认识性信任：学龄前儿童的选择性学习

人类个体对外界知识的获取很大程度上依赖于沟通, 即他人的证言。对儿童来说尤其如此。发展心理学家最近致力于研究学龄前儿童对他人证言的信任。一方面, 学龄前儿童往往会盲目地接受他人所告知的信息, 表现为轻信偏差; 另一方面, 儿童在知识学习上又会表现出高度的胜任力, 他们会借助一系列线索保证获取更为可靠的信息, 包括知识性线索和社会性线索。正如有关婴儿是否存在心理理论尚有争论, 儿童认识性信任的潜在机制也存在两种不同的取向, 涉及儿童是否理解信息者的心理状态。尽管对儿童知识性信息的研究取得了大量的成果和发现, 未来仍有许多问题值得探讨。

Epistemic Trust: How Preschoolers Selectively Learn from Others

Human individual acquires knowledge largely via communication, i.e., others’ testimony. That is especially true during childhood. Developmental psychologists have recently devoted to whether and how preschoolers trust other’s testimony. On the one hand, preschoolers tend to accept what others tell them, a phenomenon called credulity bias. However, on the other hand, children show great competence in selectively learning from others. They are able to use numerous cues to guarantee more reliable information, including epistemic cues and social cues. As with controversy over infants’ theory of mind, there are two approaches to underlying mechanisms of epistemic trust, concerning whether children can appreciate informants’ mental states. Although the research of epistemic trust has made substantial progress, there are lots of topics that are worthy further investigation.