Dealing with conflicting information: young children’s reliance on what they see versus what they are told

Abstract

Children often learn about the world through direct observation. However, much of children's knowledge is acquired through the testimony of others. This research investigates how preschoolers weigh these two sources of information when they are in conflict. Children watched as an adult hid a toy in one location. Then the adult told children that the toy was in a different location (i.e. false testimony). When retrieving the toy, 4- and 5-year-olds relied on what they had seen and disregarded the adult's false testimony. However, most 3-year-olds deferred to the false testimony, despite what they had directly observed. Importantly, with a positive searching experience based on what they saw, or with a single prior experience with an adult as unreliable, 3-year-olds subsequently relied on their first-hand observation and disregarded the adult's false testimony. Thus, young children may initially be credulous toward others' false testimony that contradicts their direct observation, but skepticism can develop quickly through experience.

Preschoolers’ credulity toward misinformation from ingroup versus outgroup speakers

“…Empirical research demonstrates that in some circumstances http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.011 0022-0965/Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. toddlers and preschoolers are indeed credulous toward an adult's claims that are obviously false (e.g., Heyman, Sritanyaratana, & Vanderbilt, 2013;Jaswal, 2010;Ma & Ganea, 2010). The current study sought to extend these findings and explore whether preschoolers display different levels of credulity toward misinformation from ingroup versus outgroup speakers.…”

“…In addition, according to the age differences in Ma and Ganea (2010) as mentioned earlier, it was predicted that overall the 3-year-olds would be more credulous than the 4-year-olds.…”

“…Ma and Ganea (2010) examined preschoolers' reliance on their firsthand observations versus what they were told by an adult when searching for a hidden object. In this study, children watched as an adult placed a toy in one of three containers.…”

“…In Experiment 1, 3-and 4-year-olds received a task modeled after Ma and Ganea (2010). The child watched through a one-way window as a female adult hid a toy in one of three distinct containers.…”

ALIED: Humans as adaptive lie detectors.

“…Although they will often show a bias to believe others (e.g., Diamond, 2002), this is not an all-encompassing, ever-present naivety to believe everything (see Clément, Koenig & Harris, 2004;Ma & Ganea, 2010;Robinson, Mitchell & Nye, 1995). …”