Children are sensitive to their own and others' epistemic states and use these to guide their learning and communication. Here, we systematically examined children's use of epistemic states to make diagnostic social inferences. Specifically, we investigated children's group membership inferences based on what others do and do not know and what…

Past research provides evidence that children use at least 2 potentially competing strategies when choosing informants: they attend to informants' past accuracy and to their social identity (e.g., their status as native- vs. foreign-accented speakers). We explore how children reconcile these 2 strategies when they are put in conflict and whether…

This study surveyed ninth- and eleventh-graders' evaluations of social exclusion based on social group membership. Responses indicated that participants found exclusion less wrong than denying resources, and used fewer moral and more conventional reasons to justify judgments. Participants relied on their group knowledge or stereotypes in…