Children's selective trust decisions: rational competence and limiting performance factors

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Development
• Social Learning Theory

Background:

• Preschoolers demonstrate selective learning, preferring reliable and competent models.
• The cognitive underpinnings of this selective learning (rational inference vs. simpler processes) are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if children's selective learning is based on rational inference.
• To determine if children revert to simpler strategies like global impression formation under specific conditions.

Main Methods:

• Seventy-five preschoolers were presented with pairs of models differing in competence within a domain or across domains.
• Children chose between models for relevant tasks to assess their selective trust.

Main Results:

• Children demonstrated rational inference when choosing between equally competent models, selecting the most relevant one.
• When models differed in competence within one domain, children generalized broadly, preferring the competent model for all tasks.

Conclusions:

• Children possess the capacity for rational inference-based selective learning.
• Performance factors can mask these rational strategies, leading to simpler generalization behaviors.