Calibrated deference: Children's evaluations of responses to disagreement across knowledge gaps

Declaring that you are right or wrong is not merely a factual matter, but often a deeply social decision about when to own up to the limits of your knowledge and when to stick to your guns. How do children evaluate others' decisions to either admit they might be wrong, or double down? Do children always feel that it is better to modestly defer to others? Across 5 studies (total N = 1289), children ages 4-12 evaluated cases of disagreement where a target character either deferred to their corrector by admitting a lack of knowledge or stuck to their initial claim. In some cases, children reported that it was better for the target to defer after being corrected by someone (either a teacher or peer) who likely had better knowledge (Studies 1 and 2). But, children also believed that deferring isn't always the best thing to do; they judged that it was better to stick to one's initial answer after a disagreement with an inexpert peer (Study 3) or a teacher without relevant knowledge (Studies 4a and 4b). The findings demonstrate both nuance and limitations in children's capacity to integrate information about relative knowledge and authority when evaluating how people respond to disagreements. In sum, children seem to possess an emerging understanding of how and when beliefs should be updated in social contexts and thus the social-epistemic foundations of intellectual humility.