Children teach methods they could not discover for themselves

Abstract

Across three studies (N=100), we explored whether and, if so, under what circumstances children's self-discovered knowledge impacts their transmission of taught information. All participants were taught one of several methods for extracting rewards from a box. Half of the participants were also given an opportunity to discover their own method prior to receiving such instruction. Across studies, we varied the transparency of the taught method relative to the method children could discover on their own. When asked to teach a naive pupil about the box, children who did not explore the box always transmitted what they were taught. Children in the Exploration+Instruction condition were also likely to transmit what they had been taught, but they were especially likely to do so when the taught method was more opaque than the method they had discovered for themselves. Thus, children faithfully transmit what they have been taught, but only when that information is difficult to discover.

Keywords: Cumulative culture; Preschoolers; Prior experience; Social cognition; Teaching; Transmission biases.