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Is It The Thought That Counts? : Investigating Children's Understanding Of Helpfulness, Effort, And Utility., Danielle Mccarty

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

How do children consider helpfulness, specifically effort and utility, when evaluating potential informants? We tested preschoolers on three conditions, asking them to choose between a character high in both effort and utility and a character who acted with either 1) low effort and high utility, 2) high effort and low utility, or 3) low effort and no utility (removed from social contexts). The opposing characters provided conflicting information when labeling novel objects, and participants were asked which label they endorsed. They were then asked to choose which character was the more helpful, which worked harder, and which was nicer. We …