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Theory of Mind Is Contagious: You Catch It from Your Sibs
Abstract
This study investigated the relation between family size and “theory of mind.” Results from an experiment with 3- and 4-year-olds showed that children from larger families were better able than children from smaller families to predict a story character's mistaken (false-belief based) action. Results from a second experiment on children with exactly 1 sibling failed to show any superiority of older over younger siblings in promoting earlier understanding of belief. The data are interpreted as suggesting that sibling interaction provides a rich “data base” for building a theory of mind, and this is discussed in relation to other studies showing that particular kinds of interaction between sibling and child, or caregiver and child, have a beneficial effect on the understanding of false belief.
... Furthermore, family size showed a stronger association with False Belief understanding in children with lower language ability, which might suggest that the presence of siblings compensates for lower language ability in children's developing social cognition (Jenkins & Astington 1996). Some found that children from larger families showed better False Belief understanding than children from smaller families, with no difference in the effect of older and younger siblings (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam 1994). Others found that English and Japanese children with more older siblings showed improved False Belief understanding, but no effect for younger siblings (Ruffman et al. 1998). ...
... Furthermore, socio-economic status is often assessed by scaling participants' gross annual income on a point scale (Pears & Moses 2003), reflecting researchers' expectation that people track their finances over long time periods. Finally, the number of siblings is often treated as a proxy for peer interaction in the household (see Perner, Ruffman & Leekam 1994), reflecting the Western family model where children usually reside with biological siblings in nuclear family households. ...
... My findings contrast with older studies that found effects for socio-economic status, level of education, and family structure (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam 1994;Holmes, Black & Miller 1996;Jenkins & Astington 1996;Lewis et al. 1996;Cole & Mitchell 1998;Ruffman et al. 1998;Cutting & Dunn 1999;Peterson 2000;Shatz et al. 2003;Dessen & Souza 2014;Kuntoro et al. 2013 Table 5.14). Miller (1996) 90 Lewis et al. (1996) 157 Cole & Mitchell (1998) 57 Ruffman et al. (1998) 444 Cutting & Dunn (1999) 128 Peterson (2000) 265 Vinden (2002) 154 Pears & Moses (2003) 142 Kuntoro et al. (2013) 129 Conversely, parenting strategies that respond to disciplinary situations by communicating about other people's feelings and encouraging perspective-taking and discussion are associated with improved Theory of Mind understanding (Ruffman, Perner & Parkin 1999;Farrant et al. 2012;Shahaeian et al. 2014). ...
Link to ePrint: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10138335
While culture is common in the animal kingdom, cumulative culture appears to be limited to humans. Research suggests that this is due to (1) our advanced social cognition, in particular joint attention and Theory of Mind; and (2) our reliance on high-fidelity mechanisms of social learning such as teaching. However, some have argued that these mechanisms are themselves culturally transmitted, vary across cultures, and that contact with Western norms and institutions reshapes cognition in small-scale societies. These proposals require us to test whether developmental trajectories observed in industrialized populations translate to other societies. To this end, I examine the development of Theory of Mind and teaching among children living in rural areas of Vanuatu. In Chapter 2, I combine results from participant observations and informal interviews to explore the ethnographic context. I examine kinship systems, childrearing practices, and worldviews, and discuss how they relate to folk models of the mind and cultural transmission. In Chapter 3, I examine the development of Theory of Mind and mental state talk. Consistent with the idea that Theory of Mind is culturally learnt, the results diverge from Western findings. However, they also contradict earlier studies and point to methodological challenges, urging more caution in the interpretation of cross-cultural work. In Chapter 4, I examine the development of teaching. The results diverge from Western findings, with children’s teaching reflecting local norms and perceptions of cultural transmission. This suggests that while teaching as such is developmentally reliable, specific teaching styles, along with the way we conceptualize teaching, may be culturally learnt. In Chapter 5, I explore various socio-economic and demographic trends associated with ‘modernization’, such as market integration, formal education, overseas travel, and household structure, documenting considerable heterogeneity. However, I failed to find support for the idea that transformations associated with ‘Westernization’ shift children’s cognitive development.
... Initially, Perner and his colleagues found that preschool children's performance on a false-belief task was positively correlated with the number of siblings (Perner, Ruffman, & Leekam, 1994), even after their age and verbal skills were accounted for Jenkins and Astington (1996). However, subsequent research did not replicate the positive link between ToM skills and sibling presence and found that this sibling advantage for ToM skills might be moderated by the birth order or age range of siblings. ...
... The Apprenticeship Model is to explain why children with older siblings rather than younger ones show a developmental advantage in ToM. Having one or more siblings at home provides children with plenty of social opportunities that improve their knowledge about human mental states, and older siblings are particularly advantageous because they serve as social mentors to the younger "apprentices" (Perner, Ruffman, & Leekam, 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). It emphasizes the unidirectional effect of older siblings on younger children. ...
... Chinese parents usually have higher expectations for their firstborn, who are expected to act as caregivers, playmates, and role models for their younger siblings (Qian et al., 2020). According to the Apprenticeship Model, older siblings at home would provide younger children with plenty of social opportunities to improve their knowledge about human mental states (Perner, Ruffman, & Leekam, 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). In contrast, younger children, due to their limited receptive and/or expressive language and lack of social experiences, are unable to benefit older siblings. ...
A wealth of research has revealed that both sibling absence or presence and sibling relationship are essential contributors to children's theory of mind (ToM) skills. However, almost all these studies were conducted in Western, individualistic countries, and no study has yet focused on the sibling-ToM link in Chinese children. To address these gaps, firstly,113 children without siblings (M age = 4.38 years, SD = 0.84, 53 boys) and 150 one-sibling children (M age = 4.24 years, SD = 0.85, 64 boys) from China were compared by an established developmental ToM Scale. This study revealed that sibling status (e.g., children with a sibling vs without a sibling; children with an older or child-aged sibling vs. children with a young sibling) did not influence ToM scores. Moreover, for children with a sibling, positive interactions (but not negative interactions) between sibling dyads were positively associated with children's ToM skills. In conclusion, these findings suggested that the presence of one sibling at home only doesn't necessarily accelerate Chinese children's acquisition of ToM skills. It is the positive interaction between siblings that promotes the development of children's ToM skills.
... Initially, Perner et al. (1994) have revealed that a greater number of siblings is associated with linearly increased performance on false belief tasks in 3-to 4-year olds, and this association remained significant after age and language competence were controlled (Jenkins and Astington, 1996). However, follow-up studies have denied this positive link between sibling number and ToM ability and have instead emphasized the crucial role of birth order or age range in mindreading (Lewis et al., 1996;Ru man et al., 1998;Farhadian et al., 2010;Calero et al., 2013;Taumoepeau and Reese, 2014). ...
... They claimed that exposure to a diversity of siblings (e.g., number, sex, and age of siblings) may avail children of more opportunities to understand the di erences between theirs and others' mental states. Furthermore, the apprenticeship model (Perner et al., 1994;Ru man et al., 1998;Hughes et al., 2014) and the age threshold model were proposed to explain how older and childaged siblings, respectively, can improve children's mindreading (see section "Existing Theoretical Accounts for Sibling-ToM Relationship, " for details). ...
... (c) The model emphasizes the unidirectional e ect of older siblings on younger children (Perner et al., 1994;Ru man et al., 1998). Indeed, younger children, due to their limited receptive and/or expressive language and lack of social experiences, are unable to benefit older siblings (Brown et al., 1996). ...
In the field of social influences on Theory of Mind (ToM), more research has focused on the role of parents, but less research has examined the impact of siblings on children’s social understanding. We review existing research related to what factors might affect sibling–ToM association and how these potential factors affect ToM. Based on the literature review, we propose an integrative model that unites three categories of factors (i.e., sibling structural variables, sibling individual variables, parental intervening variables) that might have effects on the sibling–ToM association and highlights mental-state talks during sibling interactions at the intersection of sibling-related variables and ToM. Furthermore, we propose some issues arising from this review that need to be clarified in future studies. Specifically, we hope to clarify the specific effects of older and younger siblings on children’s understanding of human minds, the similarities and differences of sibling–ToM association under different cultural backgrounds, and the impact of family social disadvantage (e.g., lower SES) on the sibling–ToM association. All these works would benefit from the verification, revision, and expansion of our reciprocal influence model for the sibling–ToM association.
... The kinds of influences on individual variation in the age of success on "false belief" tasks range widely. They include family variables such as socio-economic status (Ebert et al, 2017), the number and spacing of siblings (Perner et al, 1994, Lewis et al, 1996Ruffman et al, 1998;Cole & Mitchell, 2000) and the amount of family discussion about mental states (Dunn et al, 1991;Cutting & Dunn, 1999;Nelson, 2005). But they also include variables intrinsic to the child, such as vocabulary size (Happé, 1995;), grammatical mastery (Astington & Baird, 2005;de Villiers, 1999;, executive function skill (Carlson & Moses, 2001), as well as genetics (Hughes & Cutting, 1999) and importantly, an autism diagnosis (Baron-Cohen, 1997;Happé, 1995;Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005). ...
... A second possibility is a cultural one. Little has yet been explored comparatively about the cultural milieu of the two groups, but such variables as the number of siblings and the closeness of families and their rich discourse have been found to be important predictive factors for early theory of mind (Cutting & Dunn, 1999;Perner et al, 1994;Paine et al, 2018). Successful training studies to engage children in rich conversations about the mind have also produced significant change in older children's understanding, ages 5 to 10 years (Lecce et al., 2014;Bianco et al., 2021). ...
