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Children’s Decision to Transmit Information is Guided by their Evaluation of the Nature of that Information

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Abstract

Recent findings have shown that children’s teaching is guided by their evaluation of what a pupil does versus does not know. While children certainly teach to remedy a knowledge gap between themselves and a learner, we argue that children’s appraisal of the nature of the knowledge that they are seeking to convey and not just whether a knowledge gap exists plays an important role in children’s decision to transmit information. Specifically, we argue that children are more likely to transmit information a pupil does not know in at least three cases: if that information is difficult for the learner to acquire on her own, generic rather than specific, and normative rather than descriptive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Samuel Ronfard

  2. Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Paul L. Harris

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  1. Samuel Ronfard
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  2. Paul L. Harris
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Correspondence to Samuel Ronfard.

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Ronfard, S., Harris, P.L. Children’s Decision to Transmit Information is Guided by their Evaluation of the Nature of that Information. Rev.Phil.Psych. 9, 849–861 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-017-0344-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-017-0344-5

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