Poster #197 - Investigating the Relationship Between Children’s Social Preferences and Expectations About Other’s Empirical Practice

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

In today’s world, individuals are increasingly faced with the task of evaluating the truth-value of empirical claims (i.e., objectively accessible information obtained through direct observation or experimentation) without an ability to verify their informational content nor an opportunity to assess the validity of the process by which that knowledge was acquired. In such cases, expectations of one’s standard of empirical practice can influence the perceived trustworthiness of an informant as a reliable source of information.

Previous research suggests an early understanding that there are particular conditions (i.e., situational circumstances) and processes (i.e., empirical practices) which lead to unearthing reliable information (e.g., Brosseau-Liard and Birch, 2011; Nurmsoo & Robinson, 2009). More recent findings further indicate that by age 4, children form value-laden judgments as to the acceptability of an empirical claim (Butler, Schmidt, Tavassolie, & Gibbs, 2018) and one’s general trustworthiness (Butler, Gibbs, & Tavassolie, in press) based on the observed empirical practices of the informant. Yet, without an opportunity to evaluate the process by which a claim is substantiated, the listener may utilize the identity of the informant themselves to determine their reliability as a source. Indeed, in the absence of other information, young children demonstrate a tendency to privilege information from in-group members (e.g., Buttelmann, Zmyj, Daum, & Carpenter, 2013; Elashi & Mills, 2014) and those perceived as similar to themselves (Reyes-Jaquez & Echols, 2013).

The current investigation examines whether 4- to 7-year old children (N=96) extend expectations of others’ standard of empirical practice differentially based on their own social affiliations. Following random assignment to one of two color groups, using three explicit measures, we tested whether children’s preference for minimal ingroup members, when making social judgments, informs their attributions of verification behaviors. Replicating previous findings (e.g., Richter, Over, & Dunham, 2016), children demonstrated a significant preference for and perceived similarity to ingroup over outgroup members, t(95) = 4.72, p < 0.001, d = 0.48; t(95) = 2.79, p < 0.001, d = 0.51, respectively. Nevertheless, children’s attributions of verification behaviors to ingroup members, and lack thereof to outgroup members, were at chance, t(95) = 0.12, p = 0.91, d = 0.01; that is, children were just as likely to ascribe verified and unverified claims to ingroup members as they were to outgroup members.

Overall, this experiment demonstrates that children’s social preferences do not necessarily inform their attributions of reliable practices. This finding stands despite children’s understanding of specific processes as prerequisite for stated empirical claims to be true. In a world inundated with information, socially-biased assumptions of others’ standard of empirical practice must not guide to whom we ascribe epistemic trust. Rather, and precisely in line with the results of this experiment, children and adults alike ought to regard group membership as irrelevant to an informant’s reliability as a source of empirical knowledge.

Authors

• Karen Carmel Levush, University of Maryland, College Park
  Presenting Author

• Jason Solinsky, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lucas Payne Butler, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author