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

Reet, Jennifer Van; Green, Kathryn F.; Sobel, David

doi:10.1080/15248372.2014.892875

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…On the domain‐specific side, many researchers have articulated correlations between children’s selective learning and their performance on the false belief task (e.g., Brosseau‐Liard, Penney, & Poulin‐Dubois, 2015; DiYanni, Nini, Rheel, & Livelli, 2012). Others, however, have not found such relations (e.g., Pasquini, Corriveau, Koenig, & Harris, 2007) or found only limited relations (Van Reet, Green, & Sobel, 2015). Similar to the arguments for children’s developing inhibitory control, the present findings do not necessarily support the hypothesis that false belief knowledge underlies children’s selective learning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

How Children Learn From Others: An Analysis of Selective Word Learning

Sobel

Finiasz

2020

Child Development

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One way children are remarkable learners is that they learn from others. Critically, children are selective when assessing from whom to learn, particularly in the domain of word learning. We conducted an analysis of children's selective word learning, reviewing 63 papers on 6,525 participants. Children's ability to engage in selective word learning appeared to be present in the youngest samples surveyed. Their more metacognitive understanding that epistemic competence indicates reliability or that others are good sources of knowledge has more of a developmental trajectory. We also found that various methodological factors used to assess children influence performance. We conclude with a synthesis of theoretical accounts of how children learn from others.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

How Children Learn From Others: An Analysis of Selective Word Learning

Sobel

Finiasz

2020

Child Development

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“…The association between the establishment of trust and the development of ToM competencies was first hypothesized by Koenig and Harris (2005) who found that only 4-year-olds, and not 3-year-olds, showed selective trust toward a previously accurate informant. More recently, associating trust beliefs with ToM abilities in children aged 9 years, Rotenberg et al (2015) further showed that children's trust beliefs in others are associated with both second-order false belief ToM ability as well as with advanced ToM abilities (see also Van Reet et al, 2015). As well-documented (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Cognitive skills allow individuals to reason about the other's perspective and to objectively evaluate informational access. In this respect, the development of a ToM enabling individuals to conceptualize the mental states that guide behavior (Wimmer and Perner, 1983) and social competence (Premack and Woodruff, 1978;Perner and Wimmer, 1985;see also, Lombardi et al, 2018; for a review, see Wellman et al, 2001) is a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of trusting relationships (Fusaro and Harris, 2008;Lecciso et al, 2011;Sharp et al, 2011;Lucas et al, 2013;Brosseau-Liard et al, 2015;Rotenberg et al, 2015;Van Reet, 2015). The association between the establishment of trust and the development of ToM competencies was first hypothesized by Koenig and Harris (2005) who found that only 4-year-olds, and not 3-year-olds, showed selective trust toward a previously accurate informant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shall I Trust You? From Child–Robot Interaction to Trusting Relationships

et al. 2020

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Studying trust in the context of human-robot interaction is of great importance given the increasing relevance and presence of robotic agents in the social sphere, including educational and clinical. We investigated the acquisition, loss, and restoration of trust when preschool and school-age children played with either a human or a humanoid robot in vivo. The relationship between trust and the representation of the quality of attachment relationships, Theory of Mind, and executive function skills was also investigated. Additionally, to outline children's beliefs about the mental competencies of the robot, we further evaluated the attribution of mental states to the interactive agent. In general, no substantial differences were found in children's trust in the play partner as a function of agency (human or robot). Nevertheless, 3-year-olds showed a trend toward trusting the human more than the robot, as opposed to 7-year-olds, who displayed the reverse pattern. These findings align with results showing that, for 3-and 7-yearolds, the cognitive ability to switch was significantly associated with trust restoration in the human and the robot, respectively. Additionally, supporting previous findings, we found a dichotomy between attributions of mental states to the human and robot and children's behavior: while attributing to the robot significantly lower mental states than the human, in the Trusting Game, children behaved in a similar way when they related to the human and the robot. Altogether, the results of this study highlight that similar psychological mechanisms are at play when children are to establish a novel trustful relationship with a human and robot partner. Furthermore, the findings shed light on the interplay-during development-between children's quality of attachment relationships and the development of a Theory of Mind, which act differently on trust dynamics as a function of the children's age as well as the interactive partner's nature (human vs. robot).

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“…More direct preliminary support comes from a recent study that did assess children's selective learning and their trait knowledge independently and showed that only those children with the requisite trait knowledge made rational model choices (Hermes, Behne, & Rakoczy, ). Converging evidence for a direct relation between conceptual knowledge and selective model choice comes from another recent study in which children's own understanding of false belief, for example, predicted how much they endorsed information from a protagonist with sophisticated false belief understanding over that of a protagonist with no such understanding (Van Reet, Green, & Sobel, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's selective trust decisions: rational competence and limiting performance factors

Hermes

Behne

Bich

et al. 2017

Developmental Science

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Recent research has amply documented that even preschoolers learn selectively from others, preferring, for example, reliable over unreliable and competent over incompetent models. It remains unclear, however, what the cognitive foundations of such selective learning are, in particular, whether it builds on rational inferences or on less sophisticated processes. The current study, therefore, was designed to test directly the possibility that children are in principle capable of selective learning based on rational inference, yet revert to simpler strategies such as global impression formation under certain circumstances. Preschoolers (N = 75) were shown pairs of models that either differed in their degree of competence within one domain (strong vs. weak or knowledgeable vs. ignorant) or were both highly competent, but in different domains (e.g., strong vs. knowledgeable model). In the test trials, children chose between the models for strength- or knowledge-related tasks. The results suggest that, in fact, children are capable of rational inference-based selective trust: when both models were highly competent, children preferred the model with the competence most predictive and relevant for a given task. However, when choosing between two models that differed in competence on one dimension, children reverted to halo-style wide generalizations and preferred the competent models for both relevant and irrelevant tasks. These findings suggest that the rational strategies for selective learning, that children master in principle, can get masked by various performance factors.

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

Cited by 9 publications

References 60 publications

How Children Learn From Others: An Analysis of Selective Word Learning

How Children Learn From Others: An Analysis of Selective Word Learning

Shall I Trust You? From Child–Robot Interaction to Trusting Relationships

Children's selective trust decisions: rational competence and limiting performance factors

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