When presented with a claim that contradicts their intuitions, do children seize opportunities to empirically verify such claims or do they simply acquiesce to what they have been told? To answer this question, we conducted a replication of Ronfard et al. (conducted in the People’s Republic of China) in two countries with distinct religious and political histories (Study 1: Belarus, N = 74; Study 2: Turkey, N = 79). Preschool children were presented with five different-sized Russian dolls and asked to indicate the heaviest doll. All children selected the biggest doll. Half of the children then heard a (false) claim (i.e., that the smallest doll was the heaviest), contradicting their initial intuition. The remaining children heard a (true) claim (i.e., that the biggest doll was the heaviest), confirming their initial intuition. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers typically endorsed the experimenter’s claim no matter whether it had contradicted or confirmed their initial intuition. Next, the experimenter left the room, giving children an opportunity to check the experimenter’s claim by picking up the relevant dolls. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers rarely explored the dolls, regardless of the type of testimony they received and continued to endorse the counterintuitive testimony they received. Furthermore, in Study 2, Turkish preschoolers continued to endorse smallest = heaviest even when doing so could have cost them a large reward. In sum, across two different cultural contexts, preschool children endorsed a counterintuitive claim and did not spontaneously seek evidence to test it. These results confirm and extend those of Ronfard et al.

中文翻译：

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白俄罗斯和土耳其的学龄前儿童接受成人的违反直觉的要求，因此不会自发寻找证据来检验该要求

当孩子提出与他们的直觉相矛盾的主张时，孩子会抓住机会以实证的方式验证这种主张吗？还是他们只是默许他们被告知的内容？为了回答这个问题，我们进行了Ronfard等人的复制。（在中华人民共和国进行）在两个有着不同宗教和政治历史的国家（研究1：白俄罗斯，N = 74；研究2：土耳其，N = 79）。向学龄前儿童展示了五个不同尺寸的俄罗斯娃娃，并要求他们指出最重的娃娃。所有孩子都选择了最大的洋娃娃。然后，一半的孩子听到了（错误的）说法（即最小的洋娃娃是最重的），这与他们的最初直觉相矛盾。其余的孩子听到了（真实的）说法（即最大的洋娃娃最重），证实了他们的最初直觉。白俄罗斯和土耳其的学龄前儿童通常会认可实验者的主张，无论它是否矛盾或证实了他们的最初直觉。接下来，实验者离开了房间，让孩子们有机会捡起相关的玩偶来检查实验者的主张。白俄罗斯和土耳其的学龄前儿童很少探索玩偶，无论他们收到的证词类型如何，并继续认可他们收到的违反直觉的证词。此外，在研究2中，土耳其学龄前儿童继续认可最小=重，即使这样做可能会给他们带来很大的回报。总之，在两种不同的文化背景下，学龄前儿童认可了一种违反直觉的主张，并且没有自发地寻求证据对其进行检验。这些结果证实并扩展了Ronfard等人的观点。