Our third prediction, that conservatism to the initial solution would be greatest when children are
uncertain of the alternative method, was partly supported. Children’s continued interaction with the
task revealed behavior differences across conditions. Specifically, children who viewed both models
using irrelevant actions were significantly less likely to use both methods than children who viewed
both models using relevant-only actions. One possible explanation for why demonstrated irrelevant
actions discouraged use of the alternate method is that participants may have had more uncertainty
about the quality and competence of the demonstrations offered and so continued to use their initial
previous solution and were reluctant to try the alternative method. Conversely, when there was a lack
of irrelevant actions (and potentially more information regarding success), this led to confidence in
both models and, thus, exploration beyond children’s initial bias and personal success. The current
results support the hypothesis that a copy when uncertain bias could promote conservatism to an
original method and, thus, inhibit exploration of an alternative method, as found with Wood et al.
(2013a) and Bonawitz et al. (2011).