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ERIC Number: EJ1402072
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: EISSN-1939-0599
Children Use Epistemic States Flexibly to Make Diagnostic Social Inferences
Öner, Günes; Soley, Gaye
Developmental Psychology, v59 n12 p2277-2286 2023
Children are sensitive to their own and others' epistemic states and use these to guide their learning and communication. Here, we systematically examined children's use of epistemic states to make diagnostic social inferences. Specifically, we investigated children's group membership inferences based on what others do and do not know and what role children's own knowledge states and the type of knowledge play in these inferences. Across two preregistered studies, 7- and 8-year-old children (N = 100) were shown targets who were knowledgeable (Study 1) or ignorant (Study 2) of familiar and unfamiliar knowledge items that were either general or culture-specific and asked to guess whether the targets would be linguistic ingroup or outgroup members. Children inferred that the targets would speak their native language if they shared targets' epistemic states and a foreign language if they did not. Importantly, these patterns were particularly evident when epistemic states involved cultural knowledge. Further, children's inferences became more nuanced with age. These findings suggest that others' knowledge states are socially meaningful in childhood and children use their own and others' epistemic states in flexible ways to guide their diagnostic social judgments.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Turkey
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A