The role of sharing and information type in children’s categorization of privileged and conventional information

One domain that has not been thoroughly investigated is children’s ability to categorize information, specifically conventional (known to others, no restrictions on sharing) and privileged (not known to others, restrictions on sharing). In Study 1, 73 four- and five-year-olds and adults classified conventional and privileged information by how it is shared. All age groups accurately classified the information types, though accuracy improved with age. In Study 2, 68 four- and 6-year-olds and adults were presented with scenarios where information type and how it was shared did not match (privileged but shared) and asked if it was conventional or privileged. Four-year-olds and adults categorized conventional information by its label and did so more than 6-year-olds, while there was no pattern for privileged information. These results support that even 4-year-olds can distinguish between conventional and privileged information, and categorization strategies may differ across age and type of information.