Gossip and Kids

How do children react on the information they receive from different channels, specifically their own observations vs. testimony especially when these two channels are at odds with each other?  An example would be where you meet a new person. Your first impression of this person is that he or she is really nice and you like them. Then someone comes along and tells you what a terrible person this person is – you now find yourself with a conflict between your fist hand observation and a testimony. How do you tend to react?

A study was done on 5 year old children in order to determine how they react in these kinds of situations and why.  In this study children received conflicting information on a puppet.  The children saw that the puppet had good manners, was helpful and didn’t seem bad at all. They were then told that the puppet was actually very mean and didn’t behave well.  This specific study found that the channel of information for these 5 year olds didn’t matter.  The children trusted both channels equally it was found that they tend to care more about the negative information than the positive information. The reason for this is that in early ontogeny and phylogeny it is important for survival to avoid adverse things.  This for example, refers to the probability that children are more likely to remember (or maybe act on?) things that are negative, such as plants with possible lethal effects. To further compound the situation we tend to keep children safe by pointing out the bad and dangerous things.  Try to keep calm when you explain the negative side of things to a child and encourage them.