"She must not know much about that": Children's inferences based on others' listener design

In the classroom, concerns with appearing incompetent can pose a significant barrier to learning effectively. While we know students worry about appearing incompetent when making mistakes, this project explores a subtle yet pervasive behavior that may also act as such a barrier: how others treat and talk to the child. Two children could ask the exact same thing, but be seen very differently based on how others (e.g., teachers) explain things to them. If a teacher explains something in a highly simple manner in response to a student’s question, then children may assume that student does not know much. This could make that student reluctant to ask questions in the first place for fear of appearing ignorant. Even worse, it is likely that stereotyped groups will be disproportionately impacted. If stereotypes indicate that a group lacks ability or knowledge (e.g., girls are not good at math) and a speaker holds this belief, then they are more likely to speak to members of that group as though they lack knowledge (explaining math concepts more simply to girls than boys). In this way, these behaviors may inadvertently reinforce harmful stereotypes and cause people from these stereotyped groups to disengage in the classroom. These studies investigate children’s ability to pick up on these cues and provide insights about how to prevent these concerns from stifling children’s learning. Using laboratory studies that probe children’s evaluations and behavior, these studies addresses new questions about children’s emerging reputational thinking. When in development can children understand others’ mental states by using subtle cues and how nuanced are these impressions? Do children understand that how someone is spoken to may not be reflective of that person’s actual knowledge, but only the speaker’s assumptions? When someone does underestimate children’s own knowledge, how do they attempt to correct this miscalibration and does it make them reluctant to ask questions? These questions underly the series of studies in this proposal, which will advance understanding of the mental representations that underlie children’s reputational inferences based on how people are spoken to. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.