Development of Selective Trust in Young Children

Abstract

Over the past decade, developmental researchers have devoted increased attention to young children's selective trust, or selective social learning, i.e., propensity to learn from some sources rather than others. Recent studies have challenged the long-standing assumption that young children are credulous -- disposed to trust claims made by other people even when those claims run counter to their own beliefs. This article reviewed recent studies on young children's selective learning based on informants' epistemic attributes such as accuracy, certainty, and specialty, and also their non-epistemic attributes such as age, linguistic information, familiarity, physical attractiveness, and social status. The available evidence suggests that young children are highly selective in their learning from testimony. The evidence also indicates that young children, especially 3-year-olds, have some difficulty because they are less inclined to mistrust individuals. Based on the review, this article discusses the implications of the research for future research on this relatively new topic.