This is the first known study of the socio-cognitive development of Lyuli children, a Roma-type group living in Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The research was conducted in schools in Bukhara serving both Lyuli children and Uzbek children, both of whom are multi-lingual but whose sociolinguistic circumstances are somewhat different. There has been less cross-cultural work on later stages of Theory of Mind development, in which children have to make inferences about the mental states of characters in a complex narrative. The research here shows that the children from both groups do remarkably well on these tasks, and their multilingualism is hypothesized to be the source of their success relative to other children studied with similar narratives.
... Un secondo aspetto rilevante dell'esperienza dei bambini è sicuramente quella che condividono in famiglia con i fratelli. È questo un tema presente fin dalle prime ricerche sulla Teoria della Mente: come affermano Perner e colleghi, «ci aspettiamo che i bambini che hanno fratelli rispondano meglio alle prove sulla falsa credenza dei figli unici perché l'interazione con i fratelli offre un insieme di dati più ampio e una maggior motivazione per sviluppare una Teoria della Mente di tipo rappresentativo» (Perner, Ruffman, Leekam, 1994, p. 1229. Gli studi sulla relazione tra comprensione della mente e presenza di fratelli si sviluppano regolarmente fino ad anni recenti e generalmente sottolineano come il fatto di avere dei fratelli sia legato a una più precoce padronanza delle prove di falsa credenza. ...
... Gli studi sulla relazione tra comprensione della mente e presenza di fratelli si sviluppano regolarmente fino ad anni recenti e generalmente sottolineano come il fatto di avere dei fratelli sia legato a una più precoce padronanza delle prove di falsa credenza. Non c'è però concordanza su quali aspetti della fratria siano rilevanti: per alcuni autori è il numero di fratelli a fare la differenza (McAlister, Peterson, 2007;Perner et al., 1994), per altri sono importanti soprattutto i fratelli maggiori e si trova una differenza fra primogeniti e non (Lewis et al., 1996). Inoltre, non in tutte le ricerche emerge un vantaggio legato alla presenza di fratelli (Shahaeian, 2015) oppure, se emerge, la differenza è spiegabile con differenze d'età tra il gruppo di bambini con fratelli (mediamente più grandi) e senza fratelli (mediamente più piccoli; Albanese, Molina, 2013;Molina, Bulgarelli, 2012). ...
... The number of siblings could affect children's ToM development in two ways. One way would be to enhance the richness of children's everyday experiences in conversation, negotiation, and play contexts (Lewis et al., 1996;Perner et al.,1994). However, in the Turkish context, higher number of siblings could also correlate with a more collectivistic parental attitude. ...
... In light of the previous literature, we expected moderate to strong correlations between the total ToM score and the cognitive variables when we controlled for age. The relations between SES, number of siblings, and ToM are less clear and less consistent (e.g., Devine & Hughes, 2016;Perner et al., 1994;Peterson & Slaughter, 2003;Yagmurlu et al., 2005). Consequently, we did not have strong predictions regarding the relations between these variables and ToM performance. ...
Wellman and Liu’s (2004) ToM scale canonized efforts to generate a developmentally nuanced understanding of ToM. Further elaboration has come from studies showing some variability in task sequencing across two broad categories of culture (i.e., ‘Collectivist’, ‘Individualist’). The current study contributes to our understanding of ToM by exploring intra-cultural variation in task sequencing for a Turkish sample. The ToM scale, language, and EF tasks were administered to 366 preschoolers. When analyzed as a single group, preschoolers showed a sequence most consistent with Chinese/Iranian samples. However, when children were grouped according to age, 3-year-olds were most similar to the US/Australian samples, 4-year-olds were most similar to Chinese/Iranian samples, and 5-year-olds showed a new sequence where knowledge access was the easiest. The analyzes suggest that EF alone was related to the differences in sequencing. Current findings imply that explaining sequence differences may require considering the interactive effects of culture and cognitive abilities.
... Researchers have noted that children's ToM is related to their birth order among siblings in the family (Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998;McAlister and Peterson, 2007). Some studies have suggested that having an older brother or sister can promote children's understanding of false beliefs, while having a younger sibling or a twin does not have the same positive effect (Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). ...
... Researchers have noted that children's ToM is related to their birth order among siblings in the family (Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998;McAlister and Peterson, 2007). Some studies have suggested that having an older brother or sister can promote children's understanding of false beliefs, while having a younger sibling or a twin does not have the same positive effect (Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). However, some researchers argued that having a younger sibling or being a twin can contribute to the development of children's ToM, and whether siblings can promote children's ToM depends on siblings' age and the age gap between siblings (Peterson, 2000;McAlister and Peterson, 2013;Paine et al., 2018). ...
The purpose of this study was to explore theory of mind (ToM) differences in children with different birth orders (only-children, first-born children, and second-born children), and further explore the effect of cognitive verb training for only-children’s ToM. Adopting the paradigm of false belief, Study 1 was conducted in which a sample of 120 children aged 3–6, including first-born children, second-born children (siblings aged 1–13 years), and only-children were tested. The results showed that (1) children aged 3–6 had significantly higher scores on first-order false-belief than second-order false-belief. (2) Controlling for age, the only-children scored significantly lower than the first-born children. In Study 2, 28 only-children aged 4–5 (13 in the experimental group and 15 in the control group) who initially failed in false-belief tasks were trained with the cognitive verb animations. Significant post-training improvements were observed for only-children who received training of animations embedded with cognitive verb. Those findings indicated that ToM of only-children was significantly worse than first-born children of two-child families, and linguistic training could facilitate ToM of only-children whose ToM were at a disadvantage.
... Si bien menos numerosos, otros trabajos han destacado la relevancia de las interacciones entre pares como contexto privilegiado para analizar la emergencia del lenguaje mentalista en el niño y el desarrollo de sus habilidades de cognición social (Hughes y Dunn, 1998;Perner, Ruffman y Leekam, 1994). En estos trabajos ha recibido una consideración especial la participación conjunta en situaciones de juego (Astington y Jenkins, 1995;Hughes y Dunn, 1997;Slomkowsky y Dunn, 1996). ...
... Un interés particular, revisten los resultados del impacto de la configuración de la participación de niños y adultos en estas situaciones cotidianas de disputas: las interacciones entre niños en comparación con las situaciones en las que el niño discute con adultos incrementan el uso de TEM, y ello se observa en mayor medida en los niños de NSB que en los de NSM. La relevancia de estos resultados puede ponderarse cuando se considera que, si bien algunos trabajos han insinuado la importancia de los pares en la emergencia del lenguaje mentalista, específicamente en situaciones de juego (Astington y Jenkins, 1995;Hughes y Dunn, 1998;Perner et al., 1994;Slomkowsky y Dunn, 1996), la mayor parte de la investigación previa se ha concentrado en el análisis de las interacciones con el adulto (Devine y Hughes, 2016;Farkas et al., 2018;Reynolds et al., 2020;Suttora, 2020). ...
Resumen: Investigaciones precedentes sobre el desarrollo argumentativo y el uso de términos de estado mental evidencian una interdependencia entre lenguaje, cognición y emoción, así como la influencia del contexto de interacción social en su desarrollo. En esta línea, el presente trabajo analiza la relación entre el vocabulario mentalista empleado por niños durante situaciones de disputa, la condición socioeconómica del hogar, la edad de los participantes y la actividad argumentativa del niño y sus interlocutores. Se analizaron 476 disputas durante situaciones de juego en hogares de 24 niños de 4 años de nivel socioeconómico bajo y medio de Argentina. Se observó que la actividad argumentativa de los participantes promueve el uso de léxico mentalista. Si bien se identificó un mayor uso de este tipo de vocabulario en los niños de sectores medios, las interacciones entre niños incrementan su empleo especialmente en los niños de nivel socioeconómico bajo. Estos hallazgos pueden contribuir al diseño de intervenciones educativas orientadas a promover de modo sinérgico el desarrollo lingüístico, sociocognitivo y emocional infantil. Palabras clave: léxico de estado mental, argumentación, interacción social, nivel socioeconómico, infancia * Para correspondencia, dirigirse a: Celia R. Rosemberg
... Therefore it should not surprise us that the nature of family interactions, the quality of parental control (Dunn, Brown, Somkowski, Telsa, & Youngblade, 1991), parental talk about emotions (Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994) and the depth of parental discussion involving affect (Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991), are all strongly associated with the acquisition of the intentional stance in observational studies. The involvement of the family in the child's acquisition of a theory of mind is further highlighted by the robust finding that the presence of older siblings in the family appears to improve the child's performance on a range of false-belief tasks (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner, Ruffman, & Leekman, 1994;Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements, 1998). ...
... The third potential mediator is peer group interaction. We have already noted that the possibility of interaction with siblings is likely to enhance theory of mind performance (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). Importantly, the child's use of mental state terms with siblings or friends is a better predictor of performance on false belief tasks than mother-child conversation (Brown et al., 1996). ...
... Therefore it should not surprise us that the nature of family interactions, the quality of parental control (Dunn, Brown, Somkowski, Telsa, & Youngblade, 1991), parental talk about emotions (Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994) and the depth of parental discussion involving affect (Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991), are all strongly associated with the acquisition of the intentional stance in observational studies. The involvement of the family in the child's acquisition of a theory of mind is further highlighted by the robust finding that the presence of older siblings in the family appears to improve the child's performance on a range of false-belief tasks (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner, Ruffman, & Leekman, 1994;Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements, 1998). ...
