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  4. Early sensitivity to arguments: How preschoolers weight circular arguments
 
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Early sensitivity to arguments: How preschoolers weight circular arguments

Auteur(s)
Mercier, Hugo 
Institut des sciences du langage et de la communication 
Bernard, Stephane 
Institut des sciences du langage et de la communication 
Clément, Fabrice 
Institut des sciences du langage et de la communication 
Date de parution
2014
In
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Mots-clés
  • circularity
  • children
  • reasoning
  • argumentation
  • circularity

  • children

  • reasoning

  • argumentation

Résumé
Observational studies suggest that children as young as 2 years can evaluate some of the arguments people offer them. However, experimental studies of sensitivity to different arguments have not yet targeted children younger than 5 years. The current study aimed at bridging this gap by testing the ability of preschoolers (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) to weight arguments. To do so, it focused on a common type of fallacy?circularity?to which 5-year-olds are sensitive. The current experiment asked children?and, as a group control, adults?to choose between the contradictory opinions of two speakers. In the first task, participants of all age groups favored an opinion supported by a strong argument over an opinion supported by a circular argument. In the second task, 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds or adults, favored the opinion supported by a circular argument over an unsupported opinion. We suggest that the results of these tasks in 3- to 5-year-olds are best interpreted as resulting from the combination of two mechanisms: (a) basic skills of argument evaluations that process the content of arguments, allowing children as young as 3 years to favor non-circular arguments over circular arguments, and (b) a heuristic that leads older children (4- and 5-year-olds) to give some weight to circular arguments, possibly by interpreting these arguments as a cue to speaker dominance.
Identifiants
https://libra.unine.ch/handle/123456789/20550
_
10.1016/j.jecp.2013.11.011
Type de publication
journal article
Dossier(s) à télécharger
 main article: 52.pdf (369.7 KB)
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