How Informant Reality Status Influences Children’s Belief in Extraordinary Events

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Technology, Media & Child Development

Abstract

When watching children’s media, children can hear about ordinary events that regularly happen in reality, impossible events that cannot happen in reality, and improbable events that happen in reality but do not occur often. Between ages 4 and 8, children become better able to recognize that improbable events can occur in reality while impossible ones cannot (e.g., Shtulman & Carey, 2007). However, hearing about extraordinary events from fictional entities (e.g., popular characters from children’s media) may make it more difficult for younger children to determine whether the events could occur in reality (e.g., Li, Boguszewski, & Lillard, 2015). Children also show greater trust in familiar characters than unfamiliar characters or people (Danovitch & Mills, 2014; Williams & Danovitch, 2019). Therefore, children might view events presented by a familiar character as more likely to occur in reality than events presented by an unfamiliar informant.

Study 1 examined how an informant’s reality status and familiarity influence children’s belief in statements about improbable and impossible events. Children ages 4, 6, and 8 (N=216) heard 4 impossible and 4 improbable statements from an unfamiliar person, a familiar character (Mickey Mouse), or an unfamiliar character (cartoon mouse) and judged whether each statement could happen in real life and how confident they were about their judgments. Children’s responses were scored as 0 (very sure event could not happen) to 3 (very sure event could happen). As in previous work, older children were more likely to believe improbable events could occur than younger children. However, for both types of statements, children’s judgements about the possibility of the events were similar regardless of which informant said them, F(2, 208) = .079, p = .924 (see Figure 1). Thus, informant reality status and familiarity did not affect children’s judgements.

Study 2 further investigates children’s judgments when the informants differ by reality status only. Participants include children ages 4 (n=48), 6 (n=32), and 8 (n=33). (Due to COVID19 disruption, data collection is ongoing with a target N of 48 per age group.) Participants hear the same 4 impossible and 4 improbable statements from Study 1 presented by a person identified as either real or pretend. Preliminary results support the results of Study 1: for both types of statements, children’s judgements about the possibility of the events were similar regardless of whether they heard them from a real or pretend person, F(1, 107) = .037, p = .847 (see Figure 2).

These results suggest that when children hear extraordinary statements by informants who vary by reality status and familiarity, they focus more on the content of the statements than to who is saying them. Factors such as children’s age and the probability of events may also influence children’s judgements more than the reality status of the informant. Thus, when children encounter fictional characters in the media, parents and educators should potentially be more concerned with the content being discussed than the reality status of the information source.

Authors

• Allison June Williams, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Judith H Danovitch, University of Louisville
  Non-Presenting Author