Teaching Fourth and Fifth Graders to Evaluate Information Sources During Text Comprehension

In two experiments, we examined fourth and fifth graders' comprehension of the source of information in texts presenting controversial issues. In Experiment 1, participants read short texts in which two people presented different arguments regarding an issue. Participants identified who said what and evaluated each source's knowledge of the issue. Most students correctly identified the source of information but failed to take into account each source's characteristics when determining who was most knowledgeable. In Experiment 2, we implemented an intervention on students' evaluations of information sources. Less skilled students in the intervention group assessed source knowledge more accurately than those in a control group. We conclude that elementary school students' comprehension of who says what in a text can benefit from training sessions that involve practice, feedback, explanations, and discussions. We consider the implications for document-based learning in elementary and secondary education.     

Gender Differences in Gossip and Friendship

Gossip has been related to friendship as it can increase the bond between people and sense of belonging to a group. However, the role of gender in the relationship between gossip and friendship has not been examined in the literature. So, the present study examined gender differences in the relationship between friendship quality and gossip tendency with a sample of 167 female and 69 male Western Canadian undergraduate University students using the Friendship questionnaire and the Tendency to Gossip questionnaire. Given gender differences in friendship, with males being more agentic and females more communal, the relationship between gossip and friendship was predicted to be stronger in the males compared to the females. Friendship quality was positively correlated with gossip tendency in the males, but this effect was not present with the females. The information gossip scale was strongly associated with male friendship quality. This finding may be related to the greater emphasis on status with males, and that possession of knowledge and control of information is a method of attaining status. Physical appearance gossip was found to be more prevalent in females, but not related to friendship quality. This type of gossip may be a more of a competitive threat to the relationship in females. Achievement related gossip was also related to male friendship quality, which reflects the greater emphasis on individuation in male friendships.     

Do We Gossip for Moral Reasons? The Intersection of Moral Foundations and Gossip

Gossip is comprised of evaluative talk about absent others. Although such evaluations may be moral or non-moral, moral judgments often precede the transmission of gossip. This work explored the salience of moral and non-moral motivations to transmit gossip-like information. Two studies explored the relationships between the general tendency to gossip, transmission of, and interest in gossip, five moral foundations (Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, Purity/sanctity), their sacredness in relational contexts, and moral and non-moral motives to gossip. Results from Studies 1 (negative gossip - infidelity) and 2 (positive gossip - fidelity) indicated that moral motives to gossip were more important than non-moral motives. The contribution of morality in perpetuating gossip was discussed.     

Gossip in same-gender and cross-gender friends' conversations

Gossip initiations and listener responses were examined in conversations between 25 female-female, 19 male-male and 24 female-male pairs of friends. Participants were 18 to 21 years of age (mean age = 19) and had known one another at least 2 months (mean length = 24 months). Transcribed tape recordings of 5–minute unstructured conversations were analyzed for gossip initiations (evalutive comments about a familiar third person) and gossip responses (discouraging, neutral, mildly encouraging, moderately encouraging, highly encouraging). Overall, encouraging responses were more likely than discouraging or neutral responses. Group differences were also observed. Negative gossip was more likely to occur between female pairs than between male pairs or cross-gender pairs. Also, among female pairs only, negative gossip was more likely than positive gossip. Furthermore, the female pairs tended to respond to evaluative gossip with highly encouraging comments. There were no gender differences within the cross-gender pairs associated with any behaviors. The findings suggest that women may be more likely than men to use and encourage gossip in same-gender friendships in order to establish solidarity and make social comparisons.     

传言对人际信任影响的泛化效应

本研究使用学习-测试范式考察传言对人际信任影响的泛化效应。学习阶段,被试对中性面孔和不同效价的传言或真实信息进行配对学习;测试阶段,被试作为投资者与陌生对家完成信任投资游戏,对家面孔与学习面孔具有40%相似性。结果发现,传言能够影响学习面孔的信任,并调节与学习面孔相似的对家面孔的信任投资;同时,传言对信任投资的影响只发生在女性对家身上。上述发现揭示传言对人际信任能够进行选择性泛化。     

The effects of collaboration on recall of social information

Three experiments examined the effects of passage type on both individual and collaborative memory performance. In Experiment 1, both individuals and collaborative groups recalled more information from passages containing social information than non-social information. Furthermore, collaborative inhibition (CI) was observed for both types of passages. In Experiment 2, which included a social passage that did not contain gossip, significant main effects of both gossip (gossip > non-gossip) and sociability (explicit > implicit) were observed. As in Experiment 1, CI was observed across all conditions. Experiment 3 separately manipulated gossip and the interest level of the passages and both of these factors enhanced memory performance. Moreover, robust CI was again observed across all conditions. Taken together, the present results demonstrate a mnemonic benefit for social information in individuals and collaborative groups.     

