Mou Shu, Mu Xiu, Wu Nan, Wang Yifang
Department of Psychology, Teachers' College of Beijing Union University, Beijing, China.
Psychology Department, City University of Macau, Macao, Macao SAR, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Jul 7;16:1539242. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1539242. eCollection 2025.
Promoting young children's selective trust ability and interpersonal safety knowledge is the goal of many child educational administrations and maltreatment prevention programs, but questions remain about the factors that influence the development and effectiveness of these skills. The goal of this study was to explore the impact of information accuracy on selective trust in children aged 3-6 years as well as the roles of informant gender and safety knowledge. Using a real-world contextual experimental paradigm, we conducted two experiments using a 2 (age group: 3-4 years vs. 5-6 years) × 2 (information accuracy: accurate vs. inaccurate) between-subjects design to examine whether children would follow a female/male stranger when confronted with accurate/inaccurate information and to measure the length of time the children hesitated when making the decision to leave. The role of safety knowledge in the decision process was also tested by questionnaire. We found that: (1) information accuracy significantly influenced selective trust among 5-6-year-olds; (2) regardless of whether the information was accurate or not, children aged 5-6 years hesitated longer than children aged 3-4 years in choosing to leave; (3) more 3-6-year-olds chose to trust a female stranger than a male stranger; and (4) 5-6 year-old children's safety knowledge about prevention of abduction has a protective role in selective trust.
提升幼儿的选择性信任能力和人际安全知识是许多儿童教育管理部门和虐待预防项目的目标，但对于影响这些技能发展和效果的因素仍存在疑问。本研究的目的是探讨信息准确性对3至6岁儿童选择性信任的影响，以及信息提供者性别和安全知识的作用。我们采用现实情境实验范式，进行了两项实验，采用2（年龄组：3至4岁与5至6岁）×2（信息准确性：准确与不准确）组间设计，以检验儿童在面对准确/不准确信息时是否会跟随女性/男性陌生人，并测量儿童在做出离开决定时犹豫的时间长度。还通过问卷测试了安全知识在决策过程中的作用。我们发现：（1）信息准确性显著影响5至6岁儿童的选择性信任；（2）无论信息是否准确，5至6岁儿童在选择离开时比3至4岁儿童犹豫的时间更长；（3）更多3至6岁儿童选择信任女性陌生人而非男性陌生人；（4）5至6岁儿童关于预防诱拐的安全知识在选择性信任中具有保护作用。
