Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (2): 379-385.

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Children's Selective Trust in the Perspectives of Dual-Process Model

  

  • Received:2021-08-19 Revised:2022-01-21 Online:2022-03-20 Published:2022-12-11

双加工模型视角下的儿童选择性信任

张芷诺1,杜瑶1,汤玉龙2   

  1. 1. 浙江工业大学教育科学与技术学院应用心理研究所
    2. 浙江工业大学
  • 通讯作者: 汤玉龙

Abstract: Children understand the world through learning. But they cannot obtain knowledge only through direct observation. Such as ethics, morality, and religious beliefs, children need to obtain knowledge from others. But children are likely to be deceived or gain wrong knowledge if they trusted the information indiscriminately. Therefore, as one of the basic abilities required for children's learning, the selective trust could help children gain useful information and construct their cognitive world. Selective trust germinated in infancy and matured from toddler to childhood. Current research results showed that children's selective trust was a credulous and rational process. So, what was the true nature of children's selective learning? How to explain these inconsistent findings? What was the cognitive mechanism behind these inconsistencies? The dual-processing model of selective trust provided a new way for explaining the cognitive mechanism behind children's learning. A core point of the dual-processing model was that children use simple heuristic strategies to make default judgments in the early stages of development. However, as they grew up and their cognitive abilities developed, children's trust judgment strategies became more rational. The heuristic strategy was the Type I processing, and the rational processing strategy was the Type II processing. When Type II processing appeared, Type I processing would not disappear but still coexist with Type II processing in children's selective trust. When the Type I processing could not work, Type II processing would intervene and help children make rational choices. Unlike the dual-processing model in cognitive psychology, the character of the dual-processing model in selective trust was that, in selective trust, Type I processing was based on simple heuristic strategies and did not require specific ability and knowledge. Previous research raised that Type I process included at least two main strategies: general-trust heuristic and trust-the-better heuristic. We proposed a new strategy, associative heuristic. Under this heuristic, children only need to make trust judgments by associating surface features with information provider characteristics based on their observation of the information provider's previous behavior. Type II processing required children to use rational processing methods to compare and match the information providers' abilities and traits more accurately according to specific task requirements. Type II processing had two manifestations. The first aspect was that children could trust appropriate information providers based on the clues and specific task scenarios given when faced with a single trust clue. The second aspect was that children could overcome the interference of social cues and make trust judgments based on cognitive cues when faced with multiple trust cues. After reviewing the relevant studies, we proposed that the cognitive ability, the family environment, and the nature of the task would affect children how use the two processing strategies. In sum, based on introducing the dual-processing model, this article sorted out the credulity and rationality of children under different selective trust task situations, and discussed how to distinguish between Type I and Type II processing and what factors affect them. Discussing this model could help researchers understand the relevant results in children's selective trust and clarify the mechanism behind it, which can help researchers to better understand children's learning process.

Key words: selective trust, children, dual-processing model

摘要: 选择性信任能力是儿童学习所需要的基本能力之一。选择性信任的双加工模型认为儿童存在I型加工和II型加工两类加工过程。其中I型加工通过不断提供默认的启发式策略,自动且迅速做出反应。II型加工则是对于信任线索的理性判断。本文在介绍双加工模型的基础之上,对I型和II型加工进行了进一步的区分与完善,总结了影响II型加工产生的因素,并提出了未来可以从I、II型加工产生的时间及作用机制、模型适用范围等方面进一步推进儿童选择性信任的研究。

关键词: 选择性信任, 儿童, 双加工模型

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