Great apes and human children rationally monitor their decisions

Disagreement reduces overconfidence and prompts exploration in young children

Can the experience of disagreement lead young children to reason in more sophisticated ways? Across two preregistered studies, four- to six-year-old US children (N = 136, 50% female, mixed ethnicities, data collected 2020-2022) experienced either a disagreement or an agreement with a confederate about a causal mechanism after being presented with ambiguous evidence. We measured (1) children's confidence in their belief before and after the (dis)agreement, and (2) how long children searched for information about the correct answer. Disagreement, especially with an expert (Experiment 2), reduced overconfidence and prompted children to search longer for information, compared to agreement. Together, our findings suggest possibilities for interventions aimed at fostering humility and learning across the lifespan.

Social cognition and metacognition in great apes: a theory

Twenty-five years ago, at the founding of this journal, there existed only a few conflicting findings about great apes' social-cognitive skills (theory of mind). In the 2 ½ decades since, we have discovered that great apes understand the goals, intentions, perceptions, and knowledge of others, and they use this knowledge to their advantage in competitive interactions. Twenty-five years ago there existed basically no studies on great apes' metacognitive skills. In the 2 ½ decades since, we have discovered that great apes monitor their uncertainty and base their decisions on that, or else decide to gather more information to make better decisions. The current paper reviews the past 25 years of research on great ape social cognition and metacognition and proposes a theory about how the two are evolutionarily related.