Children's understanding of when a person's confidence and hesitancy is a cue to their credibility

PLoS One. 2020 Jan 27;15(1):e0227026. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227026. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The most readily-observable and influential cue to one's credibility is their confidence. Although one's confidence correlates with knowledge, one should not always trust confident sources or disregard hesitant ones. Three experiments (N = 662; 3- to 12-year-olds) examined the developmental trajectory of children's understanding of 'calibration': whether a person's confidence or hesitancy correlates with their knowledge. Experiments 1 and 2 provide evidence that children use a person's history of calibration to guide their learning. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed a developmental progression in calibration understanding: Children preferred a well-calibrated over a miscalibrated confident person by around 4 years, whereas even 7- to 8-year-olds were insensitive to calibration in hesitant people. The widespread implications for social learning, impression formation, and social cognition are discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Child
  • Child Development
  • Child, Preschool
  • Comprehension*
  • Cues*
  • Humans
  • Knowledge
  • Learning
  • Self Concept*
  • Social Behavior
  • Trust / psychology*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca) to SB (Grant No. 435-2013-0445). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.