On the malleability of selective trust.
J Exp Child Psychol
; 183: 65-74, 2019 07.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30856418
ABSTRACT
Although much research has explored the cues that young children use to determine informant credibility, little research has examined whether credibility judgments can change over time as a function of children's language environment. This study explored whether changes in the syntactic complexity of adults' testimony shifts 4- and 5-year-old children's (Nâ¯=â¯42) credibility and learning judgments. Children from lower-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds were randomly assigned to hear a high proportion of complex language (the passive voice) or simpler language (the active voice) during 10â¯days of book-reading interactions with adult experimenters. Before and after the book-reading sessions, children's learning preferences for informants who used passive versus active voice were measured. Exposure to the complex passive voice led children to use syntactic complexity as a cue to make inferences about who to learn from, whereas active voice exposure resulted in no such shift. Implications for the role of the language environment in children's selective trust are discussed.
Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Social Environment
/
Child Language
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Cues
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Trust
/
Judgment
Type of study:
Clinical_trials
Limits:
Child, preschool
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Female
/
Humans
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Male
Language:
En
Year:
2019
Type:
Article