Do children understand the limits of knowledge?

For 6-to-9 year-olds

During the session, your child will hear a series of short, age-appropriate stories about characters who sometimes believe things that aren’t quite right, simply because of the information they have (for example, thinking dinosaurs might still be alive because they don’t have access to reliable sources of information). After each story, we’ll invite your child to share their thoughts about what the story characters believe and why. Some of our questions will ask whether they think the characters are responsible or at fault for believing something that isn’t true, or if it is understandable to hold inaccurate beliefs because of limited access to information. We also ask children how smart they think these characters are and how likely they would want to interact with the characters. These questions help us understand how children think about why people belief difference things and when they see someone as responsible for holding an unusual or inaccurate belief.

In this study, we are interested in how children think about why people sometimes end up with different or inaccurate beliefs. Prior research shows that children notice when someone had good or limited access to information. However, we know less about whether children take this into account when deciding how to judge whether someone is responsible for their beliefs that don’t turn out to be true. In our stories, some characters have opportunities to learn the right information, while others have very few opportunities to find out what is true. By asking children what they think about these characters and their beliefs, we can understand how children think about knowledge access and responsibility especially in situations where people believe things that turn out not to be true.

15-20 minutes

Families will receive a small thank-you gift in the form of a $5 gift card to Amazon.com within 2 weeks of participation. Compensation is provided once your child, who must be within the study’s age range, attends the scheduled Zoom session and is present and visible during the study.