Development of Elective Flexibility and Related Cognitive Functions Across Three Cultures

ABSTRACT

Elective flexibility, the ability to switch between working strategies adaptively, is critical for decision‐making in complex environments. Here we experimentally assessed elective flexibility alongside three related cognitive measures short‐term memory, inhibition, and responsive flexibility–in 325 children and adults (ages 4–81‐years) from three cultures. Elective flexibility performance improved with age for Germans and, to some extent, for Congolese BaYaka and Bandongo participants. Under stable conditions, younger German children were more explorative than older children and adolescents. Next, using interviews with 62 adults from these three cultural groups we found evidence that cultural variation in daily exposure to unpredictable variability corresponded with more elective switching whereas exposure to harshness corresponded with less. By combining richly contextualized cross‐cultural and developmental data with multiple cognitive tests and computational models, this research uniquely contributes to our understanding of the development of children's flexible decision‐making skillsets.