Strangers’ explicit belief statements do not influence children’s reality status judgments or beliefs about consensus

• In Event: The Power of Testimony and Culture in Children’s Developing Beliefs about the Invisible and Impossible

Abstract

Children learn about much of the world through others’ testimony. One type of testimony that children may be exposed to is explicit belief statements (e.g., “Evolution is real”). [citation blinded for review] investigated how such statements affect 4- to 7-year-olds’ beliefs, finding that hearing a parent explicitly confirm an entity’s existence prevented children from concluding later, upon hearing a stranger deny the entity’s existence, that there is societal consensus that the entity does not exist (See Figure 1). Only 4-year-olds were more likely to believe in an entity themselves after hearing a parent’s explicit belief statement. It is unclear whether these are unique effects of parents’ explicit belief statements, however, or whether they would generalize to any speaker.

Here, we followed procedures by [citation blinded for review] but replaced the parent with a stranger providing testimony. Ninety 4- to 7-year-olds saw videos of a speaker providing either Explicit (“Cusk is real”) or Implicit (“I know about cusk”) belief testimony about novel entities. Then, children heard another speaker provide either Denial (“Cusk isn’t real”) or Neutral (“I’ve heard of cusk”) testimony. Children made reality status judgments and consensus judgments (i.e., whether people agree about the entity's existence).

For reality status judgements, there were no significant interactions between first statement, second statement, and age (ps > .17) or main effects of first statement or second statement (ps > .20). For consensus judgments, there were no significant interactions between first statement, second statement, and age (ps > .46) or a main effect of second statement (p = .44). A main effect of first statement, X2(2) = 33.704, p <.001, indicated that hearing an Implicit statement resulted in children most often reporting no societal consensus about the entity’s existence, whereas hearing an Explicit statement resulted in children being more likely to report societal consensus that the entity exists (See Figure 2).

In contrast to when parents gave explicit belief statements, explicit belief statements given by strangers did not influence 4-year-olds’ reality status judgments. However, explicit belief statements did influence children’s consensus judgments, in a surprising way. Whereas parents’ explicit belief statements led children to believe that there was a lack of consensus about the entity’s existence, strangers’ explicit belief statements led children to believe that there was societal consensus that the entity existed. Perhaps, the salience of the contrast between a parent’s explicit belief statement and a stranger’s denial led children to recognize a conflict and report a lack of consensus. Conversely, when both speakers are strangers, children may be less likely to attend to the conflict and thus rely on the first speaker’s explicit belief statement to inform consensus judgments. Importantly, these findings together suggest that explicit belief statements from parents and strangers play unique roles in children’s understanding; explicit belief statements from parents help children recognize diversity of opinion, whereas explicit belief statements from strangers may lead children to endorse positive consensus, even in the face of later denial.

Authors

• Rebecca Dore, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Jenny Nissel, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jacqueline D Woolley, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• John G Hixon, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author