Poster #80 - Evaluating the role of temperament in preschoolers' selective trust

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

Past research has established that differences in children’s socio-cognitive skills (e.g, theory of mind, inhibitory control) impact their selective trust (DiYanni et al., 2012, Lucas et al., 2013), yet very little research has explored individual differences beyond socio-cognitive skills (Palmquist et al., 2022). It is possible that other individual differences, such as temperament, may affect how and when children establish epistemic trust. For example, one study examining this relationship found that toddlers whose parents reported them as having higher affect/extraversion were more likely to seek information from a previously accurate informant, than they were a previously inaccurate one (Canfield, Saudino & Ganea, 2014). However, it is unclear whether temperament would play a similar role in older children’s selective trust. One possibility is that temperamental differences continue to affect how preschool-aged children engage in social information processing, therefore influencing their trust. Another possibility is that with increased knowledge of epistemic states and how they influence reliability (Koenig & Harris, 2005), differences in preschoolers’ temperaments become less important in predicting how and when they establish epistemic trust.
Therefore, the aim of our current, in-progress study (N =13) is to explore the role of temperament in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds’ selective trust. Children first complete The Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (TAB) which consists of 14 behavioral tasks evaluating seven dimensions of temperament (Goldsmith, et al., 1999). They also complete a standard selective trust paradigm in which they are introduced to one informant who always correctly states the function of a familiar object and one informant who always incorrectly states the function of a familiar object. After this induction, children’s trust in these informants is assessed using three “ask” trials in which they can ask one of the two informants for information about a novel object, and one “endorse” trial in which they have the opportunity to pass along information from either of the informants to someone else. Caregivers also completed the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006) as an additional measure of children’s temperament.
Preliminary analyses revealed that age is positively correlated with selective trust (e.g., Canfield, Saudino & Ganea, 2014). Specifically, older children were more likely to trust the previously accurate informant on the first ask trial, r(75) = .31, p =.006, and on the endorse trial, r(75)= .458, p <.001. Extending Canfield and Ganea (2015), exuberance as measured by our behavioral measure, the TAB, was also positively correlated with children’s willingness to endorse the previously accurate informant’s information, r (13) = .57, p= .042. Therefore, it may be that temperament continues to predict preschoolers’ epistemic trust, or it may be that exuberant children are simply more likely to pass along information of any kind as compared to less exuberant children.
Additional data collection and analysis will allow us to further explore the relationship between temperament and children’s trust. Repeated measures binary logistic regressions and correlations will be used to explore these relationships. We expect to find that older children’s trust will be less influenced by temperamental differences than younger children’s trust.

Authors

• Megan Taketa, Amherst College
  Presenting Author

• Cayla Weiss, Amherst College

• Carolyn M Palmquist, Amherst College