Recent work has documented that despite preschool-aged children's understanding of social norms surrounding sharing, they fail to share their resources equally in many contexts. Here we explored two hypotheses for this failure: an "insufficient motivation hypothesis" and an "insufficient cognitive resources hypothesis." With…

To determine whether children retain a preference for a previously accurate informant only in the short term or for long-term use, 3- and 4-year-old children were tested in two experiments. In both experiments, children were given accuracy information about two informants and were subsequently tested for their selective trust in the two informants…

Based on the testimony of others, children learn about a variety of figures that they never meet. We ask when and how they are able to differentiate between the historical figures that they learn about (e.g., Abraham Lincoln) and fantasy characters (e.g., Harry Potter). Experiment 1 showed that both younger (3- and 4-year-olds) and older children…

Across two studies, a wide age range of participants was interviewed about the nature of death. All participants were living in rural Madagascar in a community where ancestral beliefs and practices are widespread. In Study 1, children (8-17 years) and adults (19-71 years) were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. The…

Describes two experiments that examined children's understanding of the distinction between real and apparent emotion. Discusses the findings in relation to research concerning children's concept of mind, their grasp of the appearance-reality distinction; their ability to produce complex, embedded justifications; and their ideas about emotion.…