... The third potential mediator is peer group interaction. We have already noted that the possibility of interaction with siblings is likely to enhance theory of mind performance (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). Importantly, the child's use of mental state terms with siblings or friends is a better predictor of performance on false belief tasks than mother-child conversation (Brown et al., 1996). ...
... Therefore it should not surprise us that the nature of family interactions, the quality of parental control (Dunn, Brown, Somkowski, Telsa, & Youngblade, 1991), parental talk about emotions (Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994) and the depth of parental discussion involving affect (Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991), are all strongly associated with the acquisition of the intentional stance in observational studies. The involvement of the family in the child's acquisition of a theory of mind is further highlighted by the robust finding that the presence of older siblings in the family appears to improve the child's performance on a range of false-belief tasks (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner, Ruffman, & Leekman, 1994;Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements, 1998). ...
... The third potential mediator is peer group interaction. We have already noted that the possibility of interaction with siblings is likely to enhance theory of mind performance (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). Importantly, the child's use of mental state terms with siblings or friends is a better predictor of performance on false belief tasks than mother-child conversation (Brown et al., 1996). ...
... number and ages of siblings) has been linked to ToM development, with better ToM performance associated with larger family size (e.g. Matthews and Goldberg 2018;Perner et al. 1994), having a "child-aged" sibling (i.e. aged between 12 months and 12 years; McAlister and Peterson 2006Peterson 2000), and having an older sibling (Ruffman et al. 1998). ...
... The findings related to ToM-related behavior and social cognition concur with the hypothesized beneficial effects of having a(n older) sibling and these effects are likely attributable to siblings providing enhanced opportunities for ToM development in both autistic and typically developing children (e.g. Devine and Hughes 2018;McAlister and Peterson 2007;Matthews and Goldberg 2018;Perner et al. 1994). In general, sibling interaction has been shown to provide valuable opportunities to practice new skills (for an overview, see Tzuriel and Hanuka-Levy 2014) and having a greater number of siblings also exposes children to a wider range of different perspectives. ...
This RCT investigated whether participants’ sibling configuration moderated the effect of a Theory of Mind (ToM) intervention for children with autism. Children with autism aged 8–13 years (n = 141) were randomized over a waitlist control or treatment condition. Both having more siblings, as well as having an older sibling were related to better outcomes on measures of ToM-related behavior and social cognition, but not ToM knowledge or autistic features in general. The finding that these associations were limited to practical skills addressed in the intervention, seems to indicate that having more siblings and having an older sibling provides enhanced opportunities for children with autism to practice taught skills in the home environment.
... While the reverse may seem plausible (i.e., that higher mind perception may cause a more communal vs. instrumental relationship to develop), the proposed direction of causality is more consistent with prior work in developmental psychology and social cognition, which suggests that a person's theory of mind is shaped by their social relationships (Hughes & Leekam, 2004;Perner et al., 1994;Wellman et al., 2001). We also discuss potential temporal dynamics of this relationship for future research in the General Discussion section (e.g., as the attribution of a mind might increase over an extended period of usage, consumers might engage in a greater range of tasks, altering the initial relationship from a more instrumental to a more communal one and vice versa). ...
Prior research revealed a striking heterogeneity of how consumers view smart objects, from seeing them as helpful partners to merely a useful tool. We draw on mind perception theory to assess whether the attribution of mental states to smart objects reveals differences in consumer–smart object relationships and device usage. We train a language model to unobtrusively predict mind perception in smart objects from consumer‐generated text. We provide a rich set of interpretable linguistic markers for mind perception, drawing on a diverse collection of text‐mining techniques, and demonstrate that greater mind perception is associated with expressing a more communal (vs. instrumental) relationship with the device and using it more expansively. We find converging evidence for these associations using over 20,000 real‐world customer reviews and also provide causal evidence that inducing a more communal (vs. instrumental) relationship with a smart object enhances mind perception and in turn increases the number of tasks consumers engage in with the device. These findings have important implications for the role of mind perception as a novel lens to study consumer–smart object relationships. We offer an easy‐to‐use web interface to access our language model using researchers own data or to fine‐tune the model to entirely new domains.
... At the same time, children's representations of the mind are influenced by their experiences. ToM develops differently in children who have siblings (Perner et al., 1994;Jenkins and Astington, 1996;McAlister and Peterson, 2006) and depending on local cultural traditions (Selcuk et al., 2018;Shahaeian et al., 2011;Wellman et al., 2006). The clearest evidence of a causal influence concerns the role of linguistic experience in ToM development. ...
Vision is an important source of information about other minds for sighted children, especially prior to the onset of language. Visually observed actions, eye gaze, and facial expressions of others provide information about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. Does such experience contribute causally to the development of cortical networks supporting social cognition? To address this question we compared functional development of brain regions supporting theory of mind (ToM), as well as behavioral ToM reasoning, across congenitally blind (n=17) and sighted (n=114) children and adolescents (4-17 years old). We find that blind children in this age range show slightly lower ToM behavioral performance relative to sighted children. Likewise, the functional profile of ToM brain regions is qualitatively similar, but quantitatively weaker in blind relative to sighted children. Alongside prior research, these data suggest that vision facilitates, but is not necessary for, ToM development.
... Regarding siblings, Perner, Ruffman, and Leekam (1994) were the first to mention the influence of siblings' presence on theory of mind development. Miyazawa and Murakami (2015) also found that among Japanese children, those under 61 months had better theory of mind performance with a sibling than those without a sibling; however, this difference was not observed for children over 61 months. ...
This study aimed to examine the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) performance and children’s self-assertion or self-inhibitory as rated by their caregivers and teachers as well as social networks rated by the children themselves. Participants included 115 Japanese children aged 3–6 years (61 girls and 54 boys) who were enrolled in three kindergartens and nursery schools in Tokyo. In the interview, they were assessed by unexpected content type false belief task and the Picture Affective Relationship Test (PART) which measures the size of their social network. Children’s teachers of their classes and caregivers were asked to rate children’s self-regulation (self-assertion and self-inhibition) by questionnaire. The results showed that children’s ToM was positively correlated with the size of the social network, especially the number of friends as reported by the children themselves, and also the self-inhibition as rated by their teachers, even when their verbal abilities were controlled. In addition, the logistic regression analysis was conducted using nine independent variables. The results suggest that children’s scores on teacher-rated self-inhibitory and the number of children in the child-reported PART were related to passing the false belief task.
... These early social experiences had long-lasting consequences on the ability to flexibly adjust communication to interaction partners. These consequences exceeded the effects of familial environment, a known influence on the emergence of false-belief understanding in early childhood [62][63][64] , as well as the effects of social experiences acquired later in life. This finding, combined with a closely related observation in five-year-olds 10 , suggests that the first few years of life may represent a sensitive developmental period for social interaction. ...
Stereotypes can exert a powerful influence on our interactions with others, potentially leading to prejudice when factual evidence is ignored. Here, we identify neuroanatomical and developmental factors that influence the real-time integration of stereotypes and factual evidence during live social interactions. The study uses precisely quantified communicative exchanges in a longitudinal cohort of seventeen-year-olds followed since infancy, testing their ability to moderate stereotype tendencies toward children as contrary evidence accumulates. Our results reveal that the impact of stereotypes on communicative behavior is linked to individual variation in the right anterior cingulate gyrus. In contrast, the ability to moderate stereotype tendencies is influenced by early-life exposure to social interactions, beyond the effects of familial environment and social experiences acquired later in life. These findings pinpoint a key brain structure underlying stereotype tendencies and suggest that early-life social experiences have lasting consequences on how individuals integrate factual evidence during interpersonal communication.
... Siblings according to Sang & Nelson (2017), influence both perspective taking and social skills. Children with siblings have demonstrated significantly greater false-belief performance compared to only children, even after the significant effects of chronological and verbal mental age are statistically controlled (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994). Since 1898, researchers have devoted their studies to understanding the characteristics of the only child (Rivera & Carrasquillo, 1997). ...
Purpose: This article examines the role sibling position (birth order) plays in the development of social skills. Given that the family is the first social system a child gets exposed to, it is assumed that the child's birth position and the relationships that exist among family members plays a substantial role in their development of social skills. The paper focuses on three birth positions: first borns, last borns and only child. The study thus aims to examine whether the a fore mentioned birth positions influences a child's tendency to communicate and relate with others. Does one's birth position influence his or her tendency to communicate and relate with others? Methodology: It is a conceptual paper that employs a meta-analytic approach to review, synthesize and draw conclusions from existing literature on sibling position specifically the first born, last born and only child and the effect such positions have on the development of social skills. Findings: It was realized that first borns perceive themselves as being treated differently from later children, are accustomed to being the centre of attention and tend to be high achievers. Last borns are perceived to be creative, outgoing, extraverted, disobedient and tend to resist the authority of the bigger siblings. They exhibit interpersonal skills but have an abnormally strong feeling of inferiority as result of being over pampered by their seniors. Only children are not independent and have difficulty in delaying gratification. They demand much love from their partners with unwillingness to reciprocate. They are also most often self-centred, maladjusted, unlikable, anxious and dependent on others. The degree to which people tend to relate and communicate with others is influenced to some extent by their birth order. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: It is thus vital to minimize certain cultural attitudes exhibited by parents, siblings and other family members in the course of socialization at home that can deter the development of social skills in children. This is supported by Bandura's (1978) Theory of Observational Learning, as children learn or model behaviours from especially elderly siblings and other caregivers; Bowlby's (1969/1982) attachment theory which maintains that patterns of relating are built upon the early interactions between the primary caregiver and the child.
