冲突情境下幼儿的选择性信任和信念修正

幼儿如何选择性地采信他人提供的信息、获取知识, 是幼儿社会认知发展研究的重要问题。除客观的信息内容外, 信息传递者的特征也影响幼儿的选择性信任。另外, 在不确定情境下, 他人证言与幼儿已有信念可能存在冲突, 在二者冲突的情境下, 幼儿是否可以采信他人的证言, 并最终改变幼儿的已有判断是以往研究忽略的问题。本研究考察了当母亲证言与幼儿已有信念冲突时, 不同程度的冲突情境(面对不同比例的合成动物时)对幼儿选择性信任和信念修正的影响。研究采用冲突信息源范式, 向74名4~6岁幼儿呈现对不同比例合成动物(50%-50%任务 vs 75%-25%任务)命名的证言, 考察幼儿对信息提供者的询问意愿、对证言的信任情况和在证言前后对合成动物的判断(信念修正)。信息提供的一方为母亲(提供相似度低的动物名称), 另一方为陌生人(提供相似度高的动物名称)。结果发现, 幼儿的选择性信任和信念修正受到母亲证言与已有信念冲突程度的影响。在低冲突情境下, 幼儿对母亲证言的询问意愿和外显信任均高于高冲突情境。幼儿的信念修正存在年龄差异, 在低冲突情境下, 年长幼儿比年幼幼儿更倾向于改变已有信念, 在高冲突情境下, 年长的幼儿比年幼幼儿更不愿意改变已有信念。本研究结果表明, 当母亲的证言与幼儿已有信念冲突时, 中国幼儿可以区分不同程度的冲突情境, 并且可以根据冲突的程度进行选择性信任和信念修正。     

信息提供者的先前准确性对幼儿选择性信任的影响

作为社会学习的个体,幼儿从3岁起就能根据信息提供者先前准确性的差异对其可信程度进行评估。通过对以往研究效应量的整理分析发现,随年龄增长,幼儿对高先前准确性信息提供者的信任程度表现出增长趋势（3岁幼儿选择的效应量中值为d_询问=0.60,d_赞同=0.61;4岁幼儿的效应量中值为d_询问=0.80,d_赞同=0.96）。在运用先前准确性进行评估时,幼儿主要关注信息提供者是否犯错,灵活使用"整体印象"和"特质推测"两种认知策略对其未来行为进行推测。幼儿能够根据自身对材料的感知对信息提供者的可信程度进行动态调整,其心理理论发展水平和执行功能限制了他们的选择信任,而信息提供者同时具有的社会性因素对幼儿的选择也具有干扰作用（幼儿信任准确的信息提供者的效应量中值为d_询问=-0.03,d_赞同=-0.17）。未来研究可以改进实验范式,进一步探查先前准确性对幼儿选择性信任的影响,拓展信息提供者的呈现方式和其它多重特征,关注不同类别的信息提供者。     

I copy you as I believe you know about our culture: Combining imitation and selective trust literatures

Empirical findings and theorizations of both imitation and selective trust offer different views on and interpretations of children's social learning mechanisms. The imitation literature provides ample documentation of children's behavioural patterns in the acquisition of socially appropriate norms and practices. The selective trust literature provides insights into children's cognitive processes of choosing credible informants and what information to learn in future interactions. In this paper, we place together findings from both fields and note that they share analogically similar theoretical underpinnings and offer explanations that are complementary to each other. We contend that children's imitative tendency may be due to their selection of in-group members as cultural experts, who serve as reliable sources of conventional information. Moving forward, we note the importance of evaluating individual differences and cultural factors to provide a more holistic understanding of universality and variation in children's social learning mechanisms.     

The role of epistemic and social characteristics in children’s selective trust: Three meta‐analyses

Over the last 15 years, researchers have been increasingly interested in understanding the nature and development of children’s selective trust. Three meta‐analyses were conducted on a total of 51 unique studies (88 experiments) to provide a quantitative overview of 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children’s selective trust in an informant based on the informant’s epistemic or social characteristics, and to examine the relation between age and children’s selective trust decisions. The first and second meta‐analyses found that children displayed medium‐to‐large pooled effects in favor of trusting the informant who was knowledgeable or the informant with positive social characteristics. Moderator analyses revealed that 4‐year‐olds were more likely to endorse knowledgeable informants than 3‐year‐olds. The third meta‐analysis examined cases where two informants simultaneously differed in their epistemic and social characteristics. The results revealed that 3‐year‐old children did not selectively endorse informants who were more knowledgeable but had negative social characteristics over informants who were less knowledgeable but had positive social characteristics. However, 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds consistently prioritized epistemic cues over social characteristics when deciding who to trust. Together, these meta‐analyses suggest that epistemic and social characteristics are both valuable to children when they evaluate the reliability of informants. Moreover, with age, children place greater value on epistemic characteristics when deciding whether to endorse an informant’s testimony. Implications for the development of epistemic trust and the design of studies of children’s selective trust are discussed.     

