When is it appropriate to ask a question? The role of age, social context, and personality.

How do children decide when it is appropriate to ask a question? In Study 1 (preregistered), 50 4- and 5-year-olds, 50 7- and 8-year-olds, and 100 adults watched vignettes featuring a child who had a question, and participants indicated whether they thought the child should ask the question "right now." Both adults and children endorsed more question-asking to a well-known informant than to an acquaintance and to someone doing nothing than to someone busy working or busy socializing. However, younger children endorsed asking questions to someone who was busy more often than older children and adults. In addition, Big Five personality traits predicted endorsement of question-asking. In Study 2 (preregistered, N = 500), mothers' self-reports showed that children's actual question-asking varied with age, informant activity, and informant familiarity in ways that paralleled the results of Study 1. In Study 3 (N = 100), we examined mothers' responses to their children's question-asking and found that mothers' responses to their children's question-asking varied based on the mother's activity. In addition, mothers high in authoritarianism were less likely to answer their children's questions when they were busy than mothers low in authoritarianism. In sum, across three studies, we found evidence that the age-related decline in children's question-asking to their parents reflects a change in children's reasoning about when it is appropriate to ask a question.

Updating trust: How children combine trait information with prior accuracy as they interact with an informant.

When deciding whether to trust someone's claims, how do children combine-over multiple interactions-information about that person's general behavioral tendencies (traits) with that person's ongoing (and changing) rate of providing accurate claims? Children aged 4-8 played 11 rounds of a find-the-sticker game. For each round, an informant looked into two cups and made a claim about which cup held a sticker. Children guessed the sticker's location and the sticker's actual location was revealed. Prior to the game, children received information that the informant was either honest or dishonest. In Study 1 (N = 201, 105 female, 96 male), the informant provided inaccurate information on the first five trials and then provided accurate information for the remaining trials (55% overall accuracy). In Study 2 (N = 144, 89 female, 55 male), the informant produced a less predictable pattern of (in)accuracy, but remained 55% accurate overall. The trait information children initially received about the informant's honesty strongly influenced their epistemic trust when they lacked additional information about the informant's reliability (the earliest trials). When children's first-hand experiences with the informant prevented them from making strong predictions about the informant's future behavior, only children approximately 7 years and older utilized trait information to guide their epistemic trust. These results demonstrate some similarities in children's causal reasoning about the physical world and their social reasoning. The results also demonstrate developmental patterns in how children weigh different types of social information at different junctures in social interaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of modal intuitions: A test of two accounts.

Young children, unlike adults, deny that improbable events can happen. We test two accounts explaining this developmental shift. The development = reflection account posits that this shift is driven by an emerging ability to reflect on modal intuitions. In contrast, the development = intuition account posits that this shift is driven by changes in modal intuitions themselves, due to age-related changes in what people know and how they sample their knowledge and memories. These accounts make competing predictions about how long children and adults should take to make possibility judgments. In Experiment 1, we asked 123 children (39 5-year-olds, 42 7-year-olds, 42 9-year-olds; 49.60% White) and 40 adults (50% White) to judge the possibility of 78 ordinary, improbable, and impossible events and recorded their response times. In Experiment 2, we tested an additional 52 adults (42.32% White) who were under speeded conditions and thus less able to reflect before responding. Our results favor the development = intuition account. At all ages, people judged improbable events more slowly than ordinary or impossible events, and slow responding did not consistently predict affirmation over denial. Further, adults' possibility judgments did not change under speeded conditions. We also fit a drift-diffusion model to our data, which suggested that adults and children may sample different kinds of knowledge when generating intuitions. Our findings suggest that possibility judgments are often driven by modal intuitions with little reflection, and that a developmental shift in what children know and how knowledge is retrieved can explain why these intuitions change over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Young children's conceptualization of empirical disagreement.

