Preschoolers, but not yet toddlers, prefer to allocate epistemic trust to leaders than to bullies

From toddlerhood, children distinguish respect-based from fear-based power. We tested if, and at what age, epistemic trust is modulated by the type of social power displayed by informants. Italian children (N = 445; age range: 1.5–10 years) and adults (N = 32; age range: 18–39) were presented with a leader-character and a bully-character, each labeling a different novel object with the same novel word (“zaffo”). When asked to identify the zaffo, toddlers preferentially selected the object labeled by the bully, indicating a possible early bias to trust individuals who display fear-based power. In contrast, older children and adults favored the leader-character's label, demonstrating a developmental shift toward selective learning from respected figures. These findings suggest that preschoolers, but not yet toddlers, privilege epistemic input from respected leader-like figures.