The Roles of Privacy and Trust in Children's Evaluations and Explanations of Digital Tracking

A “digital revolution” has introduced new privacy violations concerning access to information stored on electronic devices. The present two studies assessed how U.S. children ages 5–17 and adults (N = 416; 55% female; 67% white) evaluated those accessing digital information belonging to someone else, either location data (Study 1) or digital photos (Study 2). The trustworthiness of the tracker (Studies 1 and 2) and the privacy of the information (Study 2) were manipulated. At all ages, evaluations were more negative when the tracker was less trustworthy, and when information was private. However, younger children were substantially more positive overall about digital tracking than older participants. These results, yielding primarily medium-to-large effect sizes, suggest that with age, children increasingly appreciate digital privacy considerations.     

Causal Learning Across Culture and Socioeconomic Status

Extensive research has explored the ability of young children to learn about the causal structure of the world from patterns of evidence. These studies, however, have been conducted with middle-class samples from North America and Europe. In the present study, low-income Peruvian 4- and 5-year-olds and adults, low-income U.S. 4- and 5-year-olds in Head Start programs, and middle-class children from the United States participated in a causal learning task (N = 435). Consistent with previous studies, children learned both specific causal relations and more abstract causal principles across culture and socioeconomic status (SES). The Peruvian children and adults generally performed like middle-class U.S. children and adults, but the low-SES U.S. children showed some differences.     

How age and race affect the frequency,timing, and content of conversations about race with children

Anti-racist efforts require talking with children about race. The present work tested the predictors of U.S. adults' (N = 441; 52% female; 32% BIPOC participants; M_age = 35 years) conversations about race with children across two timepoints in 2019. Approximately 60% of adult participants talked to their children (3–12 years) about race during the preceding week; only 29% talked to other adults about race during the same period. This paper describes the content and predictors of conversations about race, revealing how conversations differ depending on the participant's race, a child's age, and whether the conversation occurs with children or another adult. These data have important implications for theorizing about when, why, and how adults actually talk about race with children and adults.     

Children’s and Adults’ Views of Punishment as a Path to Redemption

The current work investigated the extent to which children (N=171 6- to 8-year-olds) and adults (N = 94) view punishment as redemptive. In Study 1, children—but not adults—reported that “mean” individuals became “nicer” after one severe form of punishment (incarceration). Moreover, adults expected “nice” individuals’ moral character to worsen following punishment; however, we did not find that children expected such a change. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that children view “mean” individuals as becoming “nicer” following both severe (incarceration) and relatively minor (time-out) punishments, suggesting that the pattern of results from Study 1 generalizes across punishment types. Together, these studies indicate that children—but not adults—may view punishment as a vehicle for redemption.     

“These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty”: Older Children and Adults Struggle With Induced‐State Episodic Foresight

We explored children's and adults’ ability to disengage from current physiological states when forecasting future desires. In Study 1, 8‐ to 13‐year‐olds and adults (N = 104) ate pretzels (to induce thirst) and then predicted and explained what they would want tomorrow, pretzels or water. Demonstrating life‐span continuity, approximately 70% of participants, regardless of age, chose water and referenced current thirst as their rationale. Individual differences in working memory and undergraduate grade point average were positively related to performance on the pretzel task. In Study 2, we obtained baseline preferences from adults (N = 35) and confirmed that, prior to consuming pretzels, people do not anticipate wanting water more than pretzels the next day. Together, these findings indicate that both children and adults are tethered to the present when forecasting their future desires.     

Children Use Nonverbal Cues to Make Inferences About Social Power

Four studies (N = 192) tested whether young children use nonverbal information to make inferences about differences in social power. Five‐ and six‐year‐old children were able to determine which of two adults was “in charge” in dynamic videotaped conversations (Study 1) and in static photographs (Study 4) using only nonverbal cues. Younger children (3–4 years) were not successful in Study 1 or Study 4. Removing irrelevant linguistic information from conversations did not improve the performance of 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children (Study 3), but including relevant linguistic cues did (Study 2). Thus, at least by 5 years of age, children show sensitivity to some of the same nonverbal cues adults use to determine other people's social roles.     

