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Children's Evaluation of Other People's Self‐Descriptions
Author(s) -
Gee Caroline L.,
Heyman Gail D.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2007.00408.x
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , credibility , salient , social psychology , presentation (obstetrics) , medicine , artificial intelligence , political science , computer science , law , radiology
Children's evaluations of what people communicate about themselves were examined in three studies with a total of 296 participants (aged four to 12). Participants heard scenarios in which characters' motivations to reveal truthful information were systematically manipulated to examine (1) children's understanding that people do not always reveal true information, and (2) children's use of contextual cues to judge the credibility of what individuals say about themselves. Results from Study 1 suggest that elementary school children are quite sophisticated at reasoning with reference to motive information. Study 2 suggests that preschool children can also make use of motive information that is salient and familiar. For example, even preschool children responded that boys are less likely than girls to reveal to peers that they like to play with dolls. Study 3 suggests that children's reasoning about self‐presentation is linked to their beliefs about social acceptability norms.