YOU CAN'T FOOL A FIVE-YEAR-OLD

YOU CAN'T FOOL A FIVE-YEAR-OLD





By age five, children become wary of infor mation provided by people who make overly confident claims, says a new study by psychology researchers.The study gives us a window into children's developing social cognition, skepticism and critical thinking. It shows us that, even though kindergarteners have a reputation for being gullible, they are actually pretty good at evaluating sources of information.“Parents can use this ability to help guide them in their learning,“ said researcher Patricia Brosseau-Liard. For the study , BrosseauLiard recruited 96 fourand five-year-olds and had the youngsters weigh two important cues to a person's credibility -prior accuracy and confidence -when deciding what to believe.
They showed the children short videos of two adults talking about familiar animals.The speakers would either make true statements in a hesitant voice and false statements in a confident voice.The kids were then shown videos of the same two adults speaking about strange animals. The previously confident speaker would state facts with confidence, and the previously hesitant speaker remained hesitant while stating different facts.
Children around four were as likely to believe the confident liar as the hesitant truthteller. But as they turned five, the children were more likely to believe the previously accurate but hesitant individual. A year can make a big difference in terms of a child's evolution in the critical consumption of information, suggested the researchers.