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Article
Preschoolers’ theory of mind knowledge influences whom they trust about others’ theories of mind
Journal of Cogn (2015)
  • Jennifer Van Reet
  • Kathryn F Green
  • David M Sobel
Abstract
Two experiments examined whether particular aspects of social-cognitive knowledge predicted how preschoolers would treat informants who displayed a more or less developed understanding of that knowledge. In Experiment 1, children's own success on false-belief measures correlated with the extent to which they endorsed information generated by a confederate with a more developed sense of false belief over a confederate with a less developed sense of false belief. In Experiment 2, preschoolers were assessed for whether they possessed a more action-based or mental state-based understanding of pretense. They were then presented with informants who displayed each kind of knowledge. Children's own knowledge again correlated with which informant they believed was a reliable source of knowledge about novel pretend actions. These results not only extend findings in the "trust in testimony" literature beyond word learning, but also potentially reveal another mechanism by which children learn from others--they might trust others' information about a specific piece of knowledge based on examination of their own knowledge of that domain.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2015
DOI
doi:10.1080/15248372.2014.892875
Citation Information
Jennifer Van Reet, Kathryn F Green and David M Sobel. "Preschoolers’ theory of mind knowledge influences whom they trust about others’ theories of mind" Journal of Cogn Vol. 16 Iss. 3 (2015) p. 471 - 491 ISSN: 1524-8372
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jennifer-vanreet/6/