Psychological Development and Education ›› 2019, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (3): 257-266.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2019.03.01

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Children's Selective Trust: The Role of Informant's Previous Accuracy

TONG Yu1, WANG Fuxing1, LI Hui2   

  1. 1. School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079;
    2. School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079
  • Published:2019-06-19

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Abstract: As a social learner, even 3-year-old children can evaluate the credibility of informants with a variety of attributes. However, previous studies showed inconsistent results about the role of informant's previous accuracy on children's selective trust. In this article, we reviewed studies which children select and assess information based on informants' previous accuracy with "familiarization-test" paradigms. It was found children believed that previous accurate informant were more trustworthy than previous inaccurate one. When making trust choices, children mainly monitored informant's inaccuracy, and apply "global impression" and "trait reasoning" these two cognitive strategies flexibly to predict informant's future behavior. Moreover, children could make a dynamically adjustment according to the different situations and backgrounds. In the meanwhile, children's personal experience and the level of their cognitive development (i.e., theory of mind and executive function) limited their trust preference choices. Future studies might improve the research paradigm, extend the way of presentation, focus on the multiple characteristics and different ontological categories of informants.

Key words: children, selective trust, informant, previous accuracy

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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