Developmental differences in the relative weighing of informants' social attributes.

Abstract

We examined whether similarity, familiarity, and reliability cues guide children's learning and whether these cues are weighed differently with age. Three- to 5-year-olds (n = 184) met 2 informant puppets, 1 of which was similar (Experiment 1) or familiar (Experiment 2) to the participants. Initially, children's preference for either informant was measured. Children selected similar and familiar informants--over dissimilar and unfamiliar ones--as information sources at above-chance levels. In Experiment 1 the similar informant later provided accurate or inaccurate information (counterbalanced). Children's initial preference for similar sources was modified by reliability cues. However, 5-year-olds continued to be influenced by similarity, being less likely to avoid inaccurate sources if similar than dissimilar. In Experiment 2 the familiar informant was later portrayed as interpersonally similar or dissimilar (counterbalanced). Only 5-year-olds were influenced by similarity, preferentially interacting with similar informants regardless of familiarity. These results suggest that similarity influences children's learning and that children's relative weighing of social cues varies with age--with younger children being especially focused on familiarity and older children being particularly attentive to similarity.

Playing by the rules: Self-interest information influences children’s trust and trustworthiness in the absence of feedback

“…In Experiment 2, 5-year-olds endorsed suggestions as guessers more often if those suggestions were provided by an informant with common interests. These results of inference-driven choices complement research documenting children's selectivity when information about epistemic (e.g., Birch, Vauthier, & Bloom, 2008;Koenig, 2010;Krogh-Jespersen & Echols, 2012) and social (e.g., Corriveau, Fusaro, & Harris, 2009;Kinzler, Corriveau, & Harris, 2011;Reyes-Jaquez & Echols, 2013) characteristics of the informants is available. Additionally, these findings extend prior work on children's strategic trustworthiness (e.g., Peskin, 1992;Smith & LaFreniere, 2013) by showing that children will be deceitful when it benefits them, even without feedback.…”

The role of epistemic and social characteristics in children’s selective trust: Three meta‐analyses

“…One possible explanation might be that responses to ask and endorse questions are based on different motivational and epistemic considerations. Ask questions may be more likely to be motivated by children’s desire to interact or associate with a particular informant, while children’s responses to endorse questions may be based on who they deem as more accurate (Reyes‐Jaquez & Echols, ). This finding may also suggest that, with age, children’s desire to establish and maintain positive social relationships remains relatively stable, while their motivation to acquire reliable information increases.…”

You Seem Certain but You Were Wrong Before: Developmental Change in Preschoolers’ Relative Trust in Accurate versus Confident Speakers

“…Between the ages of 3 and 5 children become increasingly likely to trust an unfamiliar but recently accurate individual over a familiar but recently inaccurate one [3]. However, 5-year-olds are also more likely than younger preschoolers to trust an inaccurate individual who is more similar to themselves than an accurate but dissimilar individual [20]. The present study is consistent with much of this prior research showing that especially older preschoolers have a relatively sophisticated understanding of the relative value of knowledge cues; yet it provides an important addition to this prior research by showing a developmental progression in the preschool years in how children weigh the knowledge cues of an informant’s confidence and prior accuracy when deciding what information to believe.…”

“…Overall, most studies find that young children’s preference to learn from older individuals is overridden by cues such as prior accuracy [1], expertise [17], or perceptual access [18] (though not all studies show this pattern [19]). Other attributes, such as familiarity [3] or similarity [20], can influence children’s propensity to selectively learn from an individual; the relative impact of these cues in relation to a different cue, such as prior accuracy, varies during the preschool years.…”