'Mind-reading' kids are more discriminating learners

To learn about the world around them, young children depend on information provided by others. But that’s not always the best strategy: kids will sometimes take everything grown-ups say at face value, even if they’re unreliable.

New research shows that children are not as gullible as we might think — and that’s especially true for those who have a good understanding of what’s going on inside someone else’s head.

In a paper recently published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, researchers from Concordia University and the University of Ottawa show that even young children can be selective in whom they prefer to learn from.

The researchers first tested whether the preschool-aged participants were more likely to learn new words from an accurate or inaccurate individual. They also examined whether the children were more likely to learn from a physically strong individual over a weak one. In addition, the researchers embarked on a series of quick ToM tests that required the children to empathize with another individual.

For the ToM tests, the participants were first introduced to several different figurines and given some background information about each: Mr. Jones likes carrots, Linda thinks her cat is hiding in the bushes, Polly and Peter have never seen what’s inside the box.

The children were then asked to theorize about what kind of snack Mr. Jones would want, where Linda would search for her dog and what Polly and Peter would think was inside the box.

A clear pattern emerged: the children who could accurately intuit the figurines’ thoughts and desires were more likely to believe the individuals with the greatest verbal accuracy, rather than those who had demonstrated the greatest strength. That is, the kids with better ToM skills were less gullible.

Brosseau-Liard cautions that theory of mind accounts for only a small variance.

“Even though theory of mind does predict children’s tendency to selectively learn from more accurate individuals, it does not completely explain this ability. There are likely many other variables influencing selective learning, including important social and cognitive attributes,” she says.

Partners in research

This work was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Find out more about research in Concordia’s Department of Psychology.