Children discount negative information about enemies

• In Event: 1-035 - Friends and enemies: Children’s developing understanding of how relationships inform behavior, inferences and expectations.

Integrative Statement

Because humans learn via testimony, choosing trustworthy sources is critical. Children endorse accurate individuals (Koenig & Harris, 2005) and experts (Danovitch & Keil, 2004), suggesting they use a person’s previous knowledge when deciding whom to trust. However, information about a source’s expertise may not be readily available. In these cases, children use social information: they endorse ingroup members (Kinzler et al., 2011), and prosocial individuals people (Landrum et al., 2013). Children may also understand that a source’s own social relationships can bias his judgments. When asked about a judge’s accuracy, by 8-year-olds (and through adulthood), children endorse judges that rule against friends and for enemies (Mills & Grant, 2009). Here, we build on this research suggesting that children expect people to be partial towards friends and against enemies. Specifically, we investigate younger children’s developing skepticism based on social ties and look for boundary conditions on this effect.
In both studies, children (ages 3 to 12, N=383) were presented with two characters, labeled as friends or enemies (randomly assigned). Children were asked whether the characters would say nice or mean things about each other. The vast majority of children reported that friends would say nice things, and enemies would say mean things. Children who answered this question incorrectly (n=44) were excluded from subsequent analyses.
In the first study, children were told that one character said that the second character was bad at soccer, and were asked to rate the second character’s soccer ability on a scale from really bad (1) to really good (6). They rated the character as better at soccer when he had been presented as an enemy (M=5.2) rather than a friend (M=3.9), suggesting they distrusted negative information about an enemy.
In a second study, children were assigned to four conditions that varied the characters’ relationship (friends vs. enemies) and when a race was (past: the race happened last week vs. future: the race was happening next week). A first character said the second was “really slow” in the race. Children were shown a finish line and eight stick figures placing from first to last, and were asked to point to the stick figure that represented the second character. Results of the future condition replicated Study 2: children rated the enemy as placing better in the race (M=3.7 of 8) than the friend (M=4.7 of 8), suggesting they discounted the negative information about the enemy. However, children in the past conditions rated the friend and the enemy as equally slow (Men=5.6; Mfr=5.9). Thus, when the characters appeared to be reporting on an event that already happened, children were equally likely to trust negative information about friends and enemies.
Across both experiments, children were discounted negative information about enemies compared to friends. Interestingly, this effect persisted across the entire age range, suggesting attention to social relationships biasing accuracy develops early in ontogeny. However, when the negative information was likely objective (reporting on a past event), children did not discount negative information about enemies, suggesting an important boundary condition.

Authors

• Zoe Liberman, University of California Santa Barbara
  Presenting Author

• Alex Shaw, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author