When being right is not enough: four-year-olds distinguish knowledgeable informants from merely accurate informants |
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Authors: | Einav Shiri Robinson Elizabeth J |
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Affiliation: | Oxford Brookes University, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP, United Kingdom. seinav@brookes.ac.uk |
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Abstract: | Recent evidence demonstrates that children are selective in their social learning, preferring to learn from a previously accurate speaker than from a previously inaccurate one. We examined whether children assessing speakers' reliability take into account how speakers achieved their prior accuracy. In Study 1, when faced with two accurate informants, 4- and 5-year-olds (but not 3-year-olds) were more likely to seek novel information from an informant who had previously given the answers unaided than from an informant who had always relied on help from a third party. Similarly, in Study 2, 4-year-olds were more likely to trust the testimony of an unaided informant over the testimony provided by an assisted informant. Our results indicate that when children reach around 4 years of age, their selective trust extends beyond simple generalizations based on informants' past accuracy to a more sophisticated selectivity that distinguishes between truly knowledgeable informants and merely accurate informants who may not be reliable in the long term. |
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