3-031 - Early explaining and arguing competence

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Several strands of research have studied young children’s skills of giving and evaluating reasons. Observational studies have shown that children as young as 2 years old can produce reasons, and that they might be able to evaluate others’ reasons. However, experimental evidence in this domain was scarce. This symposium’s papers represent the four core competences related to the social exchange of reasons: producing explanations, evaluating explanations, producing arguments, and evaluating arguments. They all describe experiments with 3- to 5-year-olds and demonstrate some competence in the younger age group. Paper 1 shows not only that preschoolers can produce cogent explanations for simple causal mechanisms, but that the production of these explanations significantly enhances their understanding. Paper 2 looks at the evaluation of explanations. While it had been previously demonstrated that 5-year-olds preferred non-circular over circular explanations, these new studies extend this result to 3-year-olds. Moreover, the children used the quality of the explanations to evaluate the speakers and their later testimony. Paper 3 shows that, in peer interactions, preschoolers take into account the common ground shared with peers in producing arguments to justify their joint decisions. Finally, Paper 4 evaluates the robustness of early argument evaluation skills, showing that children from a population from a traditional Mayan culture possess these skills. For younger children, however, conflicting cues to informant reliability can overcome argument strength. Together, the symposium highlights innovative approaches for exploring the impact of argumentation for young children’s cognitive development.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Kathleen H Corriveau, Boston University

• Hugo Mercier, Psychology

Individual Presentations

• The Unique and Selective Effects of Explanation on Learning in Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Cristine H. Legare, University of Texas at Austin

• High quality explanations matter when children are deciding from whom to learn - Presenting Author: Katelyn Kurkul, Boston University; Kathleen H Corriveau, Boston University

• Reasoning with peers for joint decisions - Presenting Author: Bahar Koymen, Max Planck Inst for Evol Anthropology; Maria Mammen, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Lena Rosenbaum, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute

• How children take arguments into account: the role of culture and conflicting cues - Presenting Author: Hugo Mercier, Psychology; Thomas Castelain, Universite de Neuchatel & CNRS; Stephane Bernard, Psychology/Cognitive Science