This thesis investigated children’s selective trust in contexts that extend beyond a direct comparison of a distinctly accurate labeller with a distinctly inaccurate labeller in the domain of artifacts. First, it was examined whether children’s evaluations of informant trustworthiness is similar across the biological domain and the domain of artifacts. Second, it was investigated how children interpret novel labellers when compared to accurate and inaccurate labellers. Finally, children were presented with informants who provided functional or surface information for body parts to determine whether they prefer learning from informants who provided functional explanations. Across five experiments, children aged between 3 and 8 years of age (N = 379) were tested. The main findings were as follows: (a) 4- and 5-year-olds knew more about external body parts than internal organs; (b) 5-year-olds began to appreciate that speakers offering novel information were more trustworthy than those offering inaccurate information; (c) 4- to 8-year-olds had difficulty with distinguishing between informants who provided either functional explanations or obvious descriptions for highly unfamiliar organs; (d) however, when presented with informants who provided either functional or obvious information for highly familiar body parts, 8-year-olds (and to some extent, 5-year-olds) showed better recall of which informant provided a particular type of explanation, but they did not consider either informant to be a more trustworthy source. These findings indicate that children demonstrate selective trust in the biological domain, as well as in contexts that go beyond comparing accurate and inaccurate labellers. It is apparent that children are balanced in their evaluations of informants who provide new information, as well as those provide information that varies in explanatory depth. However, they are yet to fully consider functional explanations to be superior to superficial descriptions
