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Keupp S, Herrmann E. Domain-specific inferences about conspecifics' skills by chimpanzees. Sci Rep 2024; 14:21996. [PMID: 39313494 PMCID: PMC11420200 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-73340-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2024] [Accepted: 09/16/2024] [Indexed: 09/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Chimpanzees collaborate with conspecifics in their daily life. However, the cognitive processes underlying partner recruitment aren't fully understood. In the current study, chimpanzees needed to recruit a conspecific partner for either a cooperative or competitive experimental task. They spontaneously preferred to recruit cooperation partners who they have seen performing successfully before on a similar task, over partners who had failed. In contrast, the chimpanzees needed to experience the consequences of competing against co-action partners before settling on a preference for the unsuccessful partner. This divergent pattern may be due to increased cognitive demands of competitive compared to cooperative tasks. Despite the observed differences of social information use in our cooperative and competitive experimental tasks, the findings are exciting as they extend our knowledge of chimpanzee's social evaluation abilities by showing that they can draw domain-specific inferences about conspecifics' skills.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefanie Keupp
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.
- Department for Primate Cognition, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.
- Leibniz ScienceCampus, German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 2UP, UK
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2
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Schmid B, Bleijlevens N, Mani N, Behne T. The cognitive underpinnings and early development of children's selective trust. Child Dev 2024; 95:1315-1332. [PMID: 38294284 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/01/2024]
Abstract
Young children learn selectively from reliable over unreliable sources. However, the cognitive underpinnings of their selectivity (attentional biases or trait ascriptions) and its early ontogeny are unclear. Thus, across three studies (N = 139, monolingual German speakers, 67 female), selective-trust tasks were adapted to test both preschoolers (5-year-olds) and toddlers (24-month-olds), using eye-tracking and interactive measures. These data show that preschoolers' selectivity is not based on attentional biases, but on person-specific trait ascriptions. In contrast, toddlers showed no selective trust, even in the eye-tracking tasks. They succeeded, however, in eye-tracking tasks with the same word-learning demands, if no ascriptions of reliability were required. Thus, these findings suggest that preschoolers, but not toddlers, use trait-like ascriptions of reliability to guide their selective learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin Schmid
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz Science Campus "Primate Cognition", Göttingen, Germany
| | - Natalie Bleijlevens
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz Science Campus "Primate Cognition", Göttingen, Germany
| | - Nivedita Mani
- Leibniz Science Campus "Primate Cognition", Göttingen, Germany
- Psychology of Language, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Tanya Behne
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz Science Campus "Primate Cognition", Göttingen, Germany
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3
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Dragon M, Poulin-Dubois D. To copy or not to copy: A comparison of selective trust and overimitation in young children. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101316] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/06/2023]
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4
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Ma S, Tsay CJ, Chen EE. Preference for talented naturals over hard workers emerges in childhood and shapes behavior. Child Dev 2022; 94:674-690. [PMID: 36537003 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13886] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Both talent and effort are considered essential sources of achievement, but past research suggests a preference for people who appear to achieve through talent. This research examined the potential naturalness preference in 306 Chinese children (Mage : 6.12 years; 164 girls) and 352 adults (Mage : 19.87 years; 182 women) in 2019. In Study 1, participants evaluated a natural or striver protagonist of equal achievement. Children attributed greater competence and warmth to naturals than strivers; adults exhibited this preference only when attributing competence. In Study 2, participants indicated their behavioral preferences between the two protagonists. Children, but not adults, interacted more with naturals than strivers. These findings indicate the naturalness preference emerges early (ds ≥ .27) but declines in strength over time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shaocong Ma
- Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China
| | - Chia-Jung Tsay
- Department of Management and Human Resources, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.,School of Management, University College London, London, UK
| | - Eva E Chen
- Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China.,College of Education, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Republic of China
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5
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Riggs AE, Kinard D, Long M. Children’s Evaluations of Gender Non-Conforming Peers. SEX ROLES 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s11199-022-01322-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
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6
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Lascaux A. Of Kids and Unicorns: How Rational Is Children's Trust in Testimonial Knowledge? Cogn Sci 2021; 44:e12819. [PMID: 32090379 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12819] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2018] [Revised: 01/24/2020] [Accepted: 01/24/2020] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
