The Influence Of The Semantic Characteristics Of The Informant's Speech On The Selective Trust Of Children In Grades 1 To 3 Of Primary Schoo

Selective trust is a decision-making process in which individuals make trust or distrust judgments about a particular information provider based on their own criteria.Phonology is an important external human characteristic,and the understanding and use of phonological cues is an important ability in social life.In this study,two types of phonological features: phonological gender,accent,and semantic deterministic features were selected and their effects on children’s selective trust were investigated in four elementary school in Tianjin and Liaoning Province,with children in grades 1,2,and 3,using a conflicting information source paradigm.Experiment 1 examines whether phonological gender has an effect on children’s selective trust and whether this effect has gender differences.A mixed design of 2(voice gender: male voice,female voice)× 2(subject gender: male,female)× 3(grade levels: first,second,and third)was used with 120 boys and 133 girls in grades 1,2,and 3 selected from two elementary schools in Liaoning Province.The results showed that voice gender influenced children’s selective trust,with higher trust in female voice in all grades,decreasing with grade,and no gender differences.Experiment 2 examined whether accent had an effect on children’s selective trust and whether there were regional differences in this effect.First-,second-,and third-grade subjects were selected from two elementary school in Liaoning Province and Tianjin City,respectively;240 subjects in Liaoning Province and 242 subjects in Tianjin City.A mixed design of 3(accent category: Standard Mandarin,Northeastern accent,and Tianjin accent)× 2(region: Northeastern region,Tianjin region)× 3(grade levels: first,second,and third grade)was used.The results showed that accent influenced children’s selective trust,and children in all grades in both Northeast and Tianjin showed selective trust in Mandarin,with no significant grade differences.Children in Northeast China developed trust in local accents in the lower grades.Experiment 3 investigated semantic deterministic features.A mixed design of 2(semantic certainty: high certainty,low certainty)× 3(grade levels: first,second,and third)was used with114 boys and 134 girls in grades 1,2,and 3 selected from two elementary schools in Liaoning Province.The results indicated that children in each grade level had similar levels of trust in high semantic certainty informants.The results suggest that phonological gender,accent,and semantic certainty all have an effect on selective trust among children in grades 1,2,and 3.