The effects of establishing operations on preferences for tangible items.

The team ran paired-stimulus preference tests with toys and games. They tested kids with developmental delays and typically developing preschoolers. Each child tried three rounds: one after playing with the items all they wanted, one after the items were taken away for 30–60 minutes, and one with no change.

They wanted to see if a short break from the toys would make the kids pick them more later.

Taking the toys away for less than an hour pushed them higher on the child’s list. Letting the kids play until they were tired dropped the toys lower. The shift happened in both groups—kids with delays and typical kids.

Mueller et al. (2000) showed the same up-and-down pattern first, but they withheld items for a full day or two. McAdam et al. (2005) proves you only need half an hour to see the swing, so you can run the test the same morning.

Smith et al. (1997) warned that food almost always beats toys in a lineup. McAdam et al. (2005) kept food out of the array, so the leisure items could move up or down without being shoved aside by snacks.

Carter et al. (2020) later found that a toy’s rank doesn’t promise it will work as hard currency in a real task. Put together, the four papers say: skip food, skip long deprivation, but still double-check that the “winner” actually makes the child work.

You can now get a clean tangible hierarchy in under an hour. Before your next assessment, bag the target toys for a snack or bathroom break, then run the paired test. You’ll see which items truly sparkle today, and you won’t have to block out a whole day of deprivation.