When young children confront a vast array of adults' testimonial claims, they should decide which testimony to endorse. If they are unable to immediately verify the content of testimonial assertions, children adopt or reject their informants' statements on the basis of forming trust in the sources of testimony. This kind of trust needs to be based on some underlying reasons. The rational choice theory, which currently dominates the social, cognitive, and psychological sciences, posits that trust should be formed on a rational basis, as a result of probabilistic assessments and utility-maximizing calculations. In this paper, the predictions stemming from the rational choice approach to trust are systematically compared with the empirical evidence from the field of developmental psychology on how children establish their trust in testimonial statements. The results of this comparison demonstrate an obvious inadequacy of the rational choice explanation of the emergence and development of children's testimonial trust, regardless of which form of trust rationality-weighting, threshold, or ordering-is examined. As none of the three forms of rationality of children's trust in testimony squares with the empirical data, this paper introduces a new version of trust rationality, adaptively rational trust. It explores the compatibility of the concept of adaptively rational trust with the recent empirical findings in the area of developmental psychology and addresses some avenues for future research on the rationality of testimonial trust.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Lascaux
- IBS, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Affairs
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7
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Crivello C, Grossman S, Poulin-Dubois D. Specifying links between infants' theory of mind, associative learning, and selective trust. INFANCY 2021; 26:664-685. [PMID: 34043285 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12407] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2019] [Revised: 03/28/2021] [Accepted: 04/16/2021] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
The psychological mechanisms underlying infants' selective social learning are currently a subject of controversy. The main goal of the present study was to contribute data to this debate by investigating whether domain-specific or domain-general abilities guide infants' selectivity. Eighteen-month-olds observed a reliable and an unreliable speaker, and then completed a forced-choice word learning paradigm, two theory of mind tasks, and an associative learning task. Results revealed that infants showed sensitivity to the verbal competence of the speaker. Additionally, infants with superior knowledge inference abilities were less likely to learn from the unreliable speaker. No link was observed between selective social learning and associative learning skills. These results replicate and extend previous findings demonstrating that socio-cognitive abilities are linked to infants' selective social learning.
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Souza DDH, Messias AC. CONFIANÇA SELETIVA EM CRIANÇAS PRÉ-ESCOLARES: UMA REVISÃO SISTEMÁTICA. PSICOLOGIA EM ESTUDO 2020. [DOI: 10.4025/psicolestud.v25i0.44631] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Embora o campo de estudos sobre confiança seletiva tenha ganhado destaque nos últimos anos, essa linha de pesquisa não é ainda suficientemente divulgada no Brasil. A presente revisão sistemática teve como objetivo avaliar a produção científica sobre confiança seletiva em crianças pré-escolares, bem como sobre possíveis variáveis que influenciam os julgamentos de confiança. A busca foi realizada nas bases de dados PSYCINFO, Scielo Brasil, PEPSIC e LILACS, utilizando-se as palavras-chave selective trust, epistemic trust e seus correspondentes em português ‘confiança seletiva’ e ‘confiança epistêmica’. De um total de 103 trabalhos, foram analisados 45 artigos empíricos, publicados entre 2008 e 2018, seguindo o protocolo PRISMA. Contrariando uma crença predominante em muitas culturas de que as crianças acreditam em tudo o que ouvem, elas não são consumidoras ingênuas de informação. Discutem-se os efeitos de variáveis individuais e contextuais sobre os julgamentos de confiança seletiva que apontam para direções futuras promissoras de pesquisa.
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9
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Preschoolers’ evaluation of the informativeness of others’ explanations about conjunctive causal events. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100933] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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10
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Miosga N, Schultze T, Schulz-Hardt S, Rakoczy H. Selective Social Belief Revision in Young Children. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2020.1781127] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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11
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Conceptual Development and Change Precede Adults’ Judgments About Powerful Appearance. ADAPTIVE HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND PHYSIOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s40750-020-00135-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
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12
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Content counts: A trait and moral reasoning framework for children's selective social learning. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2020; 58:95-136. [PMID: 32169200 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2020.01.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
We present evidence that evaluative information plays a major role in children's selective social learning. We demonstrate that social learning patterns differ as a function of whether children are exposed to positively or negatively valenced information (e.g., content; informant characteristics) and that these patterns can be understood in the context of children's schemas for social groups, morality, and trait understanding. We highlight that attention must be given to theoretical ties between social learning and children's trait judgments and moral reasoning to strengthen our understanding of selective trust and account for variations in children's sophistication when they judge potential sources of information. Finally, we suggest revisions to current theoretical frameworks and offer suggestions to move the field forward.
