Current Research

Conventional vs. Privileged Information: Young children are exceptional learners of conventional information such as the names of objects and rules of games.  However not all information is conventional in the sense that it is known by or can be shared with other (e.g., passwords, surprises).  Our studies (Behrend et al., 2024; Girgis & Behrend, 2024) have shown that it is not until 5 years of age that children differentially share conventional and privileged information and not until 6 years of age that children can explicitly categorize the two types of information.

Music and Word Learning: With colleague Weiyi Ma and others, we have shown that song enhances word learning and memory for novel words in both very young children and adults.  Forthcoming studies will attempt to reveal the mechanisms by which song enhances word learning.

Intellectual Humility: We have conducted several studies on the development of intellectual humility (IH) in children.  IH refers to our understanding the limitations of our own knowledge and how that impacts learning, beliefs, and respect for others’ knowledge and beliefs. With former student and postdoc Christina Barnes, we have developed an IH task for school-age children that appears to have strong validity and reliability.  Current and future studies are investigating this task’s reliability with an IH scale being developed by others and the relation of IH to conspiracy beliefs in both children and adults.

Developmental Origins of Conspiracy Beliefs: Adherence to conspiracy beliefs (sensational explanations for events that are poorly supported by evidence) has negative correlates for many adults.  Are there child and/or environmental characteristics that are predictive of conspiracy ideation?  We are particularly interested in IH, childhood fantasy orientation, and ostracism as potential predictors/correlates of such beliefs.  Behrend & Barnes (under review) have found significant relations between IH and conspiracy belief disposition in multiple samples of adults. Current graduate student Bri Jordan showed that childhood creative experiences correlate with a disposition towards conspiracy beliefs in a retrospective study with adults.

Language and Social Preferences: We have done numerous studies on this topic including Byers-Heinlein et al. (2017) and Myers-Burg & Behrend (2021) demonstrating that children have specific preferences for others who speak like them due to using specific accents and/or dialect specific words.  Current studies are investigating the roles of inclusive/exclusive language and intonational cues on children’s preferences and beliefs about others.