The Development of Children's Understanding of the Evidence for Beliefs

Children's understanding of the role of evidence in the formation of beliefs was examined by having 4‐ to 8‐year‐olds judge what another would ’think’ or ’know’ when confronted with ambiguous and unambiguous evidence and then asking them to justify their judgements. Whereas younger children's ascriptions tended to be based on their own beliefs about the situation, older children tended to ascribe knowledge to others on the basis of the evidence available to those others. However, even 6‐ and 7‐year‐olds had some difficulty grasping the relation between critical or unambiguous evidence and knowledge, and in basing their ascriptions of knowledge exclusively on the availability of such evidence. Two important transitions in epistemological understanding were observed. The first at about 5#fr1/2> years of age was the transition from ascribing beliefs to others on the basis of one's own beliefs to ascribing them on the basis of the evidence available to that person—a transition that may depend on their understanding of the possibility of someone holding a false belief; the second was the transition from 6 to 7 years of age when they begin to understand the implications of critical evidence.