"She must not know much about that": Children's inferences based on others' listener design

“她一定对此了解不多”：孩子们根据别人的听众设计做出的推断

• 批准号: 2317559
• 负责人: Alexander Shaw
• 金额: $ 37.82万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2317559&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: She; must; know; much; about

In the classroom, concerns with appearing incompetent can pose a significant barrier to learning effectively. While we know students worry about appearing incompetent when making mistakes, this project explores a subtle yet pervasive behavior that may also act as such a barrier: how others treat and talk to the child. Two children could ask the exact same thing, but be seen very differently based on how others (e.g., teachers) explain things to them. If a teacher explains something in a highly simple manner in response to a student’s question, then children may assume that student does not know much. This could make that student reluctant to ask questions in the first place for fear of appearing ignorant. Even worse, it is likely that stereotyped groups will be disproportionately impacted. If stereotypes indicate that a group lacks ability or knowledge (e.g., girls are not good at math) and a speaker holds this belief, then they are more likely to speak to members of that group as though they lack knowledge (explaining math concepts more simply to girls than boys). In this way, these behaviors may inadvertently reinforce harmful stereotypes and cause people from these stereotyped groups to disengage in the classroom. These studies investigate children’s ability to pick up on these cues and provide insights about how to prevent these concerns from stifling children’s learning. Using laboratory studies that probe children’s evaluations and behavior, these studies addresses new questions about children’s emerging reputational thinking. When in development can children understand others’ mental states by using subtle cues and how nuanced are these impressions? Do children understand that how someone is spoken to may not be reflective of that person’s actual knowledge, but only the speaker’s assumptions? When someone does underestimate children’s own knowledge, how do they attempt to correct this miscalibration and does it make them reluctant to ask questions? These questions underly the series of studies in this proposal, which will advance understanding of the mental representations that underlie children’s reputational inferences based on how people are spoken to.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在课堂上，对不称职的担忧可能构成有效学习的重大障碍。虽然我们知道学生会担心在犯错误时会显得无能，但该项目探索了一种微妙而普遍的行为，也可能充当这样的障碍：其他人如何对待和与孩子说话。两个孩子可以问完全相同的事情，但是根据其他人（例如老师）向他们解释事情的方式有很大不同的看法。老师以一种非常简单的方式解释了一些学生的问题，然后孩子们可以认为学生对学生的了解不多。这可能使该学生不愿意首先提出问题，因为害怕出现无知。更糟糕的是，刻板印象的群体可能会受到不成比例的影响。如果刻板印象表明一个群体缺乏能力或知识（例如，女孩不擅长数学），并且演讲者认为这是一个相信的，那么他们更有可能与该小组的成员说话，就好像他们缺乏知识一样（对女孩的解释比男孩比男孩更简单）。通过这种方式，这些行为可能会无意间加强有害的刻板印象，并使这些刻板印象的人在课堂上脱离接触。这些研究调查了儿童掌握这些线索的能力，并提供有关如何防止这些担忧僵化儿童学习的见解。这些研究利用探究儿童评估和行为的实验室研究，解决了有关儿童新兴的声誉思维的新问题。在发展中，孩子们可以通过使用微妙的线索来理解他人的心理状态，以及这些印象如何细微差别？孩子们知道如何与某人交谈可能不会反映出该人的实际知识，而只是说话者的假设？当某人低估了孩子们自己的知识时，他们如何试图纠正这种错误校准，并且是否使他们不愿意提出问题？这些提案中的一系列研究中的这些问题将根据人们的讲话方式来提高对儿童声誉信息的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的审查标准通过评估来评估的。