Chinese and American children aged 5-11 years (total N = 144) heard two child informants make conflicting empirical claims about each of 4 scenarios. For example, one informant claimed that a ball would float when dropped in water whereas the other informant claimed that it would sink. Children were asked to judge whether each informant could be right, and to justify their overall judgment. In both samples, there was a change with age. Older children often said that each informant could be right whereas younger children, especially in China, were more likely to say that only one informant could be right. Nevertheless, in the wake of decisive empirical evidence (e.g., the ball was shown to sink when dropped in water), almost all children, irrespective of age, drew appropriate conclusions about which of the two informants had been right. Thus, with increasing age, children differ in their prospective - but not in their retrospective - appraisal of empirical disagreement. Absent decisive evidence, older children are more likely than younger children to suspend judgment by acknowledging that either of two conflicting claims could be right. We argue that children's tendency to suspend judgment is linked to their developing awareness of empirical uncertainty, as expressed both in the justifications they give when judging the disagreement and in their own beliefs about the scenarios. Implications for children's understanding of disagreement are discussed.

Why we should care about moral foundations when preparing for the next pandemic: Insights from Canada, the UK and the US.

Health behaviors that do not effectively prevent disease can negatively impact psychological wellbeing and potentially drain motivations to engage in more effective behavior, potentially creating higher health risk. Despite this, studies linking "moral foundations" (i.e., concerns about harm, fairness, purity, authority, ingroup, and/or liberty) to health behaviors have generally been limited to a narrow range of behaviors, specifically effective ones. We therefore explored the degree to which moral foundations predicted a wider range of not only effective but ineffective (overreactive) preventative behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 1, participants from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States reported their engagement in these preventative behaviors and completed a COVID-specific adaptation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire during the pandemic peak. While differences occurred across countries, authority considerations consistently predicted increased engagement in both effective preventative behaviors but also ineffective overreactions, even when controlling for political ideology. By contrast, purity and liberty considerations reduced intentions to engage in effective behaviors like vaccination but had no effect on ineffective behaviors. Study 2 revealed that the influence of moral foundations on U.S participants' behavior remained stable 5-months later, after the pandemic peak. These findings demonstrate that the impact of moral foundations on preventative behaviors is similar across a range of western democracies, and that recommendations by authorities can have unexpected consequences in terms of promoting ineffective-and potentially damaging-overreactive behaviors. The findings underscore the importance of moral concerns for the design of health interventions that selectively promote effective preventative behavior.

Tinkering to innovation: How children refine tools over multiple attempts.

The human capacity for technological innovation and creative problem-solving far surpasses that of any species but develops quite late. Prior work has typically presented children with problems requiring a single solution, a limited number of resources, and a limited amount of time. Such tasks do not allow children to utilize one of their strengths: their ability to engage in broad search and exploration. Thus, we hypothesized that a more open-ended innovation task might allow children to demonstrate greater innovative capacity by allowing them to discover and refine a solution over multiple attempts. Children were recruited from a museum and a children's science event in the United Kingdom. We presented 129 children (66 girls, M = 6.91, SD = 2.18) between 4 and 12 years old with a variety of materials and asked children to use those materials to create tools to remove rewards from a box within 10 min. We coded the variety of tools children created each time they attempted to remove the rewards. By comparing successive attempts, we were able to obtain insights about how children built successful tools. Consistent with prior research, we found that older children were more likely than younger children to create successful tools. However, controlling for age, children who engaged in more tinkering-who retained a greater proportion of objects from their failed tools in subsequent attempts and who added more novel objects to their tools following failure-were more likely to build successful tools than children who did not. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Older children verify adult claims because they are skeptical of those claims.

We investigated children's information seeking in response to a surprising claim (Study 1, N = 109, 54 Female, Range = 4.02-6.94 years, 49% White, 21% Mixed Ethnicity, 19% Southeast Asian, September 2019-March 2020; Study 2, N = 154, 74 Female, Range = 4.09-7.99, 50% White, 20% Mixed Ethnicity, 17% Southeast Asian, September 2020-December 2020). Relative to younger children, older children more often expressed skepticism about the adult's surprising claims (1-year increase, OR = 2.70) and more often suggested exploration strategies appropriate for testing the specific claim they heard (1-year increase, OR = 1.42). Controlling for age, recommending more targeted exploration strategies was associated with a greater likelihood of expressing skepticism about the adult's claim.

