We investigate how children balance the quality of informants’ knowledge with the number of endorsements when deciding which of two boxes contains the better option. When group numbers are equal, children choose boxes endorsed by informants with visual access over informants with hearsay (Experiment 1), but are at chance when group size conflicts with quality of knowledge (Experiments 2 and 3)....

Three studies explore mental processes underlying spontaneous trait inferences about self-informants and the spontaneous trait transference characterizing third-party informants. Process differences are suggested in that instructions prompting a nontrait inference (truth or lie?) reduce self-informant trait-savings effects and lower self-informant trait judgments. For third-party informants, su...

In 2 studies, the sensitivity of 3- and 4-year-olds to the previous accuracy of informants was assessed. Children viewed films in which 2 informants labeled familiar objects with differential accuracy (across the 2 experiments, children were exposed to the following rates of accuracy by the more and less accurate informants, respectively: 100% vs. 0%, 100% vs. 25%, 75% vs. 0%, and 75% vs. 25%)....

OBJECTIVE When there exists no single source of information (informant) to validly measure a characteristic, it is typically recommended that data from multiple informants be used. In psychiatric assessment and research, however, multiple informants often provide discordant data, which further confuse the measurement. Strategies such as arbitrarily choosing one informant or using the data from ...