The Influence Of Information Provider’s Age And Emotion On Selective Trust Of Children Aged 7-9

Selective trust refers to the behavioral tendency of the information receiver to make trust judgments on certain characteristics or statements of the information provider based on the existing knowledge and experience and personal preferences.In the process of understanding the world,children will judge the surrounding information and the information provided by the information provider.Peers,parents and grandparents as the main communicating with children’s daily life,children’s selectivity of trust is different to them,and whether children have different selective trust in them when they have different facial expressions is the focus of this study.This study used the age and expression of the information provider as independent variables,and selective trust behavior as the dependent variable.In this study,children aged 7 to9 years in 6 ordinary public primary schools were selected as participants.Study 1 explored the influence of age on children’s selective trust.Participants were 232 children aged 7-9 years old,using a mixed design of 3(participant age: 7-year-old group,8-year-old group,9-year-old group)× 3(information provider’s age:peers,adults,elderly)under social tasks and cognitive tasks.The results showed that:(1)In the social tasks,7-to 9-year-olds chose to trust the information providers of their peers compared with the information providers of adults and the elderly.(2)In the cognitive tasks,7-to 9-year-olds chose to trust the information providers of adults and the elderly compared with the information providers of their peers.Study 2 explored the influence of emotions on children’s selective trust.Based on Study 1,the information providers for social tasks were peers,and the information providers for cognitive tasks were older adults in Study 2.Participants were 197 children aged 7-9 years old,using a mixed design of 3(participant age: 7-year-old group,8-year-old group,9-year-old group)×3(information provider’s expression:happy,sad)under social tasks and cognitive tasks.The results showed that: Whether it is social tasks or cognitive tasks,7-to 9-year-olds preferred to trust information providers with positive expressions.In summary,this study used the single information source paradigm to explore the influence of the age and emotion of the information provider on the selective trust of children aged 7-9,which provides an empirical supplement to the field of selective trust in children.