... Siblings according to Sang & Nelson (2017), influence both perspective taking and social skills. Children with siblings have demonstrated significantly greater false-belief performance compared to only children, even after the significant effects of chronological and verbal mental age are statistically controlled (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994). Since 1898, researchers have devoted their studies to understanding the characteristics of the only child (Rivera & Carrasquillo, 1997). ...
Purpose: This article examines the role sibling position (birth order) plays in the development of social skills. Given that the family is the first social system a child gets exposed to, it is assumed that the child’s birth position and the relationships that exist among family members plays a substantial role in their development of social skills. The paper focuses on three birth positions: first borns, last borns and only child. The study thus aims to examine whether the a fore mentioned birth positions influences a child’s tendency to communicate and relate with others. Does one’s birth position influence his or her tendency to communicate and relate with others? Methodology: It is a conceptual paper that employs a meta-analytic approach to review, synthesize and draw conclusions from existing literature on sibling position specifically the first born, last born and only child and the effect such positions have on the development of social skills. Findings: It was realized that first borns perceive themselves as being treated differently from later children, are accustomed to being the centre of attention and tend to be high achievers. Last borns are perceived to be creative, outgoing, extraverted, disobedient and tend to resist the authority of the bigger siblings. They exhibit interpersonal skills but have an abnormally strong feeling of inferiority as result of being over pampered by their seniors. Only children are not independent and have difficulty in delaying gratification. They demand much love from their partners with unwillingness to reciprocate. They are also most often self-centred, maladjusted, unlikable, anxious and dependent on others. The degree to which people tend to relate and communicate with others is influenced to some extent by their birth order. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and policy: It is thus vital to minimize certain cultural attitudes exhibited by parents, siblings and other family members in the course of socialization at home that can deter the development of social skills in children. This is supported by Bandura’s (1978) Theory of Observational Learning, as children learn or model behaviours from especially elderly siblings and other caregivers; Bowlby's (1969/1982) attachment theory which maintains that patterns of relating are built upon the early interactions between the primary caregiver and the child.
... A number of social-environmental factors have been found to be associated with children's ToM development, including family size and the number of siblings [37][38][39], socioeconomic status [2], child's sociolinguistic awareness [40], mother's mind-mindedness [41], and mother-child mental state talk [6,8]. These factors create a social-linguistically enriched environment for children to explore others' mental stances and perspectives, and as such, children can respond appropriately to social interactions by inhibiting their egocentric perspective. ...
Background
Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to represent one's own and others' mental states, and emotion understanding involves appropriately comprehending and responding to others' emotional cues in social interactions. Individual differences in mind and emotion understanding have been associated strongly with verbal ability and interaction and, as such, existing training for children's ToM and emotion understanding is mostly language-based. Building on the literature on embodied cognition, this study proposes that mind and emotion understanding could be facilitated by one's visuospatial experience in simulating other's frames of reference.
Methods
This protocol consists of two training studies. Study 1 will examine if visuospatial perspective-taking training promotes ToM and emotion understanding. Participants will consist of 96 4.5-year-olds and will be randomly assigned to one of two training groups: the altercentric block building group (trained to be visuospatial perspective-takers), or the egocentric block building group (no visuospatial perspective-taking is involved). Study 2 will compare the engagement of visuospatial perspective-taking and verbal interaction in the development of mind and emotion understanding. Participants will consist of 120 4.5-year-olds. They will be randomly assigned to one of three training groups: the socialized altercentric block building (both visuospatial perspective-taking and verbal interaction), the parallel altercentric block building (visuospatial perspective-taking only), or the paired dialogic reading (verbal interaction only).
Conclusions
In terms of theoretical implications, the potential causal relationship between visuospatial perspective-taking and ToM and emotion understanding may shed new insights on what underlies the development of mental state understanding. The findings of this study also have practical implications: researchers and educators may popularize visuospatial perspective-taking training in the form of block-building games if it is found to be effective in complementing conventional language-based theory-of-mind training.
... Pretend play is only one means through which attachment security and older siblings/playmates might influence ToM acquisition, but it has been argued to be "perhaps our best candidate for a cooperative activity which furthers the eventual understanding of false belief" (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam, 1994, p. 1236. A plausible case for some link between pretence and ToM exists, but the evidence does not distinguish among models 1, 2, and 3. ...
It is well known that children's activities are full of pretending and imagination, but it is less appreciated that animals can also show similar activities. Originally published in 2002, this book focuses on comparing and contrasting children's and animals' pretenses and imaginative activities. In the text, overviews of research present conflicting interpretations of children's understanding of the psychology of pretense, and describe sociocultural factors which influence children's pretenses. Studies of nonhuman primates provide examples of their pretenses and other simulative activities, explore their representational and imaginative capacities and compare their skills with children. Although the psychological requirements for pretending are controversial, evidence presented in this volume suggests that great apes and even monkeys may share capacities for imagination with children, and that children's early pretenses may be less psychological than they appear.
... Sin embargo, los efectos de esas condiciones no son directos y seguramente están mediados y moderados por factores individuales (inteligencia, personalidad) y familiares (estilos de crianza, estilos afectivos de los padres). Por ejemplo, los niños con hermanos mayores y con familias numerosas tienen un mejor desarrollo de la teoría de la mente que aquellos hijos únicos o de familias pequeñas (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994). Sin embargo, se ha sugerido que no se trata solo del número de hermanos, sino de la brecha de edad entre ellos (Arranz et al., 2002). ...
Introducción: en este estudio se realizó un análisis comparativo, de acuerdo con el estrato socioeconómico, de tres habilidades de cognición social (teoría de la mente, empatía y reconocimiento de emociones) en un grupo de adolescentes de Medellín. Metodología: se realizó una investigación cuantitativa comparativa transversal con una muestra de 130 adolescentes de ambos sexos a quienes se les administraron las pruebas Sistema Internacional de Imágenes Afectivas, el Test de la Mirada y el Índice de Reactividad Inter-personal. Resultados: los resultados de los análisis comprobaron la hipótesis, en algunas de las variables, de que los niveles socioeconómicos más bajos tienen niveles más bajos de habilidades de cognición social, especialmente en la teoría de la mente y la empatía, pero no en la evaluación emocional de las expresiones faciales. Discusión: la adolescencia es un periodo crítico del neurodesarrollo. Neurobiológicamente, duran-te este periodo ocurren cambios significativos en el denominado cerebro social. Conclusión: no todas las habilidades socio-cognitivas tienen la misma sensibilidad a los efectos ambientales durante su desarrollo.
... Development of ToM is affected by several variables such as the number of siblings, which has an effect on ToM. Results indicate that children from larger families perform better on ToM tasks than children from smaller families, which suggests that the interaction between siblings and care givers with the child have a positive effect on the understanding and development of ToM (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam, 1994), yet in another study no significant effects were found with the number of siblings (Calero, Salles, Semelman, & Sigman, 2013). ...
Theory of Mind is considered a person’s ability to understand his or her own mind and the minds of others, it includes a social-cognitive skill with implications for many aspects of children’s life, such as social competence, peer acceptance and early success in school. The aims of this research were to study the development of Theory of Mind and to investigate differences in the performance of Theory of Mind tasks across age groups and by gender in Saudi children. 264 children, ranging from 3–12 years of age, participated in this study and were divided into three age groups. A Theory of Mind task battery was conducted individually, and the overall results indicated age and gender differences among our participants, as girls perform better than boys, and the older age groups perform better than they younger groups.
... In line with the literature, we did not expect to find gender differences in perspective taking ability but more aggressive behaviors and prosocial behaviors in males than in females (Rose and Rudolph, 2006). Finally, we expected that having siblings could promote the perspective taking ability akin to what occurs with other similar social skills (Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). b. ...
Perspective taking is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct characterized by three components: cognitive, affective, and visual. The experience of psychological maltreatment impairs the child’s emotional competence; in particular, maltreated children present difficulty in understanding and regulating emotions and in social understanding ability. In addition, the literature contains several contributions that highlight maladaptive behaviors of children with a history of maltreatment in peer interactions in the school context. Perspective taking ability has rarely been studied in maltreated children and the existing studies have produced different and often conflicting results that require further insights. On the grounds of these premises, the main objective of the present research is to investigate perspective taking ability in preschool children from maltreating and non-maltreating family contexts and its role in social adjustment, in terms of prosocial and aggressive behavior toward peers inside the kindergarten. A second objective is to verify the effectiveness of a training aimed to promote perspective taking ability in victims of psychological maltreatment. This research, organized into two separate studies, involved 249 preschool children: 206 children from non-maltreating family contexts and 43 brought up in psychologically maltreating families. Perspective taking was measured via the administration of several tests, and prosocial behavior and aggressiveness were observed via non-participant observations in the school context. The training involved maltreated children in small-group meetings based on familiar and appealing activities within the mother–child community. The overall results show that children’s perspective taking ability, in particular the affective perspective taking, contributed to social adjustment. In fact, greater affective perspective taking ability was correlated to a higher frequency of prosocial behaviors toward peers and minor frequency of aggressiveness. Finally, the results of the training (pre/post-test comparison) showed an increase in perspective taking, especially in the affective dimension, and a consequent increase in prosocial behaviors and a decrease in aggressive ones. Therefore, the affective perspective taking ability seems to represent a very significant protective factor, which should be focused and strengthened in order to improve the social adaptation of preschool children who are victims of psychological abuse.
