Evaluating and Approaching a Strange Animal: Children's Trust in Informant Testimony

Abstract

This study examined 3- to 7-year-old children's reliance on informant testimony to learn about a novel animal. Sixty participants were given positive or negative information about an Australian marsupial from an informant described as a maternal figure or a zookeeper. Children were asked which informant was correct and were invited to touch the animal, which was a stuffed toy hidden in a crate. Overall, younger children endorsed the zookeeper's testimony about the animal, but touched the animal more readily when the maternal figure provided positive information. Older children endorsed the informant who provided positive information, but showed some sensitivity to zookeeper expertise. Age differences were obtained in the association between participant characteristics and informant selection and animal approach behavior.

Developing expectations regarding the boundaries of expertise

“…Therefore, one would need to choose between a few, more accessible options such as their veterinarian or a more local pet trainer. Furthermore, one's choice between their veterinarian and a local pet trainer may still be influenced by factors other than who has the most relevant expertise, such as location, cost, emotional valence (e.g., Boseovski & Thurman, 2013), and person-specific characteristics (e.g., who is nicer, more honest; e.g., Landrum et al, 2013;Lane, Wellman, & Gelman, 2013). Thus, there are many factors that influence how much knowledge someone is perceived as having.…”

Development of the selection of trusted informants in the domain of illness

“…Four‐ and five‐year‐old children, and to a lesser extent 3‐year‐old children, expect that a mechanic knows different things than a doctor (Lutz & Keil, ). When learning about a novel animal, 3‐ to 7‐year‐old children preferred information provided by zookeepers to the testimony of maternal figures (Boseovski & Thurman, ). As suggested in these studies, preschoolers start to think about how knowledge clusters together, and this ability develops during the elementary school years.…”

Trust and doubt: An examination of children’s decision to believe what they are told about food

“…An important contribution that the present results makes to the trust in testimony literature is that it extends this body of research to a new domain: food, specifically healthy/unhealthy and yummy/yucky foods. This is one of the few studies along with others (e.g., Boseovski & Thurman, 2014; Jaswal, 2010; Liu et al, 2013) that have examined a domain other than objects or object names. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study that has examined the domain of food exclusively and extensively, supplementing past work that has mixed together a few trials of food stimuli with a variety of other stimuli (animals, plants, activities) without an opportunity to separate the food data for analysis (Danovitch & Mills, 2014).…”

“…However, most research has focused on domains like object names, in which knowledge is often a matter of convention (Jaswal, 2010). Recent exceptions include studies that have focused on children's reliance on informant testimony within the domains of biology (e.g., Australian marsupial, Boseovski & Thurman, 2014; body parts, Luu, de Rosnay, & Harris, 2013) and the physical world (e.g., location of a ball, Jaswal, 2010). …”