The Development of Belief Formation in Social Contexts

Beliefs structure how we understand the world and guide how we navigate it. Although we often think of our beliefs as internal mental states formed through careful evaluation of evidence, in everyday life they are also deeply social: we often know what others believe, which in turn shapes our own beliefs. The developmental roots of these social influences on belief formation and evidence evaluation remain poorly understood. In this talk, I will present a series of pre-registered experiments investigating how young children reason about others’ beliefs, and how their own belief formation practices are shaped by being embedded in a social world.

We encourage in-person attendance, but if you are unable to attend in person, please join us via this Zoom link.