What makes children defy their peers? Chinese and Spanish preschoolers' decisions to trust (or not) peer consensus

Abstract

The more people agree on the same piece of information, the more likely are individuals to endorse the testimonial information. Children are sensitive to consensus but their trust in what a majority says also depends on the decision context, their previous knowledge, and, interestingly, the culture in which they develop. Here we study Chinese (N = 60) and Spanish (N = 48) preschoolers' sensitivity to the opinion of a group of peers in consensus regarding (a) peer interaction events and (b) use of artifacts. For each context, we varied the degree of ambiguity of the situations: unfamiliar, ambiguous, and familiar, where the majority offered a transgressive opinion in conflict with “common sense.” Children were more likely to trust their peers in the unfamiliar and ambiguous situations. In the familiar situations, children showed greater acceptance of transgressive claims regarding artifacts than peer interaction events. The two cultural groups, however, significantly differed in the degree of endorsement. Although Chinese children gave little credibility to their peers even when facing novel information, Spaniards deferred to them, even at the expense of their own criteria. Together with previous findings, these results indicate culture‐specific patterns related to children's attitudes toward peers versus adults as sources of knowledge.

Cultural divergence in children's selective word learning: Korean and Canadian children differ in their trust of adult informants

“…Even when adult informants were completely inaccurate, some children still chose adults to learn new information when their peers made a single error (32.8% in Trial 1, 47.6% in Trial 2). These findings are in line with Sebastián‐Enesco et al.’s (2020) study on Spanish and Chinese children's trust in peer consensus. Most Spanish children accepted the function of an unfamiliar, or an ambiguous object proposed by their peers, whereas Chinese children were reluctant to follow them.…”

Children’s Perspectives on Fairness and Inclusivity in the Classroom

“…Research has documented the factors that contribute to children’s support or rejection of peer exclusion based on stereotypes and biases (Rutland & Killen, 2015). Further, children’s trust in their peers as a source of knowledge and information reveals the contexts in which they may turn to their peers (instead of teachers) for social support and information (Sebastián-Enesco et al, 2020). Students who are rejected by teachers may also be more likely to be rejected by peers (Osterman, 2000).…”

How Does Preschoolers’ Conformity Relate to Parental Style, Anonymous Sharing, and Obedience?

“…Although young children copy task-irrelevant behavior from adults, they are able to forego such behavior when it is displayed by peers (McGuigan & Stevenson, 2016) or younger children (McGuigan & Burgess, 2017). Likewise, children's propensity to conformity drops significantly if they are given a sense of expertise or prior knowledge (Sebastián-Enesco et al, 2020;Schillaci & Kelemen, 2014) or if models are portrayed as incompetent (Eagly & Wood, 1982).…”