Young Children Use Confidence Cues to Resolve Conflicts and Think Independently

A new study by Algoma University Assistant Professor of Psychology and researcher, Carolyn Baer, delves into a previously underrecognized aspect of children’s cognitive growth: the ability to apply subtle social cues, such as expressed confidence, into their decision-making process. This ability in children marks a significant developmental step away from imitation and toward independent, socially informed thinking.

The research involved 92 children between the ages of 5 and 10 and focused on how they navigated disagreement between two speakers who each gave different accounts of the same unobserved event. The study found that younger children generally trusted highly confident-sounding answers, while older children, around age 8, began showing signs of more sophisticated reasoning.

“Our findings suggest that children aren’t just passive learners, they are also strategically forming their own opinions,” said Baer. “Children are tuning into how sure someone sounds, and using that information to decide whether to believe them or to form totally new beliefs. This kind of reasoning is foundational for being a critical thinker in a complex world.”

In one scenario, children were asked to determine how many spots a fictional monster had based on two conflicting reports, with one speaker saying four and the other eight. The results showed that older children often chose a compromise answer, such as six, even though neither speaker had suggested it. However, this only occurred when both speakers appeared equally confident. When one speaker showed greater confidence, children of all ages were more likely to trust that speaker. These findings suggest that confidence plays a key role in how children judge the credibility of information sources.

These findings reveal a previously underrecognized aspect of children’s cognitive growth: the ability to apply subtle social cues, such as expressed confidence, into their decision-making process. This ability in children marks a significant developmental step away from imitation and toward independent, socially informed thinking.

This work was supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

The full study is available to read at Developmental Science.

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