Preschoolers selectively trust and selectively share with others based on their past accuracy and intentions

This study investigated whether preschool-age children consider both an individual's past accuracy and intentions when deciding whether to trust and share with that individual. The participants, 3-to 5-year-olds (N = 168), played a searching game with partners who varied in both accuracy (accurate or inaccurate) and inten-tions (prosocial or antisocial). Children received advice from part-ners about where to look for a hidden object, earning prizes for correct guesses. Then they were given an opportunity to share their prizes with their partner. Results indicated that children trusted sources who provided accurate advice (regardless of intentions) and shared with sources who provided accurate advice or demon-strated prosocial intentions. These findings suggest that children attend to both an individual's accuracy and intentions when decid-ing how to interact with social partners and may weigh this infor-mation differently to make different social decisions.Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).