What makes children defy their peers? Chinese and Spanish preschoolers' decisions to trust (or not) peer consensus

Abstract

The more people agree on the same piece of information, the more likely are individuals to endorse the testimonial information. Children are sensitive to consensus but their trust in what a majority says also depends on the decision context, their previous knowledge, and, interestingly, the culture in which they develop. Here we study Chinese (N = 60) and Spanish (N = 48) preschoolers' sensitivity to the opinion of a group of peers in consensus regarding (a) peer interaction events and (b) use of artifacts. For each context, we varied the degree of ambiguity of the situations: unfamiliar, ambiguous, and familiar, where the majority offered a transgressive opinion in conflict with “common sense.” Children were more likely to trust their peers in the unfamiliar and ambiguous situations. In the familiar situations, children showed greater acceptance of transgressive claims regarding artifacts than peer interaction events. The two cultural groups, however, significantly differed in the degree of endorsement. Although Chinese children gave little credibility to their peers even when facing novel information, Spaniards deferred to them, even at the expense of their own criteria. Together with previous findings, these results indicate culture‐specific patterns related to children's attitudes toward peers versus adults as sources of knowledge.