Social Learning in Early Childhood: Learning When to Seek Help and How to Give It

Abstract

The amount and kinds of information that humans have access to is vastly increased by our ability to learn from and teach others. It is impossible, however, for a single person to learn all of this information in a lifetime. How do we decide what information is most important to seek from or pass on to someone else? This dissertation explores how young children determine what information is most worthy of transmission, both as learners and as teachers. In Paper 1, we asked whether preschoolers are capable of proactive help-seeking; that is, whether they appropriately seek help before attempting a problem. Such an ability would help children decide when they should query others for information or assistance. Four- and five-year-olds predicted they would need help with new puzzle boxes, but not with those whose solutions they had previously learned. However, actual help-seeking rates were lower than predicted help-seeking rates, and tended to decrease with age. The results indicate that preschoolers are able to seek help proactively, but sometimes choose to forgo help. Papers 2 and 3 investigated the kinds of information that children choose to teach others. In Paper 2, we asked whether four- to six-year-old children used their own learning history to identify difficult-to-acquire information to teach, or whether they preferred to pass on information they had been taught. Children learned two solutions to a puzzle box; one solution was self-discovered and the other was taught by an experimenter. They were then asked to teach a naïve learner about the box. Study 1 demonstrates that children prefer to teach a taught method that is complex and opaque over a self-discovered method that is simple and non-opaque. Study 2 further shows that, when the two methods are equally opaque, children do not preferentially teach the taught method. Study 3 demonstrates that children prefer to teach an opaque method over a non-opaque method, even when the opaque method is not complex. The results of these studies suggest that, by four years of age, children prioritize the transmission of difficult-to-acquire information. In Paper 3, we asked whether five- to seven-year-old children’s teaching varied depending on the age difference between them and their partner. We examined teaching directed at both younger and older siblings, and found systematic effects of age difference, as well as effects of task, order, and positivity of play interactions. Results indicate that, even when not explicitly directed to teach, children readily share conceptual information with their siblings, and this teaching is modulated by age difference. Together, these findings suggest that children are capable of making informed decisions about their learning and teaching by the early childhood years.