The Development of Selective Copying: Children's Learning From an Expert Versus Their Mother

Lucas, Amanda J.; Burdett, Emily R. R.; Burgess, Vanessa; Wood, Lara A.; McGuigan, Nicola; Harris, Paul L.; Whiten, Andrew

Abstract

© 2016 The Authors. Child Development © 2016 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. This study tested the prediction that, with age, children should rely less on familiarity and more on expertise in their selective social learning. Experiment 1 (N=50) found that 5- to 6-year-olds copied the technique their mother used to extract a prize from a novel puzzle box, in preference to both a stranger and an established expert. This bias occurred despite children acknowledging the expert model's superior capability. Experiment 2 (N=50) demonstrated a shift in 7- to 8-year-olds toward copying the expert. Children aged 9–10 years did not copy according to a model bias. The findings of a follow-up study (N=30) confirmed that, instead, they prioritized their own—partially flawed—causal understanding of the puzzle box.

Citation

Lucas, A. J., Burdett, E. R. R., Burgess, V., Wood, L. A., McGuigan, N., Harris, P. L., & Whiten, A. (2017). The Development of Selective Copying: Children's Learning From an Expert Versus Their Mother. Child Development, 88(6), 2026-2042. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12711

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 31, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Dec 29, 2016
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Nov 28, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 20, 2020
• Journal: Child Development
• Print ISSN: 0009-3920
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-8624
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 88
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 2026-2042
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12711
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2839376
• Publisher URL: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12711