Preschoolers’ use of questions in their joint decisions with peers

This paper investigates how preschoolers use questions to invite their peers’ input for their joint decisions. Three- and 5-year-old dyads were asked to build a zoo and jointly decide on where to place each item. Both age groups used wh-questions predominantly with inanimate subjects, eliciting objective information (Where does this go?) and yes/no questions with animate subjects, eliciting subjective information (Do you want to put it here?). Five-year-olds used more animate subjects in their wh-questions than did 3-year-olds (Where do we place this?). Thus, preschool children phrase questions differently depending on whether they look for a subjective or an objective input from their peers. In later preschool years, they use both kinds of questions more flexibly to mark cooperative decision-making.