ERIC Number: EJ934445
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Jul
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: N/A
Accuracy, Confidence, and Calibration: How Young Children and Adults Assess Credibility
Tenney, Elizabeth R.; Small, Jenna E.; Kondrad, Robyn L.; Jaswal, Vikram K.; Spellman, Barbara A.
Developmental Psychology, v47 n4 p1065-1077 Jul 2011
Do children and adults use the same cues to judge whether someone is a reliable source of information? In 4 experiments, we investigated whether children (ages 5 and 6) and adults used information regarding accuracy, confidence, and calibration (i.e., how well an informant's confidence predicts the likelihood of being correct) to judge informants' credibility. We found that both children and adults used information about confidence and accuracy to judge credibility; however, only adults used information about informants' calibration. Adults discredited informants who exhibited poor calibration, but children did not. Requiring adult participants to complete a secondary task while evaluating informants' credibility impaired their ability to make use of calibration information. Thus, children and adults may differ in how they infer credibility because of the cognitive demands of using calibration. (Contains 5 figures, 1 table and 4 footnotes.)
Descriptors: Cues, Credibility, Information Dissemination, Experiments, Developmental Psychology, Children, Adults, Comparative Testing, Investigations, Memory, Child Development, Evaluation Methods, Cognitive Processes, Undergraduate Students, Psychology
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A