Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Children learn a lot from others, but the effectiveness of their social learning depends on the reliability of others' help. How do children adapt their future learning decisions based on the past reliability of receiving help? In two experiments, 4- to 6-year-olds (N = 60 each) interacted with a researcher who either followed through on promised help (Reliable condition) or failed to do so (Unreliable condition). Experiment 1 was inconclusive. However, with an improved design, Experiment 2 found that children in the Unreliable condition were more likely to forego a harder but more rewarding puzzle as their next task and choose an easier, less rewarding puzzle instead compared to those in the Reliable condition. Such decisions, while seemingly maladaptive at face value, likely reflect an adaptive response to the low likelihood of receiving help. These results extend our understanding of social learning across diverse ecological contexts.