Who Do We Tell and Whom Do We Tell On? Gossip as a Strategy for Status Enhancement1

College students ranked the interest value of 12 different gossip scenarios; likelihood of spreading the gossip; and the people to whom they would be most likely to tell the gossip, depending on whether the gossip was about male or female professors, relatives, friends, acquaintances, strangers, or a same‐sex rival or a romantic partner. Damaging, negative news about rivals and positive news about friends and lovers was especially prized and likely to be passed on. Aside from romantic partners, males and females were more interested in information about same‐sex others than about opposite‐sex others. Overall, men were most likely to confide in their romantic partners, but females were equally likely to share gossip with their lovers and their same‐sex friends.     

Let’s Talk About Sex: A Study on the Recall of Gossip About Potential Mates and Sexual Rivals

Although there is an abundance of gossip research, little is known about the impact of individuals’ characteristics and their ability to recall gossip’s content. We concentrated on gossip related to mating reputation, and investigated the effects of individuals’ sex and relationship status when they are the subjects and receivers of such gossip. We presented 84 students with gossip-like stories, manipulated for content, and then provided a surprise recall test. We found that cues of attractiveness were recalled more for female characters, whereas cues of wealth status were recalled more for male characters. Gender differences in participants’ recall occurred for gossip about same-sex people who may represent rivals, but not for gossip about other-sex people who may represent potential mates. The relationship status of the subjects and receivers did not affect the recall rates. We discuss these findings within the conceptual framework offered by evolutionary psychology.     

Preschoolers’ Theory-of-Mind Knowledge Influences Whom They Trust About Others’ Theories of Mind

Two experiments examined whether particular aspects of social-cognitive knowledge predicted how preschoolers would treat informants who displayed a more or less developed understanding of that knowledge. In Experiment 1, children's own success on false-belief measures correlated with the extent to which they endorsed information generated by a confederate with a more developed sense of false belief over a confederate with a less developed sense of false belief. In Experiment 2, preschoolers were assessed for whether they possessed a more action-based or mental state-based understanding of pretense. They were then presented with informants who displayed each kind of knowledge. Children's own knowledge again correlated with which informant they believed was a reliable source of knowledge about novel pretend actions. These results not only extend findings in the “trust in testimony” literature beyond word learning, but also potentially reveal another mechanism by which children learn from others—they might trust others’ information about a specific piece of knowledge based on examination of their own knowledge of that domain.     

Older, not younger, children learn more false facts from stories

Early school-aged children listened to stories that contained correct and incorrect facts. All ages answered more questions correctly after having heard the correct fact in the story. Only the older children, however, produced story errors on a later general knowledge test. Source errors did not drive the increased suggestibility in older children, as they were better at remembering source than were the younger children. Instead, different processes are involved in learning correct and incorrect facts from fictional sources. All ages benefited from hearing correct answers because they activated a pre-existing semantic network. Older children, however, were better able to form memories of the misinformation and thus showed greater suggestibility on the general knowledge test.     

Of Tabloids and Family Secrets: The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip1

Two experiments tested hypotheses about gossip derived from an evolutionary perspective. In the first experiment, 128 people ranging in age from 17 to 62 years ranked the interest value of 12 tabloid stories about celebrities differing in age and gender. In the second experiment, 83 college students ranked the interest value and likelihood of spreading gossip about male or female professors, relatives, friends, acquaintances, or strangers based on 12 different gossip scenarios. The results of these experiments confirmed a consistent pattern of interest in gossip marked by a preference for information about others of the same age and gender. Exploitable information in the form of damaging, negative news about nonallies and positive news about allies was especially prized and likely to be passed on. The findings confirm that gossip can serve as a strategy of status enhancement and function in the interests of individuals, and that it does not just function as a means of social control within groups.     

以“八卦”为途径的声誉传播及其对合作行为的影响

声誉是人类的合作行为产生和维持的基石,但由于人与人之间的互动所提供的声誉信息有限,如何准确有效地传播声誉成为促进合作的另一个难题。因此,研究者们提出“八卦”可能是声誉传播的重要途径之一。作为一种间接的传播方式,“八卦”如何促进人类合作？其是否是一种准确有效的声誉传播途径？本文从八卦信息的传播者、接收者和八卦对象的角度对以上的问题进行了论述。在合作情景中,传播者乐意对他人的声誉信息进行传播,特别是背叛者的声誉信息,以帮助潜在的受害者;信息的接收者认可传递声誉信息的八卦,并且利用八卦信息辨别合作者,决定与八卦对象的合作行为;八卦同样能够有效地威慑八卦对象,促使八卦对象表现出更高的合作水平。未来的研究应该关注传播者的互惠动机、接收者对信息的主动寻求以及实际发生的八卦对八卦对象的影响,并开展声誉传播的神经机制研究。     

Young Children's Understanding of the Conditions for Knowledge Acquisition

We report 3 studies directed to children's understanding of how evidence leads to knowledge. The studies as a whole span a range of ages (4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds), a variety of sources of information (perception, communication, and inference), and a number of targets or recipients of the information (adult, child, baby, and self). Perception proved to be the easiest source to understand, and inference was the most difficult. There was no difference in the accuracy of judgments for the self and judgments for others. Judgments were least accurate for the baby, primarily because children tended to overestimate babies' ability to acquire knowledge from communication or inference. Although performance in general improved with age, the tendency to overestimate the baby was greatest among the oldest children. The results are discussed in terms of children's understanding of 2 contributors to knowledge formation: situational (the nature and adequacy of the informational source) and individual (the cognitive readiness of the recipient of the information).     

