Children's Beliefs About Possibility Differ Across Dreams, Stories, and Reality

Preschoolers negatively evaluate conventional norm violations in pretend play

A growing body of research demonstrates that children's pretend play is largely influenced by their understanding of reality. The current work took a novel approach to testing children's understanding of pretense by investigating whether children apply and uphold their knowledge of conventional norms in pretend play. In this study, 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 200) were introduced to a series of pretend play scenarios (e.g., pretending to eat breakfast) in which a puppet pretended to follow a norm (e.g., pretended to eat cereal for breakfast) or violate a norm (e.g., pretended to eat a hamburger for breakfast). These pretend play scenarios were presented as either fantastical or realistic in nature. Consistent with our hypotheses, children evaluated pretend norm violation more negatively than pretend norm adherence and reported liking norm violators less than norm followers. Contrary to our hypothesis, the manipulation of play context (fantastical vs. realistic) did not affect children's evaluations. That is, children were just as negative about pretend norm violations (relative to pretend norm adherence) in fantastical pretend play scenarios as they were in realistic pretend play scenarios. Furthermore, individual differences in children's fantasy orientation did not predict their evaluations. This study is the first to establish that children maintain their real-world understanding of conventional norms in pretend play, providing further evidence that children's pretense is largely realistic in nature.

Children's susceptibility to online misinformation

Children have a reputation for credulity that is undeserved; even preschoolers have proven adept at identifying implausible claims and unreliable informants. Still, the strategies children use to identify and reject dubious information are often superficial, which leaves them vulnerable to accepting such information if conveyed through seemingly authoritative channels or formatted in seemingly authentic ways. Indeed, children of all ages have difficulty differentiating legitimate websites and news stories from illegitimate ones, as they are misled by the inclusion of outwardly professional features such as graphs, statistics, and journalistic layout. Children may not be inherently credulous, but their skepticism toward dubious information is often shallow enough to be overridden by the deceptive trappings of online misinformation.

Causal knowledge and children's possibility judgments

Children often say that strange and improbable events, like eating pickle-flavored ice cream, are impossible. Two experiments explored whether these beliefs are explained by limits in children's causal knowledge. Participants were 423 predominantly White Canadian 4- to 7-year-olds (44% female) tested in 2020-2021. Providing children with causal information about ordinary events did not lead them to affirm that improbable events are possible, and they more often affirmed improbable events after merely learning that a similar event had occurred. However, children were most likely to affirm events if they learned how similar events happened (OR = 2.16). The findings suggest that knowledge of causal circumstances may only impact children's beliefs about the possibility after they are able to draw connections between potential events and known events.

A Similarity Heuristic in Children's Possibility Judgments

Children often judge that strange and improbable events are impossible, but the mechanisms behind their reasoning remain unclear. This article (N = 250) provides evidence that young children use a similarity heuristic that compares potential events to similar known events to determine whether events are possible. Experiment 1 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds who hear about improbable events go on to judge that similar improbable events can happen. Experiment 2 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds more often affirm that improbable events can happen if told about related improbable events than if told about unrelated ones. Finally, Experiment 3 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds affirm the possibility of improbable events related to known events, but deny that related impossible events can happen.