How Children Selectively Trust for Learning New Information?
By Fatma Sila Cakmak, M.Sc. Psychology: Learning Sciences student.
Many of the information that we have as adults and children is what we obtain from other people`s testimonies (Koenig& Harris, 2005; Harris & Koenig, 2006). However, not all information that we exposed is accurate. Some possible situations may cause misinformation such as lack of knowledge, ignorance, inaccuracy, or biases of the informant. Therefore, children and adults should be vigilant about trusting new information (Mills, 2013).
For instance, previous studies reveal that if an informant has a history of accuracy, being more knowledgeable, or being older, then this affects children’s reasoning of whom to trust to learn new information (Koenig& Harris, 2005; Mills, 2013; Jaswal &Neely, 2006).
When evaluating information that we obtain from the informant, we display selectivity to make a decision for the reliability of that information and informant. In other words, selective trust refers to the ability to distinguish whom to trust for gathering information (Koenig &Sabbagh, 2013).
Selective Trust with Throughout Development
In the literature, it has been demonstrated that there are multiple characteristics and domains that have an impact on children’s selective trusts such as the dominance of the informant (Bernard et al, 2016), the familiarity of the informant (Danovitch&Mills, 2014), intergroup biases of the learner (Aldan& Soley, 2019), and deceptiveness of the informant (Lee& Cameron, 2000).
Results from these studies show that children are selectively trusting informants not only by their accuracy but also by social characteristics that indirectly inform them as well.
For example, it is shown that 3- and 4-year-olds tended to trust the adults for learning to label new objects more than their peers, but when the adults constantly make errors, children favored the labels of the peers (Jaswal &Neely, 2006).
It is important to note that with the developmental trajectory, children’s preference for whom to trust can change.
Children start to show the ability to discount claims made by informants who had a history of inaccuracy (Koening& Harris, 2005), or who displayed immoral attitudes (Mascaro &Sperber, 2009), before age 4.
For example, when children introduced to two informants either helpful or trickier, 3-year-olds tended to trust both informants equally, whereas 5-year-olds could discriminate the intention of the helper, and trusted moral agent more (Vanderbilt, Liu, & Heyman, cited in Mills, 2013).
Negativity and Positivity Biases on Selective Trust
It is important the note that the informant’s moral valance may affect children’s attitudes toward the new information. Researchers, Doebel and Koenig, emphasize that children track behavioral cues in order to understand the informant’s intention, which may also be influenced by positivity and negativity biases (Aldan, &Soley, 2019; Doebel &Koenig, 2013).
Positivity bias
Positivity bias refers to the tendency to assume or expect that agents possess positive characteristics and it is observed by the age of 3 (Boseovski, Shallwani, &Lee, cited in Aldan, &Soley, 2019). Therefore, if the statement is not irrational, or unreasonable, children may accept other’s testimony, but it is also essential to be able to evaluate other’s harmful intentions and behaviors.
Negativity bias
Therefore, besides positivity bias, children are also present negativity bias meaning that children are good at detecting harmful information than positive information (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, cited in Doebel, &Koenig, 2013).
Overall, research supports that both negativity and positivity biases impact children’s evaluations of other’s behavior and decisions on selective trust.
To Sum
Children do not accept all the information as true, they are selecting both information and informant to trust.
Even though information’ accuracy is very important, children are looking for some other factors too. For example, they tend to trust information from people they know, people who are nicer to others, and people who do not lie frequently. All of those findings are important for teachers and parents to understand children’s learning mechanism.
References
Aldan, P., & Soley, G. (2019). The role of intergroup biases in children’s endorsement of information about novel individuals. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 179, 291–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.007
Bernard, S., Castelain, T., Mercier, H., Kaufmann, L., Van der Henst, J.-B., & Clement, F. (2016). The boss is always right: Preschoolers endorse the testimony of a dominant over that of a subordinate. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.08.007
Mills, C. (2013). Knowing When to Doubt: Developing a Critical Stance When Learning From Others. Developmental Psychology, 404. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029500
Danovitch, J. H., & Mills, C. M. (2014). How familiar characters influence children’s judgments about information and products. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 128, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.06.001
Doebel, S., & Koenig, M. A. (2013). Children’s use of moral behavior in selective trust: discrimination versus learning. Developmental Psychology, (3), 462.
Jaswal, V. K., & Neely, L. A. (2006). Adults don’t always know best: preschoolers use past reliability over age when learning new words. Psychological Science, (9), 757.
Koenig, M. A., & Harris P.L. (2005). Preschoolers Mistrust Ignorant and Inaccurate Speakers. Child Development, 76(6), 1261.
Koenig, M. A., & Sabbagh, M. A. (2013). Selective social learning: New perspectives on learning from others. Developmental Psychology, 49(3), 399–403. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031619
Lee, K., & Cameron, C. (2000). Extracting truthful information from lies: emergence of the expression-representation distinction. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 46(1), 1–20.
Mascaro, O., & Sperber, D. (2009). The moral, epistemic, and mindreading components of children’s vigilance towards deception. Cognition, 112(3), 367–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.05.012
Harris, P. L., & Koenig, M. A. (2006), Trust in Testimony: How Children Learn About Science and Religion. Child Development, 77: 505–524. doi:10.1111/j.1467–8624.2006.00886.x
