Parents and judges often assume that preschoolers believe whatever someone tells them, and that they easily accept another person's statement as correct. Of course, preschoolers are lacking in general knowledge and are not necessarily in a position to evaluate another person's accuracy or truthfulness. One of my sons once announced to me that there was a kangaroo in the back yard; it turned out to be a rabbit he had seen, but he would not have questioned the story if he had been told by another child. So, is our frequent assumption true? Do preschoolers simply swallow what they're told, no matter what the circumstances are? Or do they consider whether the person who tells them is usually right or usually wrong?
A recent research article reported that preschoolers are in fact pretty sophisticated in their assessment of what they're told, even if they can't tell rabbits from kangaroos. In this study (Nurmsoo, E. , & Robinson, E.J. [2009]. Children's trust in previously inaccurate informants who were well or poorly informed: When past errors can be excused. Child Development, Vol. 80, pp. 23-27), 3, 4, and 5-year-old children were asked to identify a hidden toy by guessing. They sometimes were dealing with a toy they could touch but not see, and were supposed to guess which color it was (for example, whether it was the blue or the green toy bear from a pair having one of each color); other times, the toy was one they could see but not touch, and they were to guess whether it was hard or soft (for example, the soft or the hard duckling out of a pair that looked the same but felt different).
The children had a helper to work with--- a monkey hand puppet with arms, who could "feel" or "look at" the toy and then guess which toy it was. But some children had "uninformed" puppet helpers. These puppets "felt" the hidden toy and then guessed which color it was, or "looked at" the toy without touching it and announced whether it was hard or soft. The uninformed puppets always gave the wrong answer about color or softness. The children then got to see or touch the toy and find out what the right answer was.
Other children worked with "informed" puppets. These puppets "felt" the toy before they guessed whether it was the hard one or the soft one, and "looked" before deciding which color the toy was. But in spite of the puppets' opportunities to find out about the toy, the "informed" puppets nevertheless gave the wrong answer, just as the "uninformed" puppets did. These children also then got to see or feel the toy for themselves.
After these experiences with "uninformed" or "informed" puppets, all of which said the wrong thing about the toy, the children were tested by making an "uninformed" guess. If the question was the color of the hidden toy, the child got to touch it; if the question was the softness of the hidden toy, the child got to look at it but not touch it. He or she then made a guess about the (unknown) color or softness. At this point, the puppet "felt" the toy if the question was about softness, or "looked at" it if the question was about color, getting the necessary information to answer the question. The puppet now gave the opposite answer from the child's, whether the child was actually right or wrong. Finally, the child was asked whether she wanted to change her mind after hearing what the "informed" puppet had to say.
Whether the children changed their minds was determined by their previous experience with an "informed" or an "uninformed" puppet. If they had been with "informed" puppets--- who gave the wrong answer even though they had a chance to learn what was right--- the children apparently ignored what the final "informed" puppet had to say. But if they had been with "uninformed" puppets, who made mistakes, but did so for the excellent reason that they had no access to information, the children most often believed the puppet who had had a chance to feel or look at the toy. The preschoolers in this study apparently knew that a reliable person can say things that are wrong if he or she does not have needed information, but they regarded as unreliable someone who had been wrong several times even though there was access to the information.
Doesn't this make you wonder whether adults lose some of the ability these preschoolers had? For example, adult members of cults seem to believe even more strongly than before, when cult leaders are shown to be wrong about a prediction like the date of the end of the world. Some adults go back again and again to a fortune-teller or medical quack who has proved incorrect about the solution to a problem. Strange people, we adult human beings--- but it seems that young children are a bit more sensible than we sometimes give them credit for.
