Inteligência ou status social? Efeitos de dicas sociais na confiança seletiva de crianças

Abstract

Given the unstoppable growth of fake news and their negative impact, it is important to investigate how people choose information sources and determine whether they are trustworthy. Developmental Psychology has explored, for example, when children begin to show selective trust in potential informants. Recent evidence has demonstrated that from an early age (3 years), children are already capable of selecting whom to trust in novel learning situations. To discern between good and bad informants, children use various criteria and social cues (e.g., level of knowledge and group membership). The present study aimed to contribute in this direction by investigating the effect of the epistemic (accumulated knowledge/intelligence) and social (leadership and/or prestige) status of informants on the selective trust of school-aged children. Thirty-two children participated in the present study, from two age groups: 6 years (Mage = 6 years and 8 months) and 8 years (Mage = 8 years and 8 months). Participants were administered a selective trust task. During familiarization, two characters were introduced: one was a class leader and the other was very intelligent. Next, the child was asked to indicate which of the two they would like to have as a friend. The vast majority of participants (80%) chose the intelligent character. During the test phase (6 trials), participants watched scenes involving problem situations, half of which required factual knowledge and the other half social competence. In each scene (trial), both characters offered distinct answers/solutions, and the participant had to indicate which of the two informants was correct. Results suggest a greater preference among 8-year-old children (Mdn = 6.0) for the intelligent informant in the factual knowledge trials, compared to 6-year-old children (Mdn = 5.0). For the social competence trials, however, no age effect was found. In addition, for this type of trial, there was no clear preference for either informant. In summary, the data suggest that epistemic status (intelligence) is an important social cue that influences selective trust in Brazilian children, especially those in later school age (8–9 years) and in situations that require knowledge. Social status (prestige/leadership), however, did not prove to be a relevant cue, at least in the situations tested in the present study.