Selective Social Learning: Who to Trust?

Question 1

what does autonomous learning mean, according to piaget?

Answer 1

independent learning

Question 2

what was piaget’s perspective on children’s learning?

Answer 2

• focus on autonomous learning
• child as an autodidact
• children learn primarily from own exploration & active interpretation of data they gather
• learning from verbal input likely to be superficial

Question 3

piaget thought children’s learning from what is likely to be superficial?

Answer 3

learning from verbal input

Question 4

describe Vygotsky’s view of children’s learning?

Answer 4

• children = curious explorers
• important discoveries occur in context of collaborative dialogues between child & more knowledgeable members of society
• scaffolding

Question 5

according to Vygotsky’s social constructivism, what does scaffolding refer to?

Answer 5

adults offer carefully tailored support by modelling activities & providing verbal instructions

Question 6

what did Paul Harris say in 2012 regarding the role of testimony for acquiring knowledge?

Answer 6

isn’t there a limit to role that first hand experience can play in cognitive development

Question 7

what does testimony refer to?

Answer 7

information communicated by others via assertions (in contrast to info we gain by sense experience)

Question 8

when is testimony particularly important for children’s learning from others?

Answer 8

learning the basics

Question 9

what is informal learning from others?

Answer 9

everyday dialogue with adults, siblings, peers, asking questions, imitation, overhearing

Question 10

what is epistemic vigilance needed to achieve?

Answer 10

social learning

Question 11

what is the definition of epistemic vigilance? (Sperber et al., 2010)

Answer 11

to evaluate the credibility of the info source and the plausibility of claims and calibrate trust in testimony accordingly

Question 12

what are the 2 key dimensions when evaluating sources?

Answer 12

1. competence (knowledge) of someone
2. benevolence (good intentions vs bad intentions)

Question 13

the philosophical background of credulity in children overall says what?

Answer 13

children are gullible

Question 14

what is early scepticism?

Answer 14

rejecting blatantly false claims

Question 15

what is social referencing?

Answer 15

the act of looking towards your caregiver to figure out how to respond

Question 16

when do babies first show social referencing?

Answer 16

from 12 months, babies look to emotional reaction of caregiver to figure out how to act in an ambiguous situation (Sorce et al., 1985)

Question 17

describe results of Tamis-Lemonda et al (2008) study into social referencing using risky slopes: perceptual or social information?

Answer 17

• 18 months ignored mum’s advice & relied on perceptual information
• only relied on mum’s advice when they could not assess risk (ambiguous slopes)

Question 18

describe results of the study investigating the bias to believe? (Jamaal & Markman, 2007)

Answer 18

2 & 3 yr olds accept labels conflicting with perceptions

• 4 yrs more likely to accept if given additional info suggesting its an unfamiliar subtype of that category (this is a morrocon bird) (Jaswal, 2004)
• 6 & 8yrs more likely to accept conflicting labels when stimuli ambiguous (Chan & Tardiff, 2013)

Question 19

give a criticism of the study investigating the bias to believe? (Jamaal & Markman, 2007)

Answer 19

compliance vs actual belief? how do you know children truly believe the implausible information & not just going along with it

Question 20

describe results of Jaswal et al’s (2010) study into whether children take into account an informant’s past reliability?

Answer 20

1st trial = no one found the sticker

continued to trust her on almost every trial

by 8th trial: only 4/16 children got sticker

Question 21

what may be implicated in the struggle of children to require awareness that others may deceive?

Answer 21

theory of mind: but mixed evidence

Question 22

are children of 3 years sensitive to relative frequency of errors speaker make? (Pasquini et al., 2007)

Answer 22

no - children only differentiate between speakers when one person 100% right

Question 23

from 4 years, what type of informants do children show greater trust in information from?

Answer 23

on basis of their:

• age
• familiarity
• accent
• gender

relinquish that trust when past accuracy conflicts with these cues