Young children's selective epistemic trust: Do children favor informants who explain in line with their predictions?

As selective social learners, children critically evaluate the sources of information and the information they are given (e.g., the relevance of an explanation). They make predictions about the world and compare their predictions to their observations. In this online study, we examined whether 5- to 6-year-old children (N=48, Mage=5,54) use the match or mismatch between their prediction and an informant's explanation as a cue in forming epistemic trust. Children were introduced to an informant who was to explain a given topic (e.g., what makes cars go). Before they heard the informant's explanation, they chose one explanation among three, i.e., two relevant (e.g., pressing the gas pedal makes a car go) and one irrelevant explanation (e.g., when I am in the car, I watch outside the window), as their prediction of how the informant would explain the topic. They predominantly predicted a relevant explanation. We manipulated whether the informant's explanation matched the child's predictions, resulting in three within-subjects conditions. In the relevant-match condition, the informant provided the relevant explanation the child predicted. In the relevant-mismatch condition, the informant offered the relevant explanation that is different from the child's prediction. In the irrelevant-mismatch condition, the informant provided the irrelevant explanation. We asked children whether 1) the informant explained the topic well, 2) they would ask the informant to learn about a new relevant topic, and 3) they would team up with the informant in a quiz game. Overall, children favored the informant in the relevant-match condition more often than the informants in the two mismatch conditions. They favored the informants equally often in the two mismatch conditions. Thus, our study showed that young children predict informants to provide relevant explanations and selectively trust those who explain as predicted.