Knowing when to doubt: developing a critical stance when learning from others.
01 Mar 2013-Developmental Psychology (American Psychological Association)-Vol. 49, Iss: 3, pp 404-418
TL;DR: The current article examines this issue, focusing on understanding developmental changes and consistencies in children's ability to take a critical stance toward information, and proposes a framework to evaluate preexisting research and encourage further research.
Abstract: Children may be biased toward accepting information as true, but the fact remains that children are exposed to misinformation from many sources, and mastering the intricacies of doubt is necessary. The current article examines this issue, focusing on understanding developmental changes and consistencies in children's ability to take a critical stance toward information. Research reviewed includes studies of children's ability to detect ignorance, inaccuracy, incompetence, deception, and distortion. Particular emphasis is placed on what this research indicates about how children are reasoning about when to trust and when to doubt. The remainder of the article proposes a framework to evaluate preexisting research and encourage further research, closing with a discussion of several other overarching questions that should be considered to develop a model to explain developmental, individual, and situational differences in children's ability to evaluate information.
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TL;DR: As they age, children's reasoning about testimony increasingly reflects an ability not just to detect imperfect or inaccurate claims but also to assess what inferences may or may not be drawn about informants given their particular situation.
Abstract: Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they age, children's reasoning about testimony increasingly reflects an ability not just to detect imperfect or inaccurate claims but also to assess what inferences may or may not be drawn about informants given their particular situation. Children also attend to the broader characteristics of particular informants-their group membership, personality characteristics, and agreement or disagreement with other potential informants. When presented with unexpected or counterintuitive testimony, children are prone to set aside their own prior convictions, but they may sometimes defer to informants for inherently social reasons.
175 citations
TL;DR: This framework emphasizes that children are active in selecting evidence (both social and experiential), rather than being passive recipients of knowledge, and motivates further studies that more systematically examine the process of learning from social information.
Abstract: Children's causal learning has been characterized as a rational process, in which children appropriately evaluate evidence from their observations and actions in light of their existing conceptual knowledge. We propose a similar framework for children's selective social learning, concentrating on information learned from others' testimony. We examine how children use their existing conceptual knowledge of the physical and social world to determine the reliability of testimony. We describe existing studies that offer both direct and indirect support for selective trust as rational inference and discuss how this framework may resolve some of the conflicting evidence surrounding cases of indiscriminate trust. Importantly, this framework emphasizes that children are active in selecting evidence (both social and experiential), rather than being passive recipients of knowledge, and motivates further studies that more systematically examine the process of learning from social information.
168 citations
TL;DR: The implications of general intelligence in nonhuman animals for current theories about its evolution are evaluated and support is found for the cultural intelligence approach, which stresses the critical importance of social inputs during the ontogenetic construction of survival-relevant skills.
Abstract: The presence of general intelligence poses a major evolutionary puzzle, which has led to increased interest in its presence in nonhuman animals. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate this question and to explore the implications for current theories about the evolution of cognition. We first review domain-general and domain-specific accounts of human cognition in order to situate attempts to identify general intelligence in nonhuman animals. Recent studies are consistent with the presence of general intelligence in mammals (rodents and primates). However, the interpretation of a psychometric g factor as general intelligence needs to be validated, in particular in primates, and we propose a range of such tests. We then evaluate the implications of general intelligence in nonhuman animals for current theories about its evolution and find support for the cultural intelligence approach, which stresses the critical importance of social inputs during the ontogenetic construction of survival-relevant skills. The presence of general intelligence in nonhumans implies that modular abilities can arise in two ways, primarily through automatic development with fixed content and secondarily through learning and automatization with more variable content. The currently best-supported model, for humans and nonhuman vertebrates alike, thus construes the mind as a mix of skills based on primary and secondary modules. The relative importance of these two components is expected to vary widely among species, and we formulate tests to quantify their strength.
152 citations
TL;DR: Together, these experiments demonstrate that niceness/meanness information can powerfully influence how children evaluate informants.
Abstract: How do children use informant niceness, meanness, and expertise when choosing between informant claims and crediting informants with knowledge? In Experiment 1, preschoolers met two experts providing conflicting claims for which only one had relevant expertise. Five-year-olds endorsed the relevant expert's claim and credited him with knowledge more often than 3-year-olds. In Experiment 2, niceness/meanness information was added. Although children most strongly preferred the nice relevant expert, the children often chose the nice irrelevant expert when the relevant one was mean. In Experiment 3, a mean expert was paired with a nice non-expert. Although this nice informant had no expertise, preschoolers continued to endorse his claims and credit him with knowledge. Also noteworthy, children in all three experiments seemed to struggle more to choose the relevant expert's claim than to credit him with knowledge. Together, these experiments demonstrate that niceness/meanness information can powerfully influence how children evaluate informants.
147 citations
Cites background from "Knowing when to doubt: developing a..."
...…to trust testimony (e.g. Harris, 2002; Jaswal, Croft, Setia & Cole, 2010), and although this bias often is useful (e.g. language acquisition; Burge, 1993), it can be problematic: not all informants provide accurate information (e.g. Mills, 2012), and different informants’ claims may conflict....
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...In contrast, when accuracy is crossed with group membership, 3- to 7-year-olds are unable to endorse the accurate out-group member over the inaccurate group member (Elashi & Mills, 2012)....
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TL;DR: Trust is a key aspect of various social interactions as mentioned in this paper. Correspondingly, trust has been heavily studied across different scientific disciplines. However, an integration of the diverse research and li...
Abstract: Trust is a key aspect of various social interactions. Correspondingly, trust has been heavily studied across different scientific disciplines. However, an integration of the diverse research and li...
137 citations
Cites background from "Knowing when to doubt: developing a..."
...Concerning the accuracy of trustworthiness judgments, it appears that even children are somehow able to distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy trustees based on different trust cues (see Mills, 2013, for a recent review)....
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References
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TL;DR: For instance, Grice was interested in Quine's logical approach to language, although he differed from Quine over certain specific specific questions, such as the viability of the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements.
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24 Nov 2011TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the ELM and seine Basiskonzepte theoretisch definiert und durch eine Vielzahl empirischer Studien untermauert.
Abstract: Das Elaboration Likelihood Modell (ELM) wurde in den 1980er Jahren von den Sozialpsychologen Richard E. Petty und John T. Cacioppo mit dem Ziel entwickelt, die prozesshafte Verarbeitung persuasiver Botschaften zu erklaren und Einstellungsveranderungen in Abhangigkeit von der Rezeptionssituation, den Eigenschaften einer persuasiven Botschaft und individuellen Voraussetzungen des Rezipienten vorherzusagen. Die zentrale Veroffentlichung dieser Persuasionstheorie ist das 1986 erschienene Buch Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. In diesem Schlusselwerk der Medienwirkungsforschung werden das ELM und seine Basiskonzepte theoretisch definiert und durch eine Vielzahl empirischer Studien untermauert. Daruber hinaus diskutieren die Autoren methodische Schwierigkeiten bei der Uberprufung ihrer Annahmen sowie Konsequenzen der verschiedenen Elaborationsrouten. Communication and persuasion bietet damit einen detaillierten Uberblick zu einem der wichtigsten Zwei-Prozess-Modelle der persuasiven Kommunikationsforschung.
5,967 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena, such as bad emotions, bad parents, bad feedback, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good.
Abstract: The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and salience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena.
5,340 citations
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: This paper found that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena, such as bad emotions, bad parents, bad feedback, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good.
Abstract: The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and salience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena.
4,933 citations