Poster #5 - The Role of Motivation in Children’s Credulity Toward False Testimony

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Preschoolers are sometimes credulous toward an adult’s false testimony that contradicts their direct observations (Jaswal et al., 2010; Ma & Ganea, 2010). Several factors have been shown to influence the likelihood of children being credulous. One factor that has not been examined is motivation.

Motivation can enhance children’s task performance in various domains. For example, using incentives (e.g., tokens) can decrease children’s suggestibility to misleading questions and improve their recall accuracy by encouraging them to use more effective cognitive strategies (e.g., Nida, 2015; Roebers & Fernandez, 2002). It is conceivable that if presented with a negatively framed consequence, such as losing a highly desirable object, children might be motivated to pay attention to which source of information has provided accurate information and strategically decide whether to rely on their own observations or another person’s testimony in order to obtain the desirable object. The present study aimed to explore this possibility.

During the study, 3- and 4-year-old children (N = 53) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In both conditions, children observed an experimenter hide an object in one of three containers. Then, the experimenter provided false testimony about the location of the object, and children were asked to retrieve the object on their own. In the Motivation condition, an object that children previously rated as desirable was hidden (i.e., a gender-matched toy) and a negatively framed consequence was presented (“If you cannot find the toy, you won’t be able to take it home!”). In the Baseline condition, children did not rate any object and were not given a consequence. Whether or not children were credulous toward the false testimony (i.e., searched in the false location first) was noted.

A Chi-square test of independence revealed a significant main effect of age group, χ2 (1) = 4.98, p = .040, Cramer’s V = .31. Overall, 3-year-olds were more credulous toward the false testimony than 4-year-olds. Further analyses revealed a significant condition effect in the 3-year-olds, χ2 (1) = 5.28, p = .037, Cramer’s V = .479: significantly more 3-year-olds were credulous in the Baseline condition than in the Motivation condition. However, the effect of condition was not significant in the 4-year-olds, χ2 (1) = 1.16, p = .464 (see Figure 1). It should be noted that while not significant, 4-year-olds seemed to be more credulous in the Motivation condition than in the Baseline condition.

To summarize, the present data suggests that motivation can influence 3-year-olds’ credulity, in that they are less credulous toward an adult’s false testimony when there is a risk of losing a desirable object. Future work is needed to explore possible mechanisms (e.g., selective attention) underlying the effect of motivation on 3-year-olds as well as why a general negativity bias might explain 4-year-olds’ response patterns as observed in this study. Findings of this research will add to our understanding of the factors that contribute to children’s resistance to misinformation and may have real-world implications in contexts where children may serve as eyewitnesses.

Authors

• Adrianna Ruggiero, Ryerson University
  Presenting Author

• Konstantina Kiriazis, Ryerson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lili Ma, Ryerson University
  Non-Presenting Author