... Other demographic factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) and the number of siblings had a strong correlation with ToM (Jenkins and Astington, 1996;Perner et al., 1994). For instance, whilst considering family income (SES) and family structure, having a higher income and two parents present in the home increases the possibility of spending more time with the parents. ...
Purpose
Theory of mind (ToM) is essential in understanding and predicting human behaviour. Parenting plays a significant role in the overall cognitive development of children. This study aims to understand the development of ToM among children in need of care and protection and then to compare the data with children living under parental care and children living in boarding schools. Further, it explores the extent of physical abuse experienced by children in the study and their relation to the development of ToM.
Design/methodology/approach
ToM Test developed by Muris et al. (1999) was used to measure ToM. Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire was used to understand the children’s relationship with parents and experience of physical abuse. The study used an ex post facto design with a purposive sampling method.
Findings
Findings suggest a significant impact of parental care on the ToM among children. Also, the type of care received mediated the relationship between parental care and the development of ToM. Finally, children living in institutions run by the Child Welfare Department reported that they have received harsher physical punishment from their parents than the other two groups of children.
Research limitations/implications
Findings are a significant theoretical contribution to the ToM development in children, especially in the Indian context.
Social implications
Findings demand more legal and psychological support to vulnerable children living in institutions run by the Child Welfare Department and boarding schools.
Originality/value
The study explores care and abuse from the child’s perspective. Findings are of value to the existing child care system in India.
... Los criterios de inclusión implicaron que los participantes asistieran a alguna institución educativa desde al menos 6 meses antes de haber comenzado las evaluaciones, pues la bibliografía sugiere que los niños institucionalizados presentan mejores desempeños en tareas de TdM, seguramente debido a la interacción regular con pares (Perner, Ruffman, and Leekam, 1994). Además, los participantes estuvieron dentro de los rangos de edad determinados para el estudio al inicio de las evaluaciones. ...
Babies grow up in rich social environments in which one of their most important goal is learn to interact effectively with other people and lean on them to learn about the world. In order to relate effectively, the child must understand that other people have beliefs, desires and intentions, and these mental states serve to explain part of the behavior of others.
This ability to understand and attribute mental states to others and to oneself is known as Theory of Mind (TdM)
There are some consensuses within the scientific literature regarding the development of the TdM, for example, that three years old children know that different people can want and feel different things, and then, when they are four or five years old, understand that their beliefs may differ from those of the people (Wellman, 2015). It should be noted that the most of developmental psychologists have given prominence to the study of beliefs over the desires, almost always framed by structuralist models of development that relate or even justify the appearance of some capacity with the child's age (Kloo, Perner & Gritzer; 2010; Harrigan, Hacquard & Lidz, 2018; Woodward, 2003).
As mental states, desires fulfill a crucial role in social interaction. First, because many of the behaviors of human beings are motivated by desires, and so that to understand them implies in turn to understand part of the mind of the people; and second, because they are the first way babies have to explain the behavior of other people.
In this research study, changes in the understanding of the desires of preschool children between two and three years old were analyzed. Literature has taken for granted that children of these ages understand the desires, using methodologies that involve a single measurement to reach their conclusions, and protected by a structuralist position of development, where basically there is a description of milestones determined by age. In contrast to this tradition, this study is based on the theory of Nonlinear Dynamic Systems to address the understanding of desires with an emphasis on variability and change. Specifically, children ability to use simple desires to predict the emotions and behavior of others was evaluated, as well as assessing their ability to infer others desires based on preferences.
To do that, a microgenetic design was used, which involved several measurements of the variables in a short period of time, which allowed us to analyze the changes in the understanding of the desires at the time it occurred. For this, the minimum and maximum technique was used, a Nonlinear Dynamic Systems analysis technique that allows to calcule a change f trajectory or each child in relation to each variable:
After analyzing and classifying the trajectories of the participants in each of the three variables (use of desires for predict emotions and behaviors, and inference of desires) it was found that, unlike what most of the scientific literature suggests , children do not show high performance in these tasks throughout the evaluations. On the contrary, variability and irregularity were constant in many of the cases, which suggests that the understanding of desires does not necessarily follow a series of structured steps according to age. The results record several types of trajectories, marked by the variability and stability with performances of all types: low, medium, high and in few ideal cases. The investigation allowed to realize that with respect to the understanding of desires, children of similar ages show different trajectories of change, which supports the idea that development is not linear, and that it is necessary to approach the phenomenon from other methodological perspectives. In addition, the position of the majority of authors is discussed, with respect to the supposed ease of children of these ages to understand the desires.
Key words: Desires, Theory of Mind, Development, Variability, Dynamic Systems, Preschool children.
... Children with siblings scored higher on the ESCI. This converges with research showing that children with siblings pass Theory of Mind tasks earlier than those without (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Lewis et al., 1996;Perner et al., 1994;Ruffman et al., 1998). Finally, within the United Kingdom, the higher the household income, the higher children's ESCI scores, converging with research suggesting SES is positively correlated with researcher-administered socio-cognitive measures (Cole & Mitchell, 1998), but diverging from past research finding that household income generally did not predict children's researcher-administered social cognition measures (Pears & Moses, 2003;Weimer & Guajardo, 2005). ...
Social cognition refers to a broad range of cognitive processes and skills that allow individuals to interact with and understand others, including a variety of skills from infancy through preschool and beyond, e.g., joint attention, imitation, and belief understanding. However, no measures examine socio-cognitive development from birth through preschool. Current test batteries and parent-report measures focus either on infancy, or toddlerhood through preschool (and beyond). We report six studies in which we developed and tested a new 21-item parent-report measure of social cognition targeting 0–47 months: the Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI). Study 1 ( N = 295) revealed the ESCI has excellent internal reliability, and a two-factor structure capturing social cognition and age. Study 2 ( N = 605) also showed excellent internal reliability and confirmed the two-factor structure. Study 3 ( N = 84) found a medium correlation between the ESCI and a researcher-administered social cognition task battery. Study 4 ( N = 46) found strong 1-month test–retest reliability. Study 5 found longitudinal stability (6 months: N = 140; 12 months: N = 39), and inter-observer reliability between parents ( N = 36) was good, and children’s scores increased significantly over 6 and 12 months. Study 6 showed the ESCI was internally reliable within countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Trinidad and Tobago); parent ethnicity; parent education; and age groups from 4–39 months. ESCI scores positively correlated with household income (UK); children with siblings had higher scores; and Australian parents reported lower scores than American, British, and Canadian parents.
... Evidence from Western studies has shown that preschoolers' false belief understanding is positively related to different aspects of the sibling structure, such as the total number of siblings (Perner, Ruffman, & Leekam, 1994), numbers of older siblings (Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements, 1998), or siblings aged from 1 to 12 years (McAlister & Peterson, 2007;Peterson, 2000). Preschoolers with more siblings, especially older siblings, may outperform "only-children" on false belief task because the former have more exposure to conversations and interactions with siblings and parents that promote their understanding of others' mental states (Prime, Plamondon, Pauker, Perlman, & Jenkins, 2016;Ruffman et al., 1998). ...
To date, cross-cultural studies on Theory of Mind (ToM) have predominantly focused on preschoolers. This study focuses on middle childhood, comparing two samples of mainland Chinese (n = 126) and Australian (n = 83) children aged between 5.5 and 12 years. Strange Stories, the most commonly used measure of ToM, was employed. The study aimed to examine the one- versus two-factor structure and measurement invariance of Strange Stories across two cultures; use the verified invariant model of Strange Stories to compare children’s cognitive and affective ToM across two cultures; and finally, to investigate correlates of individual differences on Strange Stories cross-culturally. Multiple-groups confirmatory factor analysis revealed the measurement invariance of a two-factor model of Strange Stories (cognitive and affective) in both groups. Chinese children performed comparably to Australian children on cognitive ToM stories, but more poorly than Australian children on affective ToM stories. There were cultural differences in the correlates of ToM. The number of older siblings was a positive predictor of cognitive ToM for Chinese children, but a negative predictor of cognitive ToM for Australian children. The findings confirm that Strange Stories is a reliable measure for evaluating ToM in school-aged children from mainland China and Australia and highlight the importance of considering both cognitive and affective aspects of ToM in cross-cultural comparison.
... De hecho, se ha encontrado que participar en actividades cooperativas o competitivas con hermanos o pares favorece experiencias discursivas enriquecidas respecto a los pensamientos y emociones de sí mismos y de los otros (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Peterson, 2000). En este sentido, Perner et al. (1994) encontraron que tener una familia numerosa se relaciona con mejores resultados en tareas que implicaban identificar cuándo un personaje tenía una falsa creencia, en comparación con los resultados de niños con familias pequeñas. Por su parte, Ruffman et al. (1998) encontraron que tener al menos un hermano mayor favorece el desarrollo de la comprensión de estados mentalistas; los autores explican que, a través del juego de simulación y el uso de verbos que aluden a los estados mentales -como a emociones propias y ajenas-, los niños pueden hacerse paulatinamente más hábiles para identificar los estados mentales de otras personas. ...
