Selective Trust And Application Of Evaluative Testimony In Children Aged 5-9 Years

Facing complicated information,children must have certain information screening ability,that is,selective trust ability.At present,selective trust is a very important research topic in the field of developmental psychology.Studying the development of children’s selective trust ability can help to understand children’s learning mechanism and thinking development ability.The process of children’s selective trust is affected by many social and epistemic factors.With the growth of age,children’s selective trust ability is also developing.Children ’s learning of evaluative information such as evaluative testimony is very important.It is necessary to explore children ’s selective trust in evaluative testimony,and.the interpersonal relationship between the evaluated and children also affects children’s views on evaluative testimony.However,a large number of previous studies have ignored the information of evaluative testimony,especially the influence of its information value characteristics on children’s selective trust,and paid less attention to how the interpersonal relationship between the evaluated and children affects children ’s selective trust and application characteristics of evaluative testimony.Therefore,this study explores the characteristics of children’s selective trust and application characteristics of evaluative testimony in the evaluative context,when the valence of evaluative testimony provided by information providers conflicts with the value of information and the different interpersonal distance between the evaluated and children.In this study,473 children aged 5 to 9 years old were selected as research objects.The “conflicting sources" paradigm was used to investigate children’s selective trust and application characteristics of evaluative testimony under the evaluative background.This study is divided into three studies.Study 1 explores how children selectively trust and apply different evaluative testimony when the evaluated is a stranger.Study 2 examines how children selectively trust and apply different evaluative testimony when the evaluated is children’s friend.Study 3 only explores how children selectively trust different evaluative testimony when themselves are evaluated.Based on the three studies,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)In general,children aged 5 to 6 make selective trust according to the valence of evaluative testimony,while children aged 9 make selective trust according to the information value characteristics of evaluative testimony,and children aged 7 to 8 are in the transitional stage.With the growth of age,children rely more on the information value of evaluative testimony rather than the valence characteristics when making trust judgments.(2)The characteristics of children’s selective trust are different under different evaluative backgrounds.The closer the interpersonal distance between the evaluated and children is,the more likely children,especially younger children,are to make selective trust based on the valence of evaluative testimony rather than the value of information.(3)When using evaluative testimony,children will take into account openness and transparency,as well as the impact of evaluative testimony on the learning improvement and emotional level of the evaluated,and the closer the interpersonal distance between the evaluated and children,the more children avoid the possibility of emotionally hurting others.