Mutuality, Temporal Consistency, and Helpfulness in Children's Trust in Peers

Abstract

The research was designed to investigate the role in children's trust in peers of (1) mutuality, which is the correspondence between children's trust in each other; (2) temporal consistency, which is the consistency of behavior across time and situations; and (3) helpfulness to peers. Kindergarten, second-grade, and fourth-grade children were tested. The children judged how much they trusted their peers and hypothetical peers who were either temporally consistent or temporally inconsistent. The teachers of the children rated each one on temporal consistency and on helpfulness to peers. As evidence for mutuality, it was found that (1) children's perceptions of each other's trustworthiness were correlated, and (2) a correlation was evident in which the less the children were trusted by peers, the less they trusted peers. Mixed support was provided for the hypothesized age shift on the basis of children's peer trust, from recent helpfulness in young children to temporal consistency in older children. As expected, in second and fourth grades, peer trust was correlated with ratings of temporal consistency, and in kindergarten, peer trust was correlated with the ratings of helpfulness to peers. Also in the perception of the hypothetical peers, fourth-grade children showed the expected pattern of verbal trust, explanation, and behavioral trust indicating the use of temporal consistency, while the kindergarten children showed the expected pattern of verbal trust and explanation indicating the use of recent helpfulness. However, the kindergarten children showed some reliance on temporal consistency in the judgment of the actual as well as hypothetical peers.