Children's selective information sharing based on the recipient's role

Two experiments investigate whether children ages 5 through 10 (n = 121) take into account an individual's role when choosing what information to share or with whom to share it. In Experiment 1, children heard statements about an unfamiliar animal's behavior and appearance. They then chose one statement to share with each of two characters with different job descriptions. Seven-year-olds consistently shared the information that aligned with each character's role, but 5-year-olds and a subset of 9-year-olds did not. Experiment 2 showed that children's decisions about what to share were not driven by their personal preferences for the information they were sharing. In addition, when children were provided with a single fact and had to choose with whom to share it, 7- and 9-year-olds shared information with the recipient for whom it was most relevant. Together, the findings suggest that by age 7, children can use information about an individual's occupational role in order to infer what information to share.