{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]],"date-time":"2026-09-01T15:13:58Z","timestamp":1788275638327,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784678400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Objective<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>As an important channel of social-information transmission, gossip enables individuals to acquire reputational information indirectly and to guide partner selection. This study systematically investigates the cognitive development from social evaluation to trust-based decision-making in children. Through two experiments, we examine how young children evaluate different roles in gossip scenarios and how those evaluations influence subsequent trust decisions.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Study 1 examined how 141 children (aged 5\u20137) integrated factors such as gossip valence, emotional cues, and information transmission frequency to form moral evaluations and social preferences toward gossip spreaders. Study 2 employed a Trust Game paradigm with 108 children aged 5\u20136 to evaluate how a spreader\u2019s reputation and social relationships affect trust judgments and behavioral decisions in contexts involving negative gossip.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Findings indicate task-dependent age differences among 5- and 6-year-olds in gossip contexts. Specifically, for moral evaluations of spreaders, 6-year-olds attended more to information valence (positive vs. negative testimony) than 5-year-olds, who relied primarily on transmission frequency. In Trust Games, both age groups adjust trust based on role-specific reputation and relational information.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>These findings underscore that children\u2019 reputation-based trust judgments exhibit early stability, while their integrated moral evaluations of motives become more refined with age.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1852349","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T12:54:03Z","timestamp":1784724843000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Trust tangles: Who do kids trust? Unraveling young children\u2019s attitudes in the gossip mill"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Songsong","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinru","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Weixian","family":"Liang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lei","family":"Dai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jinyan","family":"Song","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaobo","family":"Gao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Junting","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinyi","family":"Yu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hongmin","family":"Bao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Qiang","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"She","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Foreign Language Studies, Wenzhou Medical University","place":["Wenzhou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"4133","DOI":"10.47611\/jsrhs.v12i1.4133","article-title":"Overcoming obesity in adolescents: the mere exposure effect and sparkling water","volume":"12","author":"Becker","year":"2023","journal-title":"J. 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