Con el objetivo de indagar respecto a la influencia de la lectura de creencias sobre la competencia pragmática, en el presente estudio 56 niños de entre 48 y 54 meses pertenecientes al programa Buen Comienzo de la ciudad de Medellín participaron en un diseño experimental pre-post con grupo control. Para la evaluación de la lectura de creencias se adaptaron al español cuatro pruebas de la escala de Wellman y Liu (2004), mientras que para evaluar la competencia pragmática se adaptaron cuatro situaciones comunicativas propuestas por Sacco et al. (2008). Para la manipulación de la variable se llevaron a cabo 10 sesiones de entrenamiento en lectura de creencias. De acuerdo con los resultados intragrupo, el programa de entrenamiento fue efectivo para mejorar la variable entrenada, pues el grupo experimental mejoró su desempeño en la lectura de creencias (p = .007; d = –.663) y en la competencia pragmática (p = .007; d = .648); no obstante, aunque se encontraron diferencias significativas entre el grupo experimental y el grupo control para la lectura de creencias (p = .001; d = .472), no fue así para el desempeño en la competencia pragmática (p = .340; d = .143). A la luz de estos resultados, no es posible asegurar una relación de influencia de la lectura de creencias sobre la competencia pragmática; sin embargo, se encontró un modelo de regresión lineal satisfactorio cuando se incluyeron en los análisis variables sociodemográficas. Al final del artículo se discute respecto a la necesidad de integrar variables de contexto cuando se indaga por una posible relación de influencia de una variable psicológica sobre otra.
... The independent effects of these (and other) factors on the earlier appearance of explicit ToM performance around 4 years are well documented (reviewed by Fonagy et al. 2007). Other facilitating factors that are unlikely to be related to infant attachment security include having older siblings (Perner et al. 1994;Ruffman et al. 1998), the relative frequency and precocity of using complex syntactic complement structures (Astington and Jenkins 1999;de Villiers 2000, de Villiers andPlyers 2002), I 309 and the maturational development of executive function, selective attention, and response inhibition capacities (Leslie 2000;Pemer and Lang 2000;Leslie et al. 2004). Secondly, the demonstrated facilitating effects of early secure attachment on ToM development are not strong. ...
In this chapter we propose an evolutionary-based social cognitive theory of the early development of the representational affective self in humans and its role in emotional self-regulation and control. We first identify species-unique properties of human caregiver-infant interactions and critically discuss alternative proposals concerning the functional role of the human attachment system in the development of mentalizing on the one hand, and emotional self-awareness and affective self-control on the other. We propose that the human-specific features of early caregiver-infant interactions provide the necessary input conditions for specialized representation-building and attention socialization mechanisms (such as contingency detection, social biofeedback, and natural 'pedagogy'). These mechanisms playa crucial role in establishing primary self-other affective relationship representations that capture the characteristic causal structure of contingent reactivity of early attachment relationships. They also set up cognitively accessible second-order emotion representations with associative links to the self's procedurally represented prewired basic emotions. We then characterize different levels of primary and secondary emotion-control systems and show how the developmentally established affective self-other representations subserve these emotion-regulative mechanisms. Finally, we argue that the socially constructed second-order emotion representations support the ontogenetic extension of the domain of mentalizing to include the self's own causal mental states (apart from those of others) and show how this enables the functional use of mentalization for the purposes of emotional self-regulation and control in affectively charged interactions and relationships in humans.
... Siblings afford children with multiple opportunities for learning that others have desires and intentions directed toward objects 66 . Longitudinal research involving naturalistic home observations and analyses using birth-order suggests that siblings afford children with opportunities to practice prosocial interactions 67 , including opportunities for coordinated social engagement 68 and reciprocal play 69 . ...
Possessiveness toward objects and sharing are competing tendencies that influence dyadic and group interactions within the primate lineage. A distinctive form of sharing in adult Homo sapiens involves active giving of high-valued possessions to others, without an immediate reciprocal benefit. In two Experiments with 19-month-old human infants (N = 96), we found that despite measurable possessive behavior toward their own personal objects (favorite toy, bottle), infants spontaneously gave these items to a begging stranger. Moreover, human infants exhibited this behavior across different types of objects that are relevant to theory (personal objects, sweet food, and common objects)—showing flexible generalizability not evidenced in non-human primates. We combined these data with a previous dataset, yielding a large sample of infants (N = 192), and identified sociocultural factors that may calibrate young infants’ sharing of objects with others. The current findings show a proclivity that is rare or absent in our closest living relatives—the capacity to override possessive behavior toward personally valued objects by sharing those same desired objects with others.
... Our findings suggest that girls may also have an advantage in the performance of cool EF tasks at 54 months compared to boys, which aligns with the finding of Kochanska et al. (1996) that boys exhibit poorer inhibitory control during the preschool years compared to girls. Finally, our finding that firstborn children have poorer performance on both hot and cool EFs tasks compared to subsequent children aligns with previous work (McAlister & Peterson, 2013) and may be because interacting with multiple siblings in the preschool years enhances the development of theory of mind (Perner et al., 1994) which is predictive of EFs (McAlister & Peterson, 2013). Note. ...
The relationships between screen media use and hot and cool executive functioning (EF) and inattention/hyperactivity during the preschool years were assessed using data from mothers, fathers and children (N = 3787) participating in the Growing Up in New Zealand study. Patterns of screen time (i.e., whether children exceeded 2 hr of screen time at 2 and 4 years), content of screen media (adult-directed vs child-directed), total exposure of child to weekday TV (background and foreground), allowing meals in front of TV, having restrictive rules about TV, and frequency of co-viewing were examined. Binomial logistic regression analyses revealed a relationship between total exposure to TV on a weekday at age 2 and poorer performance on a hot EF task at 4.5 years of age. A relationship between eating meals in front of TV at 4 years and poorer performance on a cool EF task at 4.5 years was also identified.
... Moreover, other studies showed that psychological correlates of Theory of Mind typically observed among Western populations do not necessarily persevere outside such samples. For example, while the number of siblings is a well-documented predictor of Theory of Mind among Western children [48], this effect is not evident among Iranian children [46,49,50]. Similarly, authoritarian parenting practices are negatively linked to U.S.-American children's Theory of Mind acquisition, but such links are absent among Korean children tested in the same study ( [50], see also [51]). ...
Children seek and like to engage in collaborative activities with their peers. This social motivation is hypothesized to facilitate their emerging social-cognitive skills and vice versa. Current evidence on the ontogeny of social motivation and its’ links to social cognition, however, is subject to a sampling bias toward participants from urban Western populations. Here, we show both cross-cultural variation and homogeneity in three- to eight-year-old children’s expressed positive emotions during and explicit preferences for peer collaboration across three diverse populations (urban German, rural Hai||om/Namibia, rural Ovambo/Namibia; n = 240). Children expressed more positive emotions during collaboration as compared to individual activity, but the extent varied across populations. Children’s preferences for collaboration differed markedly between populations and across ages: While German children across all ages sought collaboration, Hai||om children preferred to act individually throughout childhood. Ovambo children preferred individual play increasingly with age. Across populations, positive emotions expressed selectively during collaboration, predicted children’s social-cognitive skills. These findings provide evidence that culture shapes young children’s social motivation for dyadic peer collaboration. At the same time, the positive relation of social motivation and social cognition in early ontogeny appears cross-culturally constant.
... Pretend play is only one means through which attachment security and older siblings/playmates might influence ToM acquisition, but it has been argued to be "perhaps our best candidate for a cooperative activity which furthers the eventual understanding of false belief" (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam, 1994, p. 1236. A plausible case for some link between pretence and ToM exists, but the evidence does not distinguish among models 1, 2, and 3. ...
It is well known that children's activities are full of pretending and imagination, but it is less appreciated that animals can also show similar activities. Originally published in 2002, this book focuses on comparing and contrasting children's and animals' pretenses and imaginative activities. In the text, overviews of research present conflicting interpretations of children's understanding of the psychology of pretense, and describe sociocultural factors which influence children's pretenses. Studies of nonhuman primates provide examples of their pretenses and other simulative activities, explore their representational and imaginative capacities and compare their skills with children. Although the psychological requirements for pretending are controversial, evidence presented in this volume suggests that great apes and even monkeys may share capacities for imagination with children, and that children's early pretenses may be less psychological than they appear.
... Understanding the possible reasons for this developmental shift in ability has been the focus of many studies over the past twenty years. It is now understood that ToM development is influenced by a wide range of factors including family size (Perner, Ruffman and Leekam, 1994;McAlister and Peterson, 2007), exposure to discussion of mental states and feelings within families (Cutting and Dunn, 1999), engagement in pretend play (Lillard, 2013) and family socioeconomic status (Cutting and Dunn, 1999). Nonetheless, two primary factors have been most dominant: executive functions and language abilities. ...
The potential to train social capacities could have wide-ranging positive effects for society and may be particularly relevant to clinical conditions in which social challenges impact on well-being and quality of life. Yet, the study of whether and how social skills can be trained has been neglected until recently. This chapter provides an overview of the most recent studies which have sought to train social abilities across different developmental populations. An overview is first provided of socio-cognitive (theory of mind) and socio-affective (empathy, compassion) processes, after which studies seeking to enhance these skills are reviewed. Studies are divided into those that directly target the particular skill or seek to enhance it by targeting an associated function. The neural mechanisms associated with training and impact on prosocial behaviours are highlighted, and methodological implications are discussed throughout. Overall, studies suggest training social capacities may be effective; however, further research will be needed to clarify the precise methodological features that lead to training success.
