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. 2016 Apr:144:66-83.
doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.10.015. Epub 2015 Dec 17.

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

Simone P Nguyen  1 , Cameron L Gordon  2 , Tess Chevalier  2 , Helana Girgis  2
Affiliations

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

Simone P Nguyen et al. J Exp Child Psychol. 2016 Apr.

Abstract

The domain of food is one that is highly relevant and vital to the everyday lives of children. However, children's reasoning about this domain is poorly understood within the field of developmental psychology. Because children's learning about food, including its evaluative components (e.g., health, taste) is so heavily dependent on information conveyed by other people, a major developmental challenge that children face is determining who to distrust regarding food. In three studies, this investigation examined how 3- and 4-year-olds and adults (N=312) use different cues to determine when to ignore informant information (i.e., distrust what an informant tells them by choosing an alternative) in food- and non-food-specific scenarios. The results of Study 1 indicated that by age 4 years, children are less trusting of inaccurate sources of information compared with sources that have not demonstrated previous inaccuracy. Study 2 revealed that these results are applicable across the domain of objects. The results of Study 3 indicated that by age 4, children trust benevolent sources more often than malevolent ones. Thus, when reasoning about the evaluative components of food, by age 4, children appraise other people's untrustworthiness by paying attention to their inaccuracy and malevolence.

Keywords: Categories; Concepts; Evaluative categorization; Food; Trust in testimony.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Percentage of matching responses with sources in Study 1 by Age Group and Condition. Error bars represent standard error.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of matching responses with sources in Study 2 by Age Group and Condition. Error bars represent standard error.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Percentage of matching responses with sources in Study 3 by Age Group and Condition. Error bars represent standard error.
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