Exploring the Linguistic, Cognitive, and Social Skills Underlying Lexical Processing Efficiency as Measured by the Looking-while-Listening Paradigm.

The looking-while-listening (LWL) paradigm is frequently used to measure toddlers' lexical processing efficiency (LPE). Children's LPE is associated with vocabulary size, yet other linguistic, cognitive, or social skills contributing to LPE are not well understood. It also remains unclear whether LPE measures from two types of LWL trials (target-initial versus distractor-initial trials) are differentially associated with the abovementioned potential correlates of LPE. We tested 18- to 24-month-olds and found that children's word learning on a fast-mapping task was associated with LPE measures from all trials and distractor-initial trials but not target-initial trials. Children's vocabulary and pragmatic skills were both associated with their fast-mapping performance. Executive functions and pragmatic skills were associated with LPE measures from distractor-initial but not target-initial trials. Hence, LPE as measured by the LWL paradigm may reflect a constellation of skills important to language development. Methodological implications for future studies using the LWL paradigm are discussed.

Preschool Children Rarely Seek Empirical Data That Could Help Them Complete a Task When Observation and Testimony Conflict.

Children (N = 278, 34-71 months, 54% girls) were told which of two figurines turned on a music box and also observed empirical evidence either confirming or conflicting with that testimony. Children were then asked to sort novel figurines according to whether they could make the music box work or not. To see whether children would explore which figurine turned on the music box, especially when the observed and testimonial evidence conflicted, children were given access to the music box during their sorting. However, children rarely explored. Indeed, they struggled to disregard the misleading testimony both when sorting the figurines and when asked about a future attempt. In contrast, children who explored the effectiveness of the figurines dismissed the misleading testimony.

Inhibiting intuition: Scaffolding children's theory construction about species evolution in the face of competing explanations.

Acquiring the counterintuitive logic of how the mechanism of natural selection (NS) leads to the evolution of new species (speciation) represents a paradigm case of conceptual change. Given this, we examined children's intuitive preconceptions about speciation and their ability to construct, generalize, and retain an accurate understanding of the theory. We did so by conducting two multi-age, multi-session, and multi-measure intervention studies that assessed children's understanding of natural selection 4 times over three months using extended interviews. We also examined the role of Executive Function skills (EF) in these conceptual change processes. Distinctively, we explored whether-consistent with conceptual co-existence accounts-EF not only supports children's initial construction of a counterintuitive theory but also plays an ongoing role in the online reasoning of successful learners. Across two studies, North American children in Grades 2 (N = 34) and 3 (N = 34) were provided with coherent mechanistic explanations of NS through a two-storybook intervention sequence. The first storybook described the logic of NS to explain how a specialized body part evolved within a fictional species (adaptation). The second storybook extended the logic to explain how this same species evolved into a new, distinct species (speciation). Findings revealed that many second and third graders were able to learn and generalize the logic of speciation. This is a remarkable feat given that speciation conflicts with early developing essentialist and teleological intuitions, and defeats most adults. Our analyses also confirmed that constructing this counterintuitive theory draws heavily on children's EF capacities. They additionally reveal that once the theory is constructed, EF plays a continuing role in reasoning by inhibiting competing intuitive explanations that co-exist rather than being replaced during the process of conceptual change.

Young children update their trust in an informant's claim when experience tells them otherwise.

Across two experiments, an adult informant presented 220 preschoolers (34-71 months of age) with either a correct claim or an incorrect claim about how to activate a music box by using one of two toy figures. Children were then prompted to explore the figures and to discover whether the informant's claim was correct or incorrect. Children who discovered the claim to be incorrect no longer endorsed it. Moreover, their predictions regarding a new figure's ability to activate the music box were clearly affected by the reliability of the informant's prior claim. Thus, children reassess an informant's incorrect claim about an object in light of later empirical evidence and transfer their conclusions regarding the validity of that claim to subsequent objects.