... Understanding the possible reasons for this developmental shift in ability has been the focus of many studies over the past twenty years. It is now understood that ToM development is influenced by a wide range of factors including family size (Perner, Ruffman and Leekam, 1994;McAlister and Peterson, 2007), exposure to discussion of mental states and feelings within families (Cutting and Dunn, 1999), engagement in pretend play (Lillard, 2013) and family socioeconomic status (Cutting and Dunn, 1999). Nonetheless, two primary factors have been most dominant: executive functions and language abilities. ...
The potential to train social capacities could have wide-ranging positive effects for society, and may be particularly relevant to clinical conditions in which social challenges impact on wellbeing and quality of life. Yet, the study of whether and how social skills can be trained has been neglected until recently. This chapter provides an overview of the most recent studies which have sought to train social abilities across different developmental populations. An overview is first provided of socio-cognitive (Theory of Mind) and socio-affective (Empathy, Compassion) processes, after which studies seeking to enhance these skills are reviewed. Studies are divided into those that directly target the particular skill, or seek to enhance it by targeting an associated function. The neural mechanisms associated with training and impact on prosocial behaviours are highlighted, and methodological implications are discussed throughout. Overall, studies suggest training social capacities may be effective, however further research will be needed to clarify the precise methodological features that lead to training success.
... Understanding the possible reasons for this developmental shift in ability has been the focus of many studies over the past twenty years. It is now understood that ToM development is influenced by a wide range of factors including family size (Perner, Ruffman and Leekam, 1994;McAlister and Peterson, 2007), exposure to discussion of mental states and feelings within families (Cutting and Dunn, 1999), engagement in pretend play (Lillard, 2013) and family socioeconomic status (Cutting and Dunn, 1999). Nonetheless, two primary factors have been most dominant: executive functions and language abilities. ...
The potential to train social capacities could have wide-ranging positive effects for society, and may be particularly relevant to clinical conditions in which social challenges impact on wellbeing and quality of life. Yet, the study of whether and how social skills can be trained has been neglected until recently. This chapter provides an overview of the most recent studies which have sought to train social abilities across different developmental populations. An overview is first provided of socio-cognitive (Theory of Mind) and socio-affective (Empathy, Compassion) processes, after which studies seeking to enhance these skills are reviewed. Studies are divided into those that directly target the particular skill, or seek to enhance it by targeting an associated function. The neural mechanisms associated with training and impact on prosocial behaviours are highlighted, and methodological implications are discussed throughout. Overall, studies suggest training social capacities may be effective, however further research will be needed to clarify the precise methodological features that lead to training success.
This chapter will appear in the book Cognitive Training, on behalf of Springer (estimated print publication date April 2020). The printed version may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the Springer book.
... It has been proposed that greater opportunities to learn about mental states from more varied and increased opportunities to learn about mental states in larger families, is associated with faster theory of mind acquisition (Pemer et al., 1994). Interestingly, the effect of family size seems particularly strong for children with poorer language skills, suggesting that a wider opportunity for social interaction at home can compensate for the effects of language difficulties in the development of theory of mind (Jenkins and Astington, 1996). ...
The development of the 'theory of mind hypothesis' altered the autism research field by offering a single underlying cognitive impairment to account for the defining triad of impairments. Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (1985) suggested that autism was the consequence of a deficit in the development of a theory of mind. This would mean that autistic children failed to develop an understanding that people have minds as well as bodies. Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) demonstrated that most autistic children, and typically developing children under the age of four years, were unable to state a story character's mistaken belief, unlike typically developing children over 4 years who were able to do so. The finding was particularly significant because the theory of mind impairment appeared to be specific to autism, and not explained by intellectual or language ability. False belief tasks developed to investigate autistic children's ability to form mental representations of people's thoughts, feelings and desires, used a pass/fail paradigm which was consistent with the view that theory of mind was an all or none affair. However, inconsistent performance by autistic children across a variety of false belief tasks, and the ability of some autistic children with good verbal ability to pass false belief tasks, challenged the model of an absence of any mentalising ability. Performance on false belief tasks at ceiling by many autistic children with a verbal age above 6 years has stimulated the development of more advanced tasks, scored on a performance scale to assess the extent of mentalising ability rather than its presence or absence. This study matched 20 autistic children between 6-12 years with typically developing children for chronological age, verbal age and IQ. The children's theory of mind ability was assessed on 'standard' false belief and a picture sequencing task, and on three 'advanced' measures: an adapted version of the Strange Stories (Happe, 1994; Happe, unpublished), a children's version of the Eyes task (Baron-Cohen et al., 1997; Baron- Cohen, unpublished) and a new Cartoons task (Happe, unpublished). The autistic group's scores were significantly lower than typically developing children's in accounting for story characters' actions on mentalising stories, but not physical stories. The autistic group used significantly less mental state language in their answers than the typically developing group, with a specific difference in the use of second order phrases. Performance of the two groups was also distinguished by the Eyes task, but not the Cartoons task. Overall, the 'advanced' theory of mind tasks were able to discriminate group membership with 85% accuracy. The use of alternative cognitive strategies to produce appropriate answers to lower level mentalising tasks in a more laborious way than the affective route used by typically developing children may explain these findings. In addition, it may be that these able autistic individuals experience an impairment in the ability to use low level mentalising abilities which they may in fact possess.
... While large group factors play a role, we note that further exploration is needed regarding small and local group factors. A growing body of work is demonstrating that social relationship and environments shape ToM performance, such as family size , number of siblings (Cole and Mitchell 2000;Perner, Ruffman, and Leekam 1994), the amount of mental-state talk in the home (Hughes, Devine, and Wang 2017;Liu et at. 2016), socioeconomic status and the language spoken (Shatz et al. 2003), and family background (Cutting and Dunn 1999). ...
Despite a wealth of research exploring developmental patterns of children’s understanding of the thoughts and desires of another (or, their theory of mind), relatively little research has explored children’s developing understanding of supernatural minds. Of the work that exists, very few studies have explored whether patterns are similar in other cultural contexts, or religious traditions outside of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. To address this deficit, the present study recruited 2-to-5-year-old children from three countries (United Kingdom, Albania, and Israel) with different religious traditions (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish). Children completed two perception (audio and visual) tasks and one memory task assessing their understanding of natural and supernatural minds’ cognitive abilities. Analyses revealed different patterns for responses about human minds. However, there were similar results across samples for responses about God, suggesting a shared developmental pattern. We conclude that children from religious traditions with a High God (God, Allah, Ha-Shem) share a similar developing concept of God.
... It is possible that if children have siblings they may be exposed to qualitatively and/or quantitatively different experiences of competition. Similarly, in the theory of mind literature, having older siblings has been 177 shown to be beneficial for theory of mind development (Pemer, Ruffman & Leekam, 1994). ...
This thesis considers the development of tactical strategy. Tactically strategic behaviour is employed in competitive interactions in which individuals are trying to obtain the same limited set of resources. Tactical strategy is demonstrated when children try to out-manoeuvre an opponent and in doing so take into account prior knowledge about the way in which others generally behave. Anticipatory switches in guessing strategy were selected as a form of tactically strategic behaviour amenable to experimental analysis. This thesis reports the development of two novel procedures that allow the assessment of anticipatory switches in guessing strategy. These procedures were based on simple guessing games in which, unbeknown to the child, the experimenter uses a predictable hiding sequence. Children's guessing behaviour was examined to evaluate whether they made anticipatory changes in guessing strategy, once they had discovered the hiding sequence. An exploration of the parameters of these procedures enabled evidence of tactical strategy to be found in progressively younger children. The experiments reported in this thesis indicate evidence of tactically strategic behaviour in children from the age of 5. This age is rather younger than might be predicted from earlier research. The findings of these experiments suggest that tactically strategic behaviour may emerge at approximately 3- to 4-years of age, implying that the study of this age group would have greatest implications for the understanding of the development of tactical strategy in children. Preliminary results encourage further research investigating how tactical strategy is related to both theory of mind and executive functions. However, no strong conclusions can be made about such relationships from the findings of the experiments reported here. Future research should also consider the role of social development in tactically strategic behaviour.
... Other factors found to relate to the acquisition of theory of mind include parents actively engaging the child in pretend play (Vygotsky, 1967, cited in Murray, Woolgar, Briers, & Hipwell, 1999, the number of adults and older children with whom the children have contact (Lewis et a l, 1996), with the existence of more siblings specifically lowering the age at which children pass false belief tasks (Pemer, Ruffinan, & Leekam, 1994). In more recent research, however, this finding has not been replicated; Carlson and Moses (2001) and Cutting and Dunn (1999) found no relation between the number of older siblings and theory of mind performance. ...
