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.     

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。     

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.