Children's Developing Understanding of the Value of Disagreement for Learning

Do children and adults recognize the value of disagreement for learning? Across two preregistered studies (data collected 2023), 4- to 8-year-old children (N = 200, 101 females, mixed ethnicities) and adults (N = 200, 99 females, mixed ethnicities) were asked whether a protagonist would learn more by talking to someone who agrees or disagrees with them about different beliefs. Across studies, participants more often endorsed learning from someone who disagreed with the protagonist when no "correct" answer existed, that is, when beliefs concerned preferences or ambiguous situations, or when the protagonist did not hold the typically "correct" belief. Adults endorsed learning from disagreement and articulated why disagreement is helpful for learning more often than children.