Brosseau-Liard Patricia, Cassels Tracy, Birch Susan
Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
PLoS One. 2014 Sep 25;9(9):e108308. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108308. eCollection 2014.
The present study tested how preschoolers weigh two important cues to a person's credibility, namely prior accuracy and confidence, when deciding what to learn and believe. Four- and 5-year-olds (N=96) preferred to believe information provided by a confident rather than hesitant individual; however, when confidence conflicted with accuracy, preschoolers increasingly favored information from the previously accurate but hesitant individual as they aged. These findings reveal an important developmental progression in how children use others' confidence and prior accuracy to shape what they learn and provide a window into children's developing social cognition, scepticism, and critical thinking.
本研究测试了学龄前儿童在决定学习什么和相信什么时，如何权衡一个人可信度的两个重要线索，即先前的准确性和自信程度。4岁和5岁的儿童（N = 96）更喜欢相信自信而非犹豫的人提供的信息；然而，当自信与准确性相冲突时，随着年龄的增长，学龄前儿童越来越倾向于相信之前准确但犹豫的人的信息。这些发现揭示了儿童如何利用他人的自信和先前的准确性来塑造他们所学内容方面的一个重要发展进程，并为儿童发展中的社会认知、怀疑主义和批判性思维提供了一个窗口。