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Schütte F, Mani N, Behne T. Retrospective inferences in selective trust. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2020; 7:191451. [PMID: 32257315 PMCID: PMC7062051 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191451] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2019] [Accepted: 01/28/2020] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
Young children learn selectively from others based on the speakers' prior accuracy. This indicates that they recognize the models' (in)competence and use it to predict who will provide the most accurate and useful information in the future. Here, we investigated whether 5-year-old children are also able to use speaker reliability retrospectively, once they have more information regarding their competence. They first experienced two previously unknown speakers who provided conflicting information about the referent of a novel label, with each speaker using the same novel label to refer exclusively to a different novel object. Following this, children learned about the speakers' differing labelling accuracy. Subsequently, children selectively endorsed the object-label link initially provided by the speaker who turned out to be reliable significantly above chance. Crucially, more than half of these children justified their object selection with reference to speaker reliability, indicating the ability to explicitly reason about their selective trust in others based on the informants' individual competences. Findings further corroborate the notion that young children are able to use advanced, metacognitive strategies (trait reasoning) to learn selectively. By contrast, since learning preceded reliability exposure and gaze data showed no preferential looking toward the more reliable speaker, findings cannot be accounted for by attentional bias accounts of selective social learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Friederike Schütte
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Nivedita Mani
- Psychology of Language, University of Göttingen, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus ‘Primate Cognition’, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Tanya Behne
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus ‘Primate Cognition’, Göttingen, Germany
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14
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Abstract
How do children reason about academic performance across development? A classic view suggests children's intuitive theories in this domain undergo qualitative changes. According to this view, older children and adults consider both effort and skill as sources of performance (i.e., a "performance = effort + skill" theory), but younger children can only consider effort (i.e., a "performance = effort" theory). Results from two studies (N = 240 children aged 4-9) contradict the claim of theory change, suggesting instead that children as young as 4 operate with an intuitive theory of academic performance that incorporates both effort and skill as explanatory concepts. This work reveals that children's understanding of academic performance is more continuous across development than previously assumed.
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15
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Mondloch CJ, Gerada A, Proietti V, Nelson NL. The influence of subtle facial expressions on children's first impressions of trustworthiness and dominance is not adult-like. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 180:19-38. [PMID: 30611111 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.12.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2018] [Revised: 11/02/2018] [Accepted: 12/05/2018] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Adults' first impressions of others are influenced by subtle facial expressions; happy faces are perceived as high in trustworthiness, whereas angry faces are rated as low in trustworthiness and high in threat and dominance. Little is known about the influence of emotional expressions on children's first impressions. Here we examined the influence of subtle expressions of happiness, anger, and fear on children's implicit judgments of trustworthiness and dominance with the aim of providing novel insights about both the development of first impressions and whether children are able to utilize emotional expressions when making implicit, rather than explicit, judgments of traits. In the context of a computerized storybook, children (4- to 11-year-olds) and adults selected one of two twins (two images of the same identity displaying different emotional expressions) to help them face a challenge; some challenges required a trustworthy partner, and others required a dominant partner. One twin posed a neutral expression, and the other posed a subtle emotional expression of happiness, fear, or anger. Whereas adults were more likely to select a happy partner on trust trials than on dominance trials and were more likely to select an angry partner on dominance trials than on trust trials, we found no evidence that children's choices reflected a combined influence of desirable trait and emotion. Follow-up experiments involving explicit trait judgments, explicit emotion recognition, and implicit first impression judgments in the context of intense emotional expressions provide valuable insights into the slow development of implicit trait judgments based on first impressions.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ashley Gerada
- Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1, Canada
| | | | - Nicole L Nelson
- University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia
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16
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Palmquist CM, Fierro MG. The Right Stuff: Preschoolers Generalize Reliability Across Communicative Domains When Informants Show Semantic (Not Episodic) Knowledge. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2018.1526174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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17
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Abstract
There has been extensive research into the development of selective trust in testimony, but little is known about the development of selective trust in promises. The present research investigates children's (N = 264) selective trust in others' promises to help. In Study 1, 6-year-olds selectively trusted speakers who had previously kept a promise. In Study 2, 5-year-olds displayed selective trust for speakers who had previously kept a prosocial promise (promise to help). In Study 3, 5-year-olds trusted a speaker, who kept a prosocial promise, over a helper. These data suggest that from the age of 5 children show selective trust in others' promises using prosociality, promise keeping, or both to inform their judgments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margherita Isella
- Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.,Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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18
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Hermes J, Behne T, Rakoczy H. The Development of Selective Trust: Prospects for a Dual-Process Account. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12274] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jonas Hermes
- University of Göttingen and Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition
| | - Tanya Behne
- University of Göttingen and Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- University of Göttingen and Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition
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19
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Cimpian A, Hammond MD, Mazza G, Corry G. Young Children's Self‐Concepts Include Representations of Abstract Traits and the Global Self. Child Dev 2017; 88:1786-1798. [DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12925] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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20
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Lapan C, Boseovski JJ. When Peer Performance Matters: Effects of Expertise and Traits on Children's Self-Evaluations After Social Comparison. Child Dev 2017; 88:1860-1872. [PMID: 28832997 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12941] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The present research examined the influence of peer characteristics on children's reactions to upward social comparisons. In Experiment 1, one hundred twenty-six 5-, 8-, and 10-year-olds were told that they were outperformed by an expert or novice peer. Older children reported higher self-evaluations after comparisons with an expert rather than a novice, whereas 5-year-olds reported high self-evaluations broadly. In Experiment 2, ninety-eight 5- to 6-year-olds and 9- to 10-year-olds were told that the peer possessed a positive or negative trait that was task relevant (i.e., intelligence) or task irrelevant (i.e., athleticism). Older children reported higher self-evaluations after hearing about positive rather than negative traits, irrespective of relevance. Younger children reported high self-evaluations indiscriminately. Results inform the understanding of social comparison development in childhood.
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Abstract
Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they age, children's reasoning about testimony increasingly reflects an ability not just to detect imperfect or inaccurate claims but also to assess what inferences may or may not be drawn about informants given their particular situation. Children also attend to the broader characteristics of particular informants-their group membership, personality characteristics, and agreement or disagreement with other potential informants. When presented with unexpected or counterintuitive testimony, children are prone to set aside their own prior convictions, but they may sometimes defer to informants for inherently social reasons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul L Harris
- Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138;
| | - Melissa A Koenig
- Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55436;
| | | | - Vikram K Jaswal
- Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904;
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Hermes J, Behne T, Bich AE, Thielert C, Rakoczy H. Children's selective trust decisions: rational competence and limiting performance factors. Dev Sci 2017; 21. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12527] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2015] [Accepted: 10/06/2016] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jonas Hermes
- Department of Developmental Psychology; Institute of Psychology; University of Göttingen; Germany
- Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition; Göttingen Germany
| | - Tanya Behne
- Department of Developmental Psychology; Institute of Psychology; University of Göttingen; Germany
- Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition; Göttingen Germany
| | - Anna Elisa Bich
- Department of Developmental Psychology; Institute of Psychology; University of Göttingen; Germany
| | - Christa Thielert
- Department of Developmental Psychology; Institute of Psychology; University of Göttingen; Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology; Institute of Psychology; University of Göttingen; Germany
- Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition; Göttingen Germany
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Hermes J, Behne T, Studte K, Zeyen AM, Gräfenhain M, Rakoczy H. Selective Cooperation in Early Childhood - How to Choose Models and Partners. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0160881. [PMID: 27505043 PMCID: PMC4978381 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/29/2016] [Accepted: 06/21/2016] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Cooperation is essential for human society, and children engage in cooperation from early on. It is unclear, however, how children select their partners for cooperation. We know that children choose selectively whom to learn from (e.g. preferring reliable over unreliable models) on a rational basis. The present study investigated whether children (and adults) also choose their cooperative partners selectively and what model characteristics they regard as important for cooperative partners and for informants about novel words. Three- and four-year-old children (N = 64) and adults (N = 14) saw contrasting pairs of models differing either in physical strength or in accuracy (in labeling known objects). Participants then performed different tasks (cooperative problem solving and word learning) requiring the choice of a partner or informant. Both children and adults chose their cooperative partners selectively. Moreover they showed the same pattern of selective model choice, regarding a wide range of model characteristics as important for cooperation (preferring both the strong and the accurate model for a strength-requiring cooperation tasks), but only prior knowledge as important for word learning (preferring the knowledgeable but not the strong model for word learning tasks). Young children's selective model choice thus reveals an early rational competence: They infer characteristics from past behavior and flexibly consider what characteristics are relevant for certain tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonas Hermes
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Tanya Behne
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Kristin Studte
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Anna-Maria Zeyen
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Maria Gräfenhain
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Leipzig, Liebigstr. 20a, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany
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