Poster #40 - “She’s the Germ Person” Children Trust Food Safety Experts When They Cannot Rely on Themselves

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Research examining children’s assessment of adult testimony indicates that children selectively trust previously accurate informants, but also attend to informants’ expertise and familiarity. Here, we expand this work to include testimony about food safety. Knowing whether something is safe to consume (contamination sensitivity) develops between ages 3-8, though we know little about how children learn this information from others. Sociocultural theory suggests children learn from various people, including siblings. Because food safety information can come from many social partners (parents, siblings, medical experts), we tested trust in different informants potentially present in children’s environments. In addition, because contamination sensitivity develops at a young age, we assessed how children’s own knowledge impacts their trust in food safety information from others.

Participants (ages 5-6, n = 100; 7-8, n = 128; and adult, n = 128) viewed videos showing female informant pairs. Three conditions involved mom/child pairs, where one was described as an expert (had a class on “germs/what makes people sick”): the mom (mom-expert), child (child-expert), or neither (neutral). The last condition included a mom paired with a nurse “who knows a lot about germs/what makes people sick.” In each of four clips, participants saw a covered bowl, learned it contained a food they liked, and watched a confederate drop in a contaminant that was either visible (leaf/grass/paperclip/coin; Study 1) or not (blurred out in the video; Study 2). Informants entered, but before providing conflicting claims about the food’s safety, participants decided whom to ask for help (ask question). Participants watched informants examine the contents and make opposing claims. Participants then decided if the food was okay to eat (endorse question), suggesting they endorsed one informant’s testimony. Afterwards, to examine how prior contamination knowledge impacted responses, we measured participants’ contamination sensitivity for various items, including all visible contaminants from Study 1.

We first determined whether preferences for experts were at above chance levels. Across studies, adults showed expected responses. In most cases, they wanted to ask and endorsed testimony from all experts, except the child (ps < .05). For visible contaminants, children (older more than younger) preferred to ask experts for assistance but did not endorse their testimony. These responses, particularly from 7-8-year-olds, were surprising until we re-examined results in terms of prior knowledge. Here, we found children’s endorsements matched their own beliefs about visible contaminants not experts’ testimony. Study 2 confirmed that, by age 7 or 8, children consistently demonstrate trust for experts by both asking their advice and endorsing their testimony. Expert preferences above chance are marked in Figures 1 and 2. We also compared results across studies using three-way ANOVAs (study/age-group/condition). For ask, age was not significant and did not interact with other variables, though study and condition showed an interaction (Figure 1). For endorse, there was a three-way interaction (Figure 2). Overall, results indicate children’s prior contamination knowledge overrides their trust in experts when they have access to relevant information; however, when necessary, they are increasingly able to rely on expert testimony in the food safety domain.

Authors

• Marianne Taylor, Pacific Lutheran University
  Presenting Author

• Heidi McLaughlin, Pacific Lutheran University
  Non-Presenting Author