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Kids Don’t Believe Everything They Hear Even If Its True

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A child’s natural curiosity and curiosity-driven curiosity lead to their own discovery and learning. Children also pick up information through the words of others, especially those in positions of authority, such as their parents and teachers.

When kids learn something new that blows their minds, they naturally want to know more and will do so by either asking questions or putting theories to the test.

Previous studies have shown that children’s willingness to investigate adults’ startling assertions changes with age, with six-year-olds being more inclined than four- and five-year-olds to do so.

However, little is known about the reasons behind why kids ask questions after hearing something unexpected from adults. This subject is addressed in a recent study by Harvard University and University of Toronto academics that was published in the journal Child Development.

The research demonstrates that as kids become older, they grow less trusting of what adults tell them, according to Samantha Cottrell, a senior lab assistant at the University of Toronto’s Childhood Learning and Development (ChiLD) Lab.

“This explains why older children are more likely,” adds the author, “to try to verify claims and are more intentional about their exploration of objects.”

In two preregistered trials, researchers sought to determine whether and why youngsters investigate shocking claims.

In the first study, which took place in person from September 2019 to March 2020, 109 four- to six-year-old children from the Greater Toronto Area in Canada were chosen to take part.

There were fewer tests conducted than anticipated because the facility was closed for in-person testing in March 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of the 108 parents who provided information about their child’s ethnicity, 49% identified their child as White, 21% as Mixed Ethnicity or Race, and 19% as Southeast Asian. Almost all parents provided information on their educational background, with 34% of parents having attended college, 48% having two parents who did, and 18% of children having parents who did not.

The kids were shown three commonplace items: a rock, a sponge-like material, and a hacky sack. Children were first asked whether they thought the rock was soft or firm as part of an experiment.

The rock was described by every child as being hard. Then, at random, either a statement that challenged their worldview (“Actually, this rock is soft, not hard”) or a statement that supported it (“That’s right, this rock is hard”) was told to the children. After this, each child was asked again, “So, do you think this rock is hard or soft?” Nearly all kids who heard assertions that supported their worldviews made the same conclusion as before—that the rock was hard.

However, only few of the youngsters who were informed that the rock was soft made the same conclusion as before. Children were then instructed to leave the room for a phone call by the experimenter, who then left them alone to explore the object. The actions of children were captured on video.

The survey discovered that most kids, regardless of their age, liked to test out novel ideas. The authors proposed that previously noted differences in children’s exploration of unexpected claims by age may really be a reflection of changes in children’s capacity to use exploration to assess more complicated claims.

It’s also possible that as youngsters get older, their reasons for investigating differ, with younger ones doing so out of belief in what they’d been taught and a want to witness the unexpected event, and older ones out of skepticism about what they’d been told.

For the second study, which took place from September to December 2020, 154 children ages 4 to 7 from the same area as the first study were chosen. The ethnicities of the parents of 132 of the 154 children were: 50% White, 20% Mixed Ethnicity or Race, and 17% Southeast Asian.

Almost all parents provided information on their educational background, with 20% of children having parents who did not go to college, 35% having one college-educated parent, and 45% having two college-educated parents.

Due to restrictions on Covid-19, an experimenter shared their screen over Zoom and showed each child eight short stories. Children were asked what another kid should do in response to the adult’s surprise claim in each scenario (e.g., “The rock is soft” or “The sponge is harder than the rock”) and why they should do it.

The results reveal that older children (six- and seven-year-olds) were more likely to recommend an exploratory method customized to the claim they heard than younger children (that is, touching the rock in the first example but touching the rock and the sponge in the second example).

The data also indicate that as youngsters grow older, they explain exploration as a means of proving the adult’s unexpected claim. These results imply that while if children are as inclined to investigate surprise claims as they become older, they become more conscious of their skepticism against what adults tell them, leading to more deliberate, efficient, and effective exploration.

The director of the Childhood Learning and Development (ChiLD) Lab at the University of Toronto’s Samuel Ronfard remarked, “There is still a lot we don’t know.” 

“But, what’s clear is that children don’t believe everything they are told. They think about what they’ve been told and if they’re skeptical, they seek out additional information that could confirm or disconfirm it.”

Image Credit: Getty

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