Strategies in the Information Search Process: Interaction Among Task Structure,Knowledge, and Source

The authors explored the information search strategies of 145 individuals in the predecisional stage. Decision-making participants selected pieces of information from a list including relevant and irrelevant data. The authors investigated the influence of the individual's knowledge and information source. In Experiment 1, the authors experimentally manipulated the information source reliability. The results revealed that participants tended to use a sequential strategy when the authors presented information as supplied by a reliable source. In Experiment 2, the authors analyzed the interaction between information source and the individuals' knowledge. When participants believed the source to be reliable, even knowledgeable participants adopted a strategy as sequential as that chosen by naive individuals. In Experiment 3, a mediational model corroborated the hypothesis that the search strategy affects the final judgment. The results were consistent with the constructivist framework, which emphasizes the role of individual, task, and context in the decision-making process.     

Developmental changes in memory source monitoring.

Previous research suggests that children are more likely than adults to confuse memories of actions they imagined themselves performing with memories of actions they actually performed (Realization Judgments), but are not more likely to confuse memories of actions they had imagined performing with memories of actions they saw another person perform (Reality Monitoring). We approach these findings in terms of a theory about the processes by which people identify the sources of their recollections (Source Monitoring). This approach suggests that children may be more likely than adults to confuse memories from different sources whenever the sources are highly similar to one another. Experiments 1 and 2 tested this hypothesis by manipulating the perceptual and semantic similarity of two sources of information and testing 4- and 6-year-old and adult subjects' recollection of the sources of particular pieces of information. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that children are more likely than adults to mistakenly identify memories of things they imagined another person doing as memories of things they witnessed that person doing. The findings indicate that (a) people are more likely to confuse memories from similar than dissimilar sources, (b) source monitoring improves during the preschool and childhood years, and (c) children may be especially vulnerable to the effects of source similarity.     

Why People Gossip: An Empirical Analysis of Social Motives,Antecedents, and Consequences

In 3 studies with student samples, we advance a social‐motivational approach to gossip. We developed the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire to distinguish negative influence, information gathering and validation, social enjoyment, and group protection as motives underlying gossip. Study 1 demonstrated that these motives can be distinguished empirically, and that the informational motive was the most prevalent reason to instigate gossip. Study 2 showed that group protection was especially important when the opportunity to gossip with a group member about another member's norm‐violating behavior was salient. Study 3 showed that when participants imagined someone gossiped to them about another group member's norm violation, and ascribed this to group protection, they rated the gossip as social and did not disapprove of it.     

Young Children Choose to Inform Previously Knowledgeable Others

Children recognize that people who know more are better informants than those who know less. How does an individual’s prior knowledge affect children’s decisions about whom to inform? In 3 experiments, 3- to 6-year-old children were invited to share a novel piece of information with 1 of 2 potential recipients who differed in their recent history of knowledge. Children tended to inform the previously knowledgeable person rather than the previously ignorant person. This same effect was observed in a 4th experiment when the knowledgeable person stated that she already knew the information the participant had to share. In no case was the opposite pattern observed: Children never chose to inform the person who had known less. These results seem to conflict with equity considerations and may reflect a preference to affiliate with competent social partners.     

Deterrence and transmission as mechanisms ensuring reliability of gossip

Spreading information about the members of one’s group is one of the most universal human behaviors. Thanks to gossip, individuals can acquire the information about their peers without sustaining the burden of costly interactions with cheaters, but they can also create and revise social bonds. Gossip has also several positive functions at the group level, promoting cohesion and norm compliance. However, gossip can be unreliable, and can be used to damage others’ reputation or to circulate false information, thus becoming detrimental to people involved and useless for the group. In this work, we propose a theoretical model in which reliability of gossip depends on the joint functioning of two distinct mechanisms. Thanks to the first, i.e., deterrence, individuals tend to avoid informational cheating because they fear punishment and the disruption of social bonds. On the other hand, transmission provides humans with the opportunity of reducing the consequences of cheating through a manipulation of the source of gossip.     

The place of advice: Japanese parents' sources of information about childrearing and child health

A survey of 1,150 fathers and 1,147 mothers in four regions of Japan (mean ages: FATHERS = 36.7, MOTHERS = 33.8, CHILDREN = 4.4 years) documented Japanese parents' sources of advice and information about young children. Mothers reported receiving more advice and information from more sources, compared with fathers. However, more husbands and wives cited “my spouse” than any other potential source of advice, and men and women expressed a high level of confidence in each other. Relatively few parents said that they had used professional advice. It is apparent that various sources of parenting knowledge can be facilitated to alleviate the stress felt by today's increasingly isolated parents.