{"id":237,"date":"2010-10-20T21:54:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T20:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/10\/young-kids-cant-help-believing-what-theyre-told.html"},"modified":"2014-11-12T04:54:58","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T03:54:58","slug":"young-kids-cant-help-believing-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/10\/young-kids-cant-help-believing-what.html","title":{"rendered":"Young kids can’t help believing what they’re told"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

My son turned 6 this weekend, and one of the games we played at his party was the classic Simon Says<\/a>. I love that game! It never ceases to amaze me how easily the kids are fooled. Even at 5 going on 6, they seem to instinctively obey verbal instructions.<\/p>\n

It reminded me of a study just published in Psychological Science<\/i> by Vikram Jaswal, at the University of Virginia, and colleagues. They\u2019ve been looking at the power of adult verbal testimony to lead children to disbelieve their own eyes.<\/p>\n

For example, in one study the experimenter hid a sticker under one of two cups. If the kid guessed right, she won the sticker.\u00a0 If the kid guessed wrong, the experimenter got it. The experimenter told the kid how much she wanted the sticker.<\/p>\n

Then the experimenter told the kid which cup the sticker was under. Of course, she lied. <\/p>\n

The kid, unsurprisingly, believes the experimenter \u2013 after all, the kid is just 3 years old. And then the kid is proved wrong.<\/p>\n

The strange thing is that the kid doesn\u2019t learn from her mistakes. She goes on believing the experimenter. And losing every time.<\/p>\n

It seems that there\u2019s something specially convincing about verbal testimony. When they re-ran the experiment, but with the experimenter using an arrow to point to the cup, instead of saying anything, the kids cottoned on much quicker. Well, mostly.<\/p>\n

And when they re-ran it using either a video of the experimenter or audio, they found that the kids were more likely to keep believing the lie if they could see as well as hear the experimenter.<\/p>\n

The researchers reckon this reveals a deep-seated, evolved trait the drives young kids to believe what they\u2019re told. <\/p>\n

\u201cChildren have developed a specific bias to believe what they\u2019re told,\u201d says Jaswal<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of a short cut to keep them from having to evaluate what people say. It\u2019s useful because most of the time parents and caregivers tell children things that they believe to be true.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other research they\u2019ve done (not yet published) shows that kids will repeatedly believe an adult\u2019s account of an event, rather than trusting their own eyes. And other evidence seems to show that adults also are susceptible to this \u2013 although less so than 3-year olds, of course.<\/p>\n

Now, you may be wondering what all this has to do with this blog\u2019s regular fare of religion or non-religion. The answer is: not a lot! But it is interesting\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

\"ResearchBlogging.org\"<\/a><\/span>Jaswal VK, Croft AC, Setia AR, & Cole CA (2010). Young children have a specific, highly robust bias to trust testimony. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society \/ APS, 21<\/span> (10), 1541-7 PMID: 20855905<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/span> This article by Tom Rees<\/b> was first published on Epiphenom<\/a>. It is licensed under Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My son turned 6 this weekend, and one of the games we played at his party was the classic Simon Says. I love that game! It never ceases to amaze me how easily the kids are fooled. Even at 5 going on 6, they seem to instinctively obey verbal instructions. It reminded me of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nYoung kids can't help believing what they're told<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My son turned 6 this weekend, and one of the games we played at his party was the classic Simon Says. I love that game! 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