LAUSR

Abstract Liking one object more than another does not guarantee caring about it more, and vice-versa. Here we show that with age, children increasingly distinguish between these two ways of valuing objects. We conducted three experiments on 589 children and 415 adults. In Experiment 1, 3–7-year-olds and adults chose between their own plain sticker and another more attractive one. Among 6−7-year-olds and adults, choices of the plain sticker were relatively more common for caring than liking. In Experiment 2, 3−6-year-olds and adults inferred what others care about and like. Among 4−6-year-olds and adults, choices of a plain object owned by another person were relatively more common in inferences about caring than liking. However, children chose the owned objects at low rates, raising the possibility that children had predominantly based judgments on the relative attractiveness of the objects. Experiment 3 addressed this concern by examining judgments about identical-looking objects.