A cognitive developmental approach is essential to understanding cumulative technological culture.

Osiurak and Reynaud argue that children are not a good methodological choice to examine cumulative technological culture (CTC). However, the paper ignores other current work that suggests that young children do display some aspects of creative problem-solving. We argue that using multiple methodologies and examining how technical-reasoning develops in children will provide crucial support for a cognitive approach to CTC.

Less imitation of arbitrary actions is a specific developmental precursor to callous-unemotional traits in early childhood.

OBJECTIVE: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in early childhood explain heterogeneity within conduct problems and are associated with higher risk for later diagnoses of childhood disruptive behavior disorders and antisocial behavior in adulthood. Emerging research implicates impairments in affiliative processes in the etiology of CU traits. The current study tests whether the imitation of intentional actions with no functional significance -a behavior that supports the acquisition of social conventions and affiliative bonds, is a specific developmental precursor to CU traits in early childhood. METHODS: Data came from a longitudinal twin study of 628 children (Age 2: 47% females; Age 3: 44.9% females) with observations of arbitrary (i.e., nonfunctional actions) and instrumental (i.e., functional actions) imitation and parent reports of CU traits and oppositional defiant (ODD) behaviors at ages 2 and 3. RESULTS: Lower arbitrary imitation at age 2, but not instrumental imitation, was related to increases in CU traits from ages 2 to 3 (ß = -.10, p = .02). CONCLUSIONS: These findings establish early social and affiliative processes in the etiology of CU traits, highlighting that novel personalized treatment and intervention strategies for CU traits may benefit from targeting these processes to help reduce CU traits and risk for persistent conduct problems in children.

Children's and adults' epistemic trust in and impressions of inaccurate informants.

As children and adults interact with new individuals, they make and revise inferences about these individuals' traits and intentions; they build and refine psychological profiles. Here, we examined how this ability develops during early childhood and manifests during adulthood by focusing on the construction of psychological profiles for individuals who have repeatedly provided inaccurate information. Children aged 4-7 years (n = 66) and adults (n = 62) played six rounds of a game in which they needed to find a hidden sticker. In each round, an informant made a claim about the sticker's location, and then participants guessed the sticker's location. In each round, after participants guessed, it was revealed that the informant's claim was incorrect. Across trials, children and adults quickly lost trust in the informant's claims. Children's impressions of the informant's smartness, niceness, and intentions became slightly more negative across trials. In contrast, adults' impressions of the informant's smartness increased, whereas their impressions of the informant's niceness decreased, and adults nearly unanimously judged the informant to be purposely (rather than mistakenly) inaccurate. In sum, children and adults track the accuracy of an informant over time and use this information to update their epistemic trust in the informant. However, based on the same data, children and adults end up with different interpretations of the informant's psychological characteristics-her traits and intentions.

Teaching a novel word: Parenting styles and toddlers' word learning.

We examined the styles that parents adopted while teaching a novel word to their toddlers and whether those styles related to children's word learning and engagement during the task. Participants were 36 parents and their toddlers (Mage = 20 months). Parents were videotaped while teaching their children a name for a novel object. Parental utterances were transcribed verbatim and coded for cognitive and autonomy support. Children's utterances were coded for elicited and spontaneous contributions. Children's ability to recognize and process the novel word was assessed using the Looking-While-Listening task. Two parental cognitive support styles were identified via cluster analysis: "Cognitive Scaffolders," who combined a diversity of teaching moves, and "Labelers," who focused on labeling the novel object for the children. Similarly, two parental autonomy support styles were identified: "Followers," who focused on following the children's lead and providing positive feedback, and "Non-followers," who used diverse communicative ways to engage the children. Compared with parents who were Labelers, parents who were Cognitive Scaffolders were not more or less likely to be Followers. Children of Cognitive Scaffolders were better at recognizing the novel word, and children of Followers were more engaged (provided more elicited and spontaneous contributions) in the word-teaching task. Children's ability to recognize the novel word was not related to their engagement. Findings highlight the unique contributions of parental cognitive and autonomy support to children's word learning and engagement.

