"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，对表现得不称职的担忧可能会对有效学习构成重大障碍。虽然我们知道学生担心犯错误时会显得无能，但这个项目探索了一种微妙但普遍的行为，它也可能起到这样的障碍：其他人如何对待孩子和与孩子交谈。两个孩子可能会问完全相同的问题，但根据其他人(例如，老师)对他们解释的方式，他们的看法却截然不同。如果老师以非常简单的方式回答学生的问题，那么孩子们可能会认为学生知道的不多。这可能会让这名学生一开始就不愿提问，以免显得无知。更糟糕的是，千篇一律的群体很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)，而发言者持有这种信念，那么他们更有可能对该群体的成员说话，好像他们缺乏知识一样(向女孩解释数学概念比向男孩解释更简单)。通过这种方式，这些行为可能会在不经意间强化有害的刻板印象，并导致这些刻板印象群体的人脱离课堂。这些研究调查了儿童捕捉这些线索的能力，并就如何防止这些担忧扼杀儿童的学习提供了见解。这些研究使用了探索儿童评价和行为的实验室研究，解决了关于儿童正在形成的声誉思维的新问题。在发育阶段，儿童能否通过使用微妙的线索来理解他人的心理状态，以及这些印象的细微差别有多大？孩子们是否明白，与人交谈的方式可能并不反映这个人的实际知识，而只是说话者的假设？当有人确实低估了孩子们自己的知识时，他们如何尝试纠正这种错误的校准，这是否会让他们不愿提问？这些问题是这项提案中一系列研究的基础，这些研究将促进对儿童基于与人交谈的方式进行声誉推断的精神表征的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。