Abstract “Take The Best” is a fast and frugal strategy that requires focus upon the most important information dimensions when making decisions, and the ability to ignore other, less crucial factors. Two studies are used to investigate whether children take up the Take The Best heuristic following child-friendly strategy prompting. The results show that children aged nine (Study 1, N = 65) and 12 (Study 2, N = 35) can accurately execute such a strategy and align their choices to strategy predictions instantly following prompts. This leads to better decision outcomes. However, strategy uptake is not perfect: a proportion of children do not apply the strategy systematically, and their choices are biased by irrelevant information. The results demonstrate that effortless strategy prompting can instantly improve a child's decision making.

中文翻译：

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教孩子做最好的

摘要 “Take the Best”是一种快速而节俭的策略，需要在做决策时关注最重要的信息维度，并能够忽略其他不太重要的因素。两项研究用于调查儿童是否在儿童友好策略提示后采用最佳启发式方法。结果表明，9 岁（研究 1，N = 65）和 12 岁（研究 2，N = 35）的儿童可以准确地执行这样的策略，并根据提示立即将他们的选择与策略预测对齐。这会导致更好的决策结果。然而，策略的采用并不完美：一部分儿童没有系统地应用策略，他们的选择受到无关信息的影响。结果表明，轻松的策略提示可以立即提高孩子的决策能力。