Leaving a Choice for Others: Children’s Evaluations of Considerate,Socially-Mindful Actions

People value those who act with others in mind even as they pursue their own goals. Across three studies (N = 566; 4- to 6-year-olds), we investigated children’s developing understanding of such considerate, socially-mindful actions. By age 6, both U.S. and Chinese children positively evaluate a character who takes a snack for herself in a way that leaves a snack choice for others over a character who leaves no choice (Study 1), but only when the actors had alternative possible actions (Study 2) and when a clear beneficiary was present (Study 3). These results suggest an emerging ability to infer underlying social intentions from self-oriented actions, providing insights into the role of social-cognitive capacities versus culture-specific norms in children’s moral evaluations.     

Monoracial and Biracial Children: Effects of Racial Identity Saliency on Social Learning and Social Preferences

Children prefer learning from, and affiliating with, their racial in‐group but those preferences may vary for biracial children. Monoracial (White, Black, Asian) and biracial (Black/White, Asian/White) children (N = 246, 3–8 years) had their racial identity primed. In a learning preferences task, participants determined the function of a novel object after watching adults (White, Black, and Asian) demonstrate its uses. In the social preferences task, participants saw pairs of children (White, Black, and Asian) and chose with whom they most wanted to socially affiliate. Biracial children showed flexibility in racial identification during learning and social tasks. However, minority‐primed biracial children were not more likely than monoracial minorities to socially affiliate with primed racial in‐group members, indicating their in‐group preferences are contextually based.     

Do Children See in Black and White? Children's and Adults' Categorizations of Multiracial Individuals

Categorizations of multiracial individuals provide insight into the development of racial concepts. Children's (4–13 years) and adults', both White (Study 1) and Black (Study 2; N = 387), categorizations of multiracial individuals were examined. White children (unlike Black children) more often categorized multiracial individuals as Black than as White in the absence of parentage information. White and Black adults (unlike children) more often categorized multiracial individuals as Black than as White, even when knowing the individuals' parentage. Children's rates of in‐group contact predicted their categorizations. These data suggest that a tendency to categorize multiracial individuals as Black relative to White emerges early in development and results from perceptual biases in White children but ideological motives in White and Black adults.     

Engaging White parents to address their White children's racial biases in the Black-White context

Multiple studies (n = 1065 parents, 625 females, 437 males, 3 nonbinary, 99.06% White; n = 80, 5 to 7-year-old children, 35 girls, 45 boys, 87.50% White; data collection September 2017–January 2021) investigated White U.S. parents' thinking about White children's Black-White racial biases. In Studies 1–3, parents reported that their own and other children would not express racial biases. When predicting children's social preferences for Black and White children (Study 2), parents underestimated their own and other children's racial biases. Reading an article about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases (Study 3) increased parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address children's biases (relative to a control condition). The findings have implications for engaging White parents to address their children's racial biases.     

Smart Conformists: Children and Adolescents Associate Conformity With Intelligence Across Cultures

The current study used a novel methodology based on multivocal ethnography to assess the relations between conformity and evaluations of intelligence and good behavior among Western (U.S.) and non-Western (Ni-Vanuatu) children (6- to 11-year-olds) and adolescents (13- to 17-year-olds; N = 256). Previous research has shown that U.S. adults were less likely to endorse high-conformity children as intelligent than Ni-Vanuatu adults. The current data demonstrate that in contrast to prior studies documenting cultural differences between adults' evaluations of conformity, children and adolescents in the United States and Vanuatu have a conformity bias when evaluating peers' intelligence and behavior. Conformity bias for good behavior increases with age. The results have implications for understanding the interplay of conformity bias and trait psychology across cultures and development.     

Children's developing ability to adjust their beliefs reasonably in light of disagreement

Two preregistered experiments (N = 218) investigated children's developing ability to respond reasonably to disagreement. U.S. children aged 4–9, and adults (50% female, mostly white) formed an initial belief, and were confronted with the belief of a disagreeing other, whose evidence was weaker, stronger than, or equal to participants' evidence. With age, participants were increasingly likely to maintain their initial belief when their own evidence was stronger, adopt the other's belief when their evidence was weaker, and suspend judgment when both had equally strong evidence. Interestingly, 4- to 6-year-olds only suspended judgment reliably when this was assessed via the search for additional information (Experiment 2). Together, our experiments suggest that the ability to respond reasonably to disagreement develops over the preschool years.     