How positive and negative contact experiences relate to identification and acculturation of persons with a migration background: Differentiating between majority,minority, and religious group identity

Badea, Jetten, Iyer, and Er-Rafiy proposed a model that specifies immigrants’ experienced rejection by majority and minority groups and social identification with these groups as predictors of their acculturation attitudes. The present research tested an extended version of this model by assessing (i) both positive and negative contact experiences with majority and minority groups, (ii) social identification with these groups and religious groups, and (iii) acculturation attitudes. We surveyed individuals with Greek (N = 186) and Turkish (N = 138) migration background living in Germany. The proposed model yielded a good fit with the empirical data and showed that positive and negative contact with majority and minority groups predicted minority members’ acculturation attitudes, mediated via identification with the majority, minority, and religious group. Our findings support the extended model and contribute to a broader understanding of contact–identification–acculturation links in the context of migration.     

Respect the technique: Status-based respect increases minority group social cohesion with majority groups,while also increasing minority collective action tendencies

The present work explores the implications of respect for social change. Social change can be achieved via improved attitudes between minority and majority groups (i.e., social cohesion) or via action taken by minority groups (i.e., collective action). Recent work suggests that the social cohesion route to social change, in particular an emphasis on commonality, may be incompatible with the collective action route to social change. We suggest that social-cohesion strategies rooted in status-based respect may allow for social cohesion and collective action. We experimentally investigated the relative effects of a majority group communicating status-based respect and commonality, as compared to a control, on minority group members’ social cohesion with the majority group and willingness to engage in collective action. Status-based respect increased positive attitudes toward a majority group, relative to commonality and control, but was also associated with increased collective action tendencies. Implications for social change are discussed.     

The context of intergroup belief cross wherein minority members maintain consistency: Belief minority and majority in a categorical in‐group and out‐group1

Abstract: The present study investigated the social conditions required for minority members to preserve their attitudinal and behavioral consistency in an intergroup context. In the experiment, intergroup belief crosses wherein a belief minority (or majority) in a categorical in‐group was reversed as a majority (or minority) in an out‐group were manipulated. It was hypothesized that individuals supported by the majority in the categorical in‐group would preserve their attitudes and behavioral intentions even though they were a minority in the categorical out‐group. The results supported the hypothesis. Specifically, members of a majority in the categorical in‐group had more consistent behavioral intentions and less attitude changes although they were located as a minority in the out‐group. In contrast, members of a minority within the in‐group preserved consistency on the basis of support from the majority in the out‐group. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed with reference to future research.     

When the bullied peer is native-born vs. immigrant: A mixed-method study with a sample of native-born and immigrant adolescents

An increasing number of immigrant students attend Italian schools, with the possibility of being involved in bullying episodes. A few studies have investigated this phenomenon, providing some evidence that immigrant students may face an increased risk of being bullied compared to native-born students. The present study adopted a mixed-method design, which may better detect the dynamics of bullying towards immigrant peers. Participants were 692 native-born and immigrant students (20.5% with immigrant background; 54.8% females) who filled in self-report measures about their bullying experiences, popularity, acceptance of diversity at school, and prejudice. Thirty-five pupils (54% with immigrant background) were also interviewed. Two hypothetical bullying scenarios were presented: one depicting a native-born victim and one depicting an immigrant victim. After each scenario, adolescents were encouraged to reason about the motives for bullying. Quantitative data showed that general bullying was associated with perceived popularity status among peers, while racial bullying was associated with prejudice but not peer status. The relevance of anti-immigrant prejudices in driving racial bullying emerged also from adolescents’ interviews. The qualitative data indicated that among the reasons for bullying, adolescents mentioned a desire for dominance and popularity, in particular when the victim was non-immigrant. Findings suggest that, in addition to individual and peer group-related risk factors, prejudice also needs to be addressed in anti-bullying interventions aimed to counteract racial bullying.