The boss is always right: Preschooler endorse the testimony of a dominant over that of a subordinate

International audienceRecent research has shown that young children rely on social cuesto evaluate testimony. For instance, they prefer to endorse testi-mony provided by a consensual group than by a single dissenter.Given that dominance is pervasive in children’s social environ-ment, it can be hypothesized that children also use dominancerelations in their selection of testimony. To test this hypothesis, adominance asymmetry was induced between two characters eitherby having one repeatedly win in physical contests (physical power;Experiment 1) or by having one repeatedly impose her goals on theother (decisional power; Experiment 2). In two subsequent testi-mony tasks, 3- to 5-year-old children significantly tended toendorse the testimony of the dominant over that of the subordi-nate. These results suggest that preschoolers take dominance intoaccount when evaluating testimony. In conclusion, we discusstwo potential explanations for these finding