[RC] 5 year olds -the rise of critical thinking skills

[BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community]

Concordia News
 
Trying to fool a kindergartener? 
Not so fast
Concordia-UBC research reveals that children as  young as five can gauge 
when adults are overconfident

 
 
Posted on October 8, 2014
|
 
By: Cléa Desjardins 


 
 
>From how to tie a shoelace to learning the words for colours, kids have 
lots  to learn — and for the most part, they depend on others to teach it to 
them. 
But whether deliberately or inadvertently, people sometimes misinform. So 
at  what age can kids tell trustworthy teachers from confidence tricksters? 
A new study published in PLOS One by psychology researchers from  Concordia 
and the University of British Columbia shows that by the age of five,  
children become wary of information provided by people who make 
overly-confident 
 claims. 
For the study, Patricia Brosseau-Liard, who is now a Concordia postdoctoral 
 fellow, recruited 96 four- and five-year-olds. She and her UBC Department 
of  Psychology co-authors Tracy Cassels and Susan Birch had the youngsters 
weigh two  important cues to a person’s credibility — prior accuracy and 
confidence — when  deciding what to believe. 
The researchers showed their subjects short videos of two adults talking  
about familiar animals. The speakers would either: 
    1.  Make true statements about the animal in a hesitant voice
“Hmm, I  guess whales live in the water?” 
    2.  Make false statements about the animal in a confident voice
“Oh, I  know! Whales live in the ground!”

The kids were then shown videos of the same two adults speaking about  
strange animals. The previously confident speaker would state facts with  
confidence, and the previously hesitant speaker remained hesitant while stating 
 
different facts. The participants were then asked whom they believed. 
In children closer to the age of four, it was a 50/50 split: they were as  
likely to believe the confident liar as the hesitant truth-teller. But as 
they  neared the age of five, participants were more likely to believe the 
previously  accurate but hesitant individual, suggesting a year can make a big 
difference in  terms of a child’s evolution in the critical consumption of  
information.  
As Brosseau-Liard explains, these findings are important for teachers and  
caregivers. 
“Our study gives us a window into children’s developing social cognition,  
skepticism and critical thinking. It shows us that, even though 
kindergarteners  have a reputation for being gullible, they are actually pretty 
good at 
 evaluating sources of information. Parents can use this ability to help 
guide  them in their learning.” 

-- 
-- 
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community 
<RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org

--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to radicalcentrism+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.