Open AccessChildren With More Uncertainty in Their Intuitive Theories Seek Domain-Relevant Information
Author(s) -
Jenny Jinjing Wang,
Yang Yang,
Carla Macias,
Elizabeth Bonawitz
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
psychological science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.641
H-Index - 260
eISSN - 1467-9280
pISSN - 0956-7976
DOI - 10.1177/0956797621994230
Subject(s) - psychology , outcome (game theory) , preference , event (particle physics) , information seeking , developmental psychology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , statistics , physics , mathematics , mathematical economics , quantum mechanics , library science
How do changes in learners' knowledge influence information seeking? We showed preschoolers ( N = 100) uncertain outcomes for events and let them choose which event to resolve. We found that children whose intuitive theories were at immature stages were more likely to seek information to resolve uncertainty about an outcome in the related domains, but children with more mature knowledge were not. This result was replicated in a second experiment but with the nuance that children at intermediate stages of belief development-when the causal outcome would be most ambiguous-were the most motivated to resolve the uncertainty. This effect was not driven by general uncertainty at the framework level but, rather, by the impact that framework knowledge has in accessing uncertainty at the model level. These results are the first to show the relationship between a learning preference and the developmental stage of a child's intuitive theory.