The Role of Competitive and Cooperative Norms in the Development of Deviant Evaluations

The present study examined how peer group norms influence children's evaluations of deviant ingroup members. Following the manipulation of competitive or cooperative norms, participants (children, M_age = 8.69; adolescents, M_age = 13.81; adults, M_age = 20.89; n = 263) evaluated deviant ingroup members from their own and the group's perspective. Children rated cooperative deviancy positively and believed their group would do the same. Adolescents and adults believed that their group would negatively evaluate cooperative deviancy when their group supported a competitive allocation strategy. Reasoning varied based on norm and participants’ agreement with deviancy. Understanding an ingroup may not be favorable toward a cooperative deviant in a competitive context is a developmental challenge requiring the coordination of social and moral norms.     

Children and adults' intuitions of what people can believe

Two preregistered studies tested how 5- to 6-year-olds, 7- to 8-year-olds, and adults judged the possibility of holding alternative beliefs (N = 240, 110 females, U.S. sample, mixed ethnicities, data collected from September 2020 through October 2021). In Study 1, children and adults thought people could not hold different beliefs when their initial beliefs were supported by evidence (but judged they could without this evidential constraint). In Study 2, children and adults thought people could not hold different beliefs when their initial beliefs were moral beliefs (but judged they could without this moral constraint). Young children viewed moral beliefs as more constrained than adults. These results suggest that young children already have sophisticated intuitions of the possibility of holding various beliefs and how certain beliefs are constrained.     

If You're Happy and You Know It: Positive Moods Reduce Age‐Related Differences in False Memory

When tested in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm, children typically exhibit fewer false memories than do adolescents or adults. Here, participants’ moods and the valence of word lists were manipulated to explore the mechanism responsible for this developmental reversal in memory performance. Children (7‐ to 8‐year‐olds), adolescents (11‐ to 12‐year‐olds), and young adults (18‐ to 22‐year‐olds; N = 270) were assigned to one of three induced mood conditions and were presented with emotional word lists. In negative moods, adolescents and adults falsely recalled more negative information than did children, showing the typical developmental reversal effect. This effect, however, was eliminated when participants were in positive moods. The findings provide support for associative‐activation theory and have important implications for our understanding of the development of emotional false memories.     

Who's the Boss? Concepts of Social Power Across Development

Power differences are observed in children's early relationships, yet little is known about how children conceptualize social power. Study 1 recruited adults (n = 35) to assess the validity of a series of vignettes to measure five dimensions of social power. Using these vignettes, Study 2 (149 three‐ to nine‐year‐olds, 42 adults) and Study 3 (86 three‐ to nine‐year‐olds, 22 adults) showed that children visiting a science museum at a middle class university town are sensitive to several dimensions of social power from a young age; however, an adult‐like breadth of power concepts does not develop until 7–9 years. Children understand social power whether the powerful character is malevolent or benevolent, though malevolent power is easier to detect for children and adults.     

Infants’ and Young Children's Imitation of Linguistic In‐Group and Out‐Group Informants

Although children can use social categories to intelligently select informants, children's preference for in‐group informants has not been consistently demonstrated across age and context. This research clarifies the extent to which children use social categories to guide learning by presenting participants with a live or video‐recorded action demonstration by a linguistic in‐group and/or out‐group model. Participants’ (N = 104) propensity to imitate these actions was assessed. Nineteen‐month‐olds did not selectively imitate the actions of the in‐group model in live contexts, though in‐group preferences were found after watching the demonstration on video. Three‐year‐olds selectively imitated the actions demonstrated by the in‐group member regardless of context. These results indicate that in‐group preferences have a more nuanced effect on social learning than previous research has indicated.     

A Stereotype Threat Account of Boys' Academic Underachievement

Three studies examined the role of stereotype threat in boys' academic underachievement. Study 1 (children aged 4–10, n = 238) showed that girls from age 4 years and boys from age 7 years believed, and thought adults believed, that boys are academically inferior to girls. Study 2 manipulated stereotype threat, informing children aged 7–8 years (n = 162) that boys tend to do worse than girls at school. This manipulation hindered boys' performance on a reading, writing, and math test, but did not affect girls' performance. Study 3 counteracted stereotype threat, informing children aged 6–9 years (n = 184) that boys and girls were expected to perform similarly. This improved the performance of boys and did not affect that of girls.