How children use accuracy information to infer informant intentions and to make reward decisions.

The ability to assess the value of the information one receives and the intentions of the source of that information can be used to establish cooperative relationships and to identify cooperative partners. Across two experiments, 4- to 8-year-old children (N = 204) received a note with correct, incorrect, or no information that affected their efforts on a search task. Children were told that all informants had played the game before and knew the location of the hidden reward. In the no information condition, children were told that the informant needed to leave before finishing the note and, thus, was not intentionally uninformative. Children rated the note with correct information as more helpful than the note with no information; incorrect information was rated least helpful. When asked about the informant's intentions, children attributed positive intentions when the information was correct and when they received unhelpful information but knew the informant was not intentionally uninformative. Children attributed less positive intentions to the informant when they received incorrect information. When given the chance to reward the informant, children rewarded the informant who provided correct information and no information equally; the informant who provided incorrect information received fewer rewards. Combined, these results suggest that young children assume that informants have positive intentions even when they provide no useful information. However, when the information provided is clearly inaccurate, children infer more negative intentions and reward those informants at lower rates. These results suggest that children tend to reward informants more based on their presumed intentions, placing less weight on the value of the information they provide.

Children's Developing Ideas About Knowledge and Its Acquisition.

We review key aspects of young children's concept of knowledge. First, we discuss children's early insights into the way that information can be communicated from informant to recipient as well as their active search for information via questions. We then analyze the way that preschool children talk explicitly and cogently about knowledge and the presuppositions they make in doing so. We argue that all children, irrespective of culture and language, eventually arrive at the same fundamental conception of knowledge in the preschool years. Nevertheless, despite the universality of this basic conception, young children are likely to show considerable variation in their pattern of information seeking, depending on the conversational practices of their family and culture.

The Influence of First-Hand Testimony and Hearsay on Children's Belief in the Improbable.

Children (3.5-8.5 years; n = 105) heard claims about the occurrence of improbable or impossible events, then were asked whether the events could really happen. Some claims were based on informants' first-hand observations and others were hearsay. A baseline group (n = 56) reported their beliefs about these events without hearing testimony. Neither first-hand claims nor hearsay influenced beliefs about impossible events, which remained low across the age range. Hearsay (but not first-hand claims) did influence beliefs about improbable events. Preschoolers expressed greater belief following hearsay, compared to their beliefs following first-hand claims and compared to the baseline group's beliefs. By contrast, older children expressed less belief following hearsay, compared to their beliefs following first-hand claims and compared to the baseline group's beliefs.

Preschoolers Continually Adjust Their Epistemic Trust Based on an Informant's Ongoing Accuracy.

Children aged 4-7 years (N = 120) played four rounds of a find-the-sticker game. For each round, an informant looked into two cups and made a claim about which cup held a sticker. At the end of each round, children guessed the sticker's location, and then the sticker's actual location was revealed. For three of the rounds, the informant accurately reported the sticker's location. But critically, for one round-either Round 1, 2, or 3-she was inaccurate. Children continually adjusted their trust in the informant as they obtained more information about her accuracy. Relations between the informant's pattern of accuracy and children's trust were robust, neither mediated nor moderated by children inferences about her intent or traits.

Relations Among Cultural Learning Beliefs, Self-Regulated Learning, and Academic Achievement for Low-Income Chinese American Adolescents.

This mixed-methods study of urban low-income, English-proficient Chinese American, second-generation 15-year-olds (conducted in 2004; N = 32) examined the relation among the virtue model of learning communicated by parents and adolescents' learning beliefs, self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviors, and academic achievement. Analysis of in-depth individual interviews revealed that for these adolescents, perceptions of family educational socialization predicted students' endorsement of their culture's virtue-oriented learning beliefs and that adolescents' endorsement of these learning beliefs predicted their academic achievement. Importantly, adolescents' reported that use of SRL strategies mediated the relationship between their endorsement of virtue-oriented learning beliefs and their academic achievement. Findings are discussed in the context of further research linking cultural learning beliefs, SRL, and children's academic achievement.