Longitudinal changes in trusting behavior across adolescence and their neural correlates were examined. Neural regions of interest (ROIs) included the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), left anterior insula (AI), bilateral ventral striatum (VS), and right dorsal striatum (DS). Participants (wave 1 age: M =…

Theories of cultural evolution posit that cues of competence-based prestige, rather than formidability-based dominance, should guide culturally transmitted learning, but recent work suggested that French and Kaqchikel Guatamalan preschoolers place their epistemic trust in dominant others. In contrast, this study shows that 249 three- to…

We investigated children's information seeking in response to a surprising claim (Study 1, N = 109, 54 Female, Range = 4.02-6.94 years, 49% White, 21% Mixed Ethnicity, 19% Southeast Asian, infStudy 2, N = 154, 74 Female, Range = 4.09-7.99, 50% White, 20% Mixed Ethnicity, 17% Southeast Asian, September 2020-December 2020). Relative to younger…

This daily diary study examined how adolescents' institutional and teacher-specific trust predicted classroom behavioral engagement the day after being disciplined by that teacher. Within mathematics classrooms, adolescents (N = 190; M[subscript age] = 14 years) reported institutional and teacher-specific trust and then completed a 15-day diary…

Children generally favor individuals in their own group over others, but it is unclear which dimensions of the out-group affect this bias. This issue was investigated among 7- to 8-year-old and 11- to 12-year-old Iranian children (N = 71). Participants evaluated in-group members and three different out-groups: Iranian children from another school,…

Increased attention is being placed on the importance of ethnic-racial socialization in children of color's academic outcomes. Synthesizing research on the effects of parental ethnic-racial socialization, this meta-analysis of 37 studies reveals that overall the relation between ethnic-racial socialization and academic outcomes was positive,…

Group membership is a strong driver of everyday life in humans, influencing similarity judgments, trust choices, and learning processes. However, its ontogenetic development remains to be understood. This study investigated how group membership, age, sex, and identification with a team influenced 39- to 60-month-old children (N = 94) in a series…

This research tested a social-developmental process model of trust discernment. From sixth to eighth grade, White and African American students were surveyed twice yearly (ages 11-14; Study 1, N = 277). African American students were more aware of racial bias in school disciplinary decisions, and as this awareness grew it predicted a loss of trust…

The reported research tested the hypothesis that young children detect logical inconsistency in communicative contexts that support the evaluation of speakers' epistemic reliability. In two experiments (N = 194), 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with two speakers who expressed logically consistent or inconsistent claims. Three-year-olds failed to…

This study examined 3- to 7-year-old children's reliance on informant testimony to learn about a novel animal. Sixty participants were given positive or negative information about an Australian marsupial from an informant described as a maternal figure or a zookeeper. Children were asked which informant was correct and were invited to touch…

The epistemic trust literature emphasizes that children's evaluations of informants' trustworthiness affects learning, but there is no evidence that epistemic trust affects learning in academic domains. The current study investigated how reliability affects decimal learning. Fourth and fifth graders (N = 122; M[subscript age] = 10.1 years)…

Children prefer to learn from informants in consensus with one another. However, no research has examined whether this preference exists across cultures, and whether the race of the informants impacts that preference. In 2 studies, one hundred thirty-six 4- to 7-year-old European American and Taiwanese children demonstrated a systematic preference…

Adolescents' perceptions of peers' relational characteristics (e.g., support, trustworthiness) were examined for subtypes of youth who evidenced chronic maladaptive behavior, chronic peer group rejection, or combinations of these risk factors. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify subgroups of participants within a normative…

Preschool-age children's reasoning about the reliability of deceptive sources was investigated. Ninety 3- to 5-year-olds watched several trials in which an informant gave advice about the location of a hidden sticker. Informants were either "helpers" who were happy to give correct advice, or "trickers" who were happy to give incorrect advice.…

This study examined how informants' traits affect how children seek information, trust testimony, and make inferences about informants' knowledge. Eighty-one 3- to 6-year-olds and 26 adults completed tasks where they requested and endorsed information provided by one of two informants with conflicting traits (e.g., honesty vs. dishonesty).…