Poster #118 - Cultural Influence on Children’s Selective Trust: Comparison Between Korean and Canadian Children

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

Although children generally regard adults as more knowledgeable than other children, they reverse this pattern when an adult is inaccurate and their peer proves accurate (Jaswal & Neely, 2006). However, the way children weigh past accuracy and the age of informants in their selective trust might be influenced by cultural factors. In a recent study, Korean 5-year-olds tended to endorse the adult’s label of a novel object even when the adult informant was relatively less reliable than the peer informant (i.e., the adult showed 25% accuracy and the child showed 75% accuracy). Respect for the elders is valued in Korea, and young children are taught to use honorific forms of language to the elders during pre/school years. In the present study, we examined whether the Korean finding was attributable to cultural influence by comparing Canadian and Korean children’s selective trust. Experiment 1 examined how Canadian 5-year-olds use relative accuracy and the informants’ age. Experiment 2 examined how older Korean children’s performance would vary in response to the accuracy rate of the adult informant. In Experiment 1, 48 Canadian 5-year-olds were presented with slides showing four familiar objects and a novel object, together with an adult and a child informant. In the training phase, children watched as the child informant labeled three of the four objects correctly (75% accurate), while the adult informant accurately labeled only one object (25% accurate). In the testing phase, children were presented with conflicting labels for the novel object (e.g., dopa vs. modi) offered by each informant and were asked to endorse one of the two labels. In Experiment 2, 45 Korean 6-7-year-olds watched two sets of slides in which child informants were 75% correct but the accuracy of adult informants varied. The 75% vs. 25% condition was identical to Experiment 1. On the 75% versus 0% condition, however, the adult labeled all familiar objects inaccurately. The following testing phase in each condition was identical to Experiment 1. Each condition was conducted twice. Figure 1 shows the percentage of children who selected the novel label offered by the child informant across different age groups in each country. Canadian 5-year-olds endorsed the novel label offered by the peer significantly above chance (66.7%, p=.015). In contrast, Korean 6–7-year-olds’ performance did not differ from chance on the 75% vs. 25% condition (54.8%, p=.322), suggesting that children didn’t disregard the relatively inaccurate adult. When the relative accuracy was more extreme (75% vs. 0%), however, these children endorsed the child informant’s label significantly above chance (69.8%, p=.007). These findings indicate that, unlike Korean children, Canadian 5-year-olds place more value on the informant’s past accuracy than age in which an adult informant is relatively less accurate than a child informant. However, the selective trust of Korean 6-7-year-olds appeared to be influenced by the adult informant unless the adult was always inaccurate. The differences found here support the idea that cultural differences may play a role in shaping the child’s early selective trust.

Authors

• Jisoo Oh, Chung-Ang University
  Presenting Author

• Narae Ju, University of Calgary (U of C)

• Patrick Mihalicz, University of Calgary

• Tyler Birse, University of Calgary

• Susan A Graham, University of Calgary (U of C)

• Youngon Choi, Chung-Ang University