"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，出现不称职的担忧会在犯错误时构成重要的障碍。可以看到其他人（例如，老师）如何以一种非常简单的方式来解释某些事情，以回应学生的问题，然后说出的孩子确实知道了这一点更糟糕的是，如果刻板印象表明一个群体缺乏能力或知识（女孩不擅长数学），那么刻板的群体可能会受到任何影响。男孩）。使用实验室STHAT调查儿童的行为。在发展中，儿童可以通过使用微妙的提示理解他人的心理状态，以及如何细微差别，孩子们会说，孩子们如何与某人交谈可能不会反映出该人的知识呢？和更广泛的影响审查标准。