Can this moldy fruit be eaten? Four-to six-year-old children's epistemic trust in food domain experts.

Abstract

Children's understanding of food is influenced by the information they receive from others. Two studies explored the trust of 180 Chinese children (90 girls and 90 boys; aged 4-6) in information providers with different levels of expertise in the food domain (fruit experts vs. fruit farmers vs. ordinary people) in nonconflict and conflict situations. The results showed that children of all ages were more likely to trust a fruit expert (Study 1) and a fruit farmer (Study 2) than a common person. However, if the statement provided by the expert conflicted with the children's pre-existing beliefs, less than half of the children (Study 1: 33%; Study 2: 46%) chose to accept the expert's statement and revised prior beliefs. The comparative analyses of Studies 1 and 2 indicated that 6-year-olds could accurately judge the level of expertise of fruit experts and fruit farmers, and they tended to trust fruit experts with a higher level of professional knowledge than fruit farmers with a slightly lower level of specialty. Study 3 further confirmed that both adults and children perceived the fruit expert as more knowledgeable than the fruit farmer. These suggest that the children could evaluate the learning situation, the information providers' expertise, and their prior experience when faced with the question of whether high-risk foods were edible.