title: When being right is not enough: four-year-olds distinguish knowledgeable informants from merely accurate informants.
abstract: Recent evidence demonstrates that children are selective in their social learning, preferring to learn from a previously accurate speaker than from a previously inaccurate one. We examined whether children assessing speakers' reliability take into account how speakers achieved their prior accuracy. In Study 1, when faced with two accurate informants, 4- and 5-year-olds (but not 3-year-olds) were more likely to seek novel information from an informant who had previously given the answers unaided than from an informant who had always relied on help from a third party. Similarly, in Study 2, 4-year-olds were more likely to trust the testimony of an unaided informant over the testimony provided by an assisted informant. Our results indicate that when children reach around 4 years of age, their selective trust extends beyond simple generalizations based on informants' past accuracy to a more sophisticated selectivity that distinguishes between truly knowledgeable informants and merely accurate informants who may not be reliable in the long term.
authors: Oxford Brookes University, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP, United Kingdom. seinav@brookes.ac.uk
authors: Shiri
authors: S
authors: Einav
authors: Elizabeth J
authors: EJ
authors: Robinson
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology*