Poster #201 - Trait or Testimony? Children’s Trust in Informants’ Evaluative Judgments

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

Beginning in early childhood, children show a positivity bias in information processing that is characterized by a tendency to judge others favorably even when such judgments are unsubstantiated (e.g., Stipek & Daniels, 1990). In the domain of selective social learning, this bias is reflected in children’s preference to learn from informants who are nice (over those who are mean; e.g., Lane, Wellman, & Gelman, 2013) irrespective of whether their information is valid. Children also trust informants who provide positive evaluative content in their speech (over negative content; Boseovski, 2012). This study examined whether 4- to 8-year-old children value positive informant traits (i.e., a nice informant) over positive informant speech (i.e., a favorable evaluation) in the context of subjective judgments.
In the main condition of interest, 123 children were told about an informant who was nice and provided negative testimony about a peer’s painting (i.e., stated that it was bad) and an informant who was mean and provided positive testimony (i.e., stated that it was good). Children’s endorsements (i.e., who they believed was right about the painting) and affiliation preferences (i.e., who they preferred to befriend) were assessed.
Preference of the mean informant who provided positive testimony was assigned a score of 0 and preference for the nice informant who provided negative testimony was assigned a score of 1. Logistic regressions of the contribution of age in months (standardized) were conducted separately on endorsement and affiliation. The model for endorsement was significant, χ2(1, N = 123) = 13.77, p < .001, Nagelkerke R2 = .17. Older children were more likely to endorse the mean informant who provided positive testimony than younger children, (ß = -1.02, Wald = 11.35, p = .001). Two-tailed t-tests against chance revealed that children endorsed the mean informant who provided positive testimony more often than expected by chance, t(122) = -7.81, p < .001. Age differences were also examined categorically; all age groups systematically endorsed the mean informant who provided positive testimony with the exception of 4-year-olds, t(23) = -.40, p = .692 (see Table 1).
The model for affiliation was not significant, χ2(1, N = 121) = .06, p = .808, Nagelkerke R2 = .00, and there was no significant effect of age (ß = .05, Wald = .06, p = .808). Children systematically preferred to affiliate with the nice informant who provided negative feedback, t(120) = 2.51, p = .013.
These results show that with age, children prioritize positive content over positive traits in endorsement. This may be due to age differences in socialization practices that discourage negative evaluative feedback. Conversely, the preference for positive trait information for affiliation suggests that children are sensitive to stable positive attributes for friendship decisions. This study extends research on children’s epistemic vigilance by clarifying that positive traits and positive speech are both salient, but have differential impact, on children’s social learning.

Authors

• Rachel Croce, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Janet J Boseovski, University of North Carolina - Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author