Testing What You’re Told: Young Children’s Empirical Investigation of a Surprising Claim

ABSTRACT

We examined differences among children in their endorsement of an adult’s claim, their subsequent empirical investigation of that claim, and their resolution of any potential conflict between the claim and their empirical investigation. American and Chinese preschool (N = 171, M = 4.71 years) and elementary school (N = 128, M = 7.59 years) children were presented with five, different-sized, Russian dolls and asked to indicate the heaviest doll. Children typically selected the biggest doll. Children then heard either a false, counter-intuitive claim (i.e., smallest doll = heaviest) or a claim confirming their initial intuition (i.e., biggest doll = heaviest). Children frequently endorsed the experimenter’s claim even when it was counter-intuitive. The experimenter then left the room. During the experimenter’s absence, older children who had heard the counter-intuitive as opposed to the confirming claim explored the dolls more than younger children, especially when subtly prompted to explore. Moreover, only older children who heard the counter-intuitive claim simultaneously picked up the smallest and biggest doll, a more deliberate test of the experimenter’s claim. By implication, children engage in selective exploration following a surprising claim. Older children’s more systematic explorations of what they have been told may reflect improvements in their ability to test such claims and in their greater sensitivity to the fact that unexpected claims can and should be empirically investigated.

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the school staff for their support, and we thank the parents and children for their participation. This study was partially funded by a Sinclair Kennedy Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University to Samuel Ronfard, by an International Doctoral Student Visitor Supplement Fellowship from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to Samuel Ronfard, and by a General Research Fund Grant (16606016) from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council to Eva E. Chen. We would like to thank Eric Torres, Liz Zhong, and Janisa Hui for help with data collection in Boston. We would also like to thank Christine Kong Yan Tong and Cecilia Tsz Ki Ng for help with data collection in Hong Kong.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The data and syntax files for this study are openly available at the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/dsm5p/.

Open scholarship

 

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/dsm5p/.

Ethics review

This study–Children’s Trust in Testimony–was approved by the Ethics Committees of Harvard University and of the Hong Kong University for Science and Technology (IRB#12421, HPR#121, respectively). Guardians of participants gave informed consent in writing before children participated in the study.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Harvard University [Sinclair Kennedy Traveling Fellowship to Samuel Ranford]; The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [International Doctoral Student Visitor Supplement to Samuel Ronfard]; Hong Kong Research Grants Council [General Research Fund Grant (16606016)]  to Eva E. Chen.