 4;0) 并没有将寻求多样性的偏好强烈地归因于该代理。