Children's trust in unexpected oral versus printed suggestions: Limitations of the power of print. (1st July 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Eyden, Julie; Robinson, Elizabeth J.; Einav, Shiri
• Is Part Of: British journal of developmental psychology. Volume 32:Number 4(2014:Dec.)
• Page Start: 430
• Page End: 439
• Publication Date: 2014-07-01
• Subjects: Developmental psychology -- Periodicals; 155
• DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12054
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-510X

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="bjdp12054-abs-0001"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>Children have a bias to trust spoken testimony, yet early readers have an even stronger bias to trust print. Here, we ask how enduring is the influence of printed testimony: Can the learning be applied to new scenarios? Using hybrid pictures more dominant in one animal species (e.g., squirrel) than another (e.g., rabbit), we examined 3–6‐year‐olds' (<italic>N</italic> = 130) acceptance of an unexpected, non‐dominant label suggested only orally or via print. Consistent with previous findings, early readers, but not pre‐readers, accepted printed labels more frequently than when spoken. Children were then presented with identical but unlabelled hybrid exemplars and frequently applied the non‐dominant labels to these. Despite early readers' prior greater acceptance of text, when oral suggestions were accepted they retained a greater influence. Findings highlight potential implications for educators regarding knowledge being applied to new scenarios: For early readers, unexpected information from text may be fragile, while a greater confidence might be placed in such information gained from spoken testimony.</p> </abstract>