Valence Effects in Reasoning About Evaluative Traits

Reasoning about evaluative traits was investigated among a group of 7- and 8-year-olds (N = 34), a group of 11- to 13-year olds (N = 25), and a group of adults (N = 23) to determine whether their inferences would be sensitive to the valence of social and academic traits. Four aspects of trait-relevant beliefs were examined: (1) malleability, (2) stability over time, (3) origin in terms of nature versus nurture, and (4) an inference criterion that concerns how readily traits are inferred. Although there was evidence of an age-related decrease in the tendency to emphasize positive information, participants of all ages responded that positive traits are less malleable and more stable over time than negative traits, that the positive influences of biological and environmental factors are likely to override the negative influences, and that competence can be more readily inferred from positive outcomes than from negative outcomes

Praising Young Children for Being Smart Promotes Cheating

This project contains data and a codebook for the paper "Praising Young Children for Being Smart Promotes Cheating" by Li Zhao, Gail D. Heyman, Lulu Chen, and Kang Lee

The Self-Other Distinction in Perceptions of Social Influence: Evidence of Cultural Generalizability and Childhood Emergence

Prior research documents that adults in Western cultures perceive others as more susceptible to social influence than themselves (Pronin et al., 2007). Study 1 (N = 318) investigated the cultural generalizability of this asymmetric perception effect by examining young adults in South Korea where conformity is relatively valued, and a comparison sample of young adults in the United States. The results documented that the self-other distinction was just as strong in South Korea as it was in the United States. Study 2 (N = 102) examined the development of this tendency among 6- to 12-year-old South Korean children and showed that this asymmetry increasingly emerges with age. These findings suggest that asymmetric perceptions of conformity are robust and emerge over the course of development

Inferences from Disagreement

To figure out what happened in the past, we often rely on others’ testimony. One challenge is that people can disagree in their interpretations of what happened. We will investigate children’s use of disagreement as evidence for what happened, specifically, inferring that the event itself was ambiguous and could generate multiple interpretations. Children (N = 50; 7 to 11 years) will hear two observers’ testimony, in which the observers either agreed about another speaker’s desires (e.g., both observers agreed that the speaker wanted an intervention) or disagreed (one observer was sure the speaker wanted the intervention, while the other observer was sure the speaker did not want it). Children will then be asked to infer which of three events happened: the speaker uttered an unambiguous request (should be inferred more in agreement trials), an ambiguous request (should be inferred more in disagreement trials), or a random statement (neither trial type)

Children use disagreement to infer what happened

In a rapidly changing and diverse world, the ability to reason about conflicting perspectives is critical for effective communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. The current pre-registered experiments with children ages 7 to 11 years investigated the developmental foundations of this ability through a novel social reasoning paradigm and a computational approach. In the inference task, children were asked to figure out what happened based on whether two speakers agreed or disagreed in their interpretation. In the prediction task, children were provided information about what happened and asked to predict whether two speakers will agree or disagree. Together, these experiments assessed children's understanding that disagreement often results from ambiguity about what happened, and that ambiguity about what happened is often predictive of disagreement. Experiment 1 (N = 52) showed that children are more likely to infer that an ambiguous utterance occurred after learning that people disagreed (versus agreed) about what happened and found that these inferences become stronger with age. Experiment 2 (N = 110) similarly found age-related change in children's inferences and also showed that children could reason in the forward direction, predicting that an ambiguous utterance would lead to disagreement. A computational model indicated that although children's ability to predict when disagreements might arise may be critical for making the reverse inferences, it did not fully account for age-related change

How People Make Causal Judgments about Unprecedented Societal Events

Counterfactual theories of causal judgment propose that people infer causality between events by comparing an actual outcome with what would have happened in a relevant alternative situation. If the candidate cause is “difference-making”, people infer causality. This framework has not been applied to people’s judgments about unprecedented societal events (e.g., global pandemics), in which people have limited causal knowledge (e.g., about effective policies). In these contexts, it is less clear how people reason counterfactually. This study examined this issue. Participants judged whether a mandatory evacuation reduced population bite rates during a novel insect infestation. People tended to rely on prior causal knowledge, unless data from close alternatives (i.e., structurally similar counterfactuals) provided counterevidence. There were also notable individual differences, such that some people privileged prior knowledge regardless of the available counterevidence or privileged far alternatives (i.e., structurally distinct counterfactuals), which may have implications for understanding public disagreement about policy issues

The Role of Alternatives in Children’s Reasoning about Constrained Choices

Research has documented children’s understanding that a choice made when constrained to a single option is a poor indicator of another person’s preference. However, when constraints are constant over time—as they often are in social contexts—they may lose their salience. We examined whether children (N = 133, 5- to 12-year-olds) were more likely to refrain from inferring that a constrained actor prefers their choice if they first observe unconstrained actors (Alternatives condition) compared to if they only observe constrained actors (Constant condition). Presence of alternatives was crossed with constraint type: either the second option was hard to access or there was no other option. In line with our predictions, results indicated that observing alternative situations with greater choice increased children’s subsequent attention to constraints. Effects were stronger for the hard to access constraint and for older children

Linking young children's teaching to their reasoning of mental states: Evidence from Singapore

10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105175JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY20

Everyday Messages About Cheating From Teachers and Students: An Observational Study

Fostering a culture of academic integrity in secondary schools is a critical issue for moral development in emerging adulthood, as cheating threatens fairness, learning, and student success. Past research on cheating has mainly relied on self-report surveys with limited response options. The present study bridges this gap by employing naturalistic observations of high school classroom