Attachment and theory of mind are two risk factors that are thought to contribute to the development of conduct problems. However, little is known about the potential link between attachment, theory of mind and antisocial behaviour. Recent theoretical models suggest that insecure attachment hinders the development of mentalising abilities, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of offending (Fonagy, Target, Steele, & Steele, 1997a). This research considers the application of this model to a population of adolescent offenders by comparing a group of young male offenders with a group of non-offending peers on theory of mind and attachment measures. Empirical support was found for a relationship between attachment, theory of mind and offending. Significant group differences indicated that offenders have higher levels of insecure attachment and poorer theory of mind abilities than non-offenders. Moreover, adolescents who reported more trusting relationships with parents showed lower levels of conduct problems. Further analysis revealed that more secure attachment and better communication with parents were related to superior theory of mind abilities. Ethnicity also seemed to have an impact on attachment, with white participants reporting more secure attachment than individuals from other ethnic groups. This study highlighted a particular need for further research into theory of mind in adolescence as well as into the relationship between attachment and ethnicity. The results also provide support for treatments with adolescents with conduct problems that use multi-systemic interventions that focus both on family and individual factors.
... Onishi and Baillargeon's experiment used the well-established 'Violation of Expectation' (VoE) paradigm. This paradigm exploits the fact that infants look longer 1 For example, children with siblings pass the test earlier than only children (Perner et al [1994]); children from families with low SES (socioeconomic status) are slower to develop mastery of false belief tasks (Holmes et al [1996]); children with low social status within a group struggle with some false belief tasks (Rizzo & Killen [2018]); and the frequency of mental state talk within the family affects false belief performance (Brown et al [1996]). 6 at events that surprise them. ...
According to previous studies of theory of mind (ToM), social environment and cultural background affect individuals’ cognitive ability to understand other people’s minds. There are cross-group differences in ToM. The present study aimed to examine whether social environment and culture affect the ToM in Uygur and Han groups and whether the individual’s cognitive ToM and affective ToM show in-group advantages. Han and Uygur college students were recruited as participants. The “self/other differentiation task” was used to measure cognitive ToM (Study 1), and the “Yoni task” was used to measure both cognitive and affective ToM (Study 2). We found that Han participants processed the cognitive and affective states of others faster and more accurately than Uygur ones. Uygur and Han participants processed in-group members’ cognitive and affective states faster and more accurately. Furthermore, Uygur participants were more accurate in the cognitive ToM processing of in-group members, while Han participants were faster in the affective ToM processing of in-group members. The findings indicated that ethnic culture and group identify might influence ToM processing. Strengthening exchanges between ethnic groups may enable individuals to better process out-group members’ psychological states.
Sibling relationships are the most enduring relationships in our lives. We share our family genes, our family names and heritage, and large parts of our life histories with our siblings—especially our childhoods. We are in each other’s stories of good times and challenges. We share and fight for our parents’ love and attention, compete for praise, glory, and achievement, and help one another to weather tough times. This chapter discusses how sibling relationships impact the different stages of our lives, explains the intricate positives and negatives of sibling rivalry and the significance of sibling support in different family contexts, and how parents can influence the quality of sibling relationships. It will help readers to acknowledge and manage their feelings about their relationships with their siblings, and develop increased EI so that they can enhance, rebuild, and consolidate supportive relationships with them.
The article presents the research on the characteristics of older preschool-age orphans’ interpersonal relationships. It reveals differences between the functioning of the sphere of orphans’ interpersonal relations and that of children brought up in families. Orphans show higher interest in adults, indicating that orphans’ need in adults’ attention is not satisfied. The main motives for communication with adults in families are mutual interactions and cognitive needs, while the dominant motive of orphan children is searching for attention and kindness. Orphans show increased inclination to conflicts, cause for which are every-day issues and the struggle for adults’ attention and friendliness. The main cause of conflicts characteristic for family-raised children is their selfaffirmation in games. Orphans are less and less likely to express their own emotions when communicating. They rarely turn to their partners for some advice, support, and sharing of experiences, unlike children in families. Orphaned children feel indifference in relationships with peers. Differences were found between orphaned children and family-raised children as for well-being of relationships: orphans’ well-being is quite low, while family-raised children’s well-being is high. Orphaned children, due to problems in interpersonal relationships with adults and peers, have some deviations in the most important psychological formations: distortion of self image, delayed formation of subjective attitude to oneself, as well as slow and abnormal development of activity, which may further negative affect their psychological well-being.
Empathy, crucial to harmonious interpersonal relationships and moral development, has both affective and cognitive components. Previous studies found that toddlers' temperamental inhibition may influence their empathy, but mainly focused on emotional response to others' distress. Little is known about whether inhibited children's poor empathy is due to high reactivity and social withdrawal when sharing others' affective states, such as distress (affective empathy), or to a difficulty in comprehending and inferring others' perspective (cognitive empathy). The current study investigated the role of behavioral inhibition (BI) in affective empathy (response to pain simulation) and cognitive empathy (performance in perspective-taking task) among 163 Chinese toddlers and tested in both only and non-only children. Correlation analyses showed that BI was only negatively associated with affective empathy. The relation between BI and cognitive empathy was moderated by self-regulation and inhibited children who were low in self-regulation presented low cognitive empathy. Additionally, only children presented advanced cognitive empathy but poorer affective empathy than non-only children. These findings imply different roles of BI in affective versus cognitive empathy in early childhood. Although highly inhibited children rarely show positive social expression toward others' distress, caution is needed in inferring that they lack a capacity for cognitive empathy.
This thesis describes a study of the development of attachment in a sample of infant twins. The aim of the research was to investigate the causes of individual differences in attachment security from a behaviour-genetic perspective. Contemporary attachment research views the development of attachment as being mediated by working models of attachment. An important implication of the contemporary view is that attachment is caused entirely by shared environmental factors. By contrast, behavioural genetics research suggests that the majority of variability in behavioural development is caused by non-shared environmental factors. The current study aimed to test this shared environmental model in families of twins. The study consisted of a sample of 58 pairs of twins and their mothers. Assessments were carried out of maternal sensitivity at 9 months, parental security of attachment (Adult Attachment Interview) at 10 months and infant attachment security in Ainsworth's Strange Situation at 12 months of age. Consistent with the linear model of attachment twins were more likely to receive the same attachment classification than would be expected by chance. Furthermore, concordance for attachment for MZ and DZ twins suggested only environmental influences on attachment. Shared components of variance in maternal sensitivity were also associated with shared outcomes in attachment. In addition, parents who were classified as Secure-Autonomous in the AAI were more likely to be sensitive and responsive to both infants - consistent with the internal working models view. There was also strong evidence of non-shared environmental influences on attachment and these differences in outcome were related to differences in maternal sensitivity. Furthermore, significant differences were found between those families concordant for attachment and those who were not for a range of psychosocial factors. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of the non-shared environment for future models of the development of attachment.
This thesis comprises a series of investigations into the development in early childhood of the ability to form mental state attributions, or mentalising. Based on a thorough review of the literature presented in the first chapter, it is concluded that the study of mentalising has lacked a clear a priori methodological approach to the assessment of differential theoretical predictions. Past explanations of mentalising development have, for the most part, attempted to interpret the findings of standard false belief paradigms. Previous theoretical models have therefore chiefly been limited to holistic post hoc explanations of the significance of false belief failure in the early preschool years. Empirical investigations that test a priori theories of mentalising are presently lacking. The following chapters describe a series of five experiments designed to evaluate the validity of contemporary theories of mentalising. The first two studies aimed to assess whether young children's mentalising performance may be improved by training. The third study used a novel attribution paradigm designed to address, in a more direct fashion, certain mutually exclusive theoretical assumptions and predictions of existing theories. In the fourth and fifth studies, these differential theoretical predictions were examined further by investigating the impact of imagery and pretence on the mentalising performance of young children. In the final chapter, the results of these studies are discussed in the context of the theoretical perspectives outlined in the introductory chapter. It is concluded that no existing theory of mentalising provides a satisfactory account of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie mentalising development. A conceptual framework which synthesises disparate existing theories of mentalising into a single theory is proposed. It is concluded that this integrated perspective is promising, and deserves to be the object of future research.
One of the major developments of the second year of human life is the emergence of the ability to pretend. A child's knowledge of a real situation is apparently contradicted and distorted by pretense. If, as generally assumed, the child is just beginning to construct a system for internally representing such knowledge, why is this system of representation not undermined by its use in both comprehending and producing pretense? In this article I present a theoretical analysis of the representational mechanism underlying this ability. This mechanism extends the power of the infant's existing capacity for (primary) representation, creating a capacity for metarepresentation. It is this, developing toward the end of infancy, that underlies the child's new abilities to pretend and to understand pretense in others. There is a striking isomorphism between the three fundamental forms of pretend play and three crucial logical properties of mental state expressions in language. This isomorphism points to a common underlying form of internal representation that is here called metarepresentation. A performance model, the decoupler, is outlined embodying ideas about how an infant might compute the complex function postulated to underlie pretend play. This model also reveals pretense as an early manifestation of the ability to understand mental states. Aspects of later preschool development, both normal and abnormal, are discussed in the light of the new model. This theory begins the task of characterizing the specific innate basis of our commonsense "theory of mind.".
The present research is concerned with the importance of subtle contextual factors in affecting the young child's performance on cognitive problems. To illustrate this phenomenon, the conservation task was altered to include a 1-judgment version in which the child had to comment on the stimuli only after their rearrangement. This condition was devised because it was hypothesized that the request for 2 judgments-1 before and 1 after the rearrangement-is taken by the child as a cue that he should alter his first judgment so as to acknowledge the change he has just witnessed. The results indicated that first-grade children made fewer errors not only on the 1-judgment task itself, but also on a subsequent standard conservation task given 1 week later. The results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that contextual cues which may be deemed insignificant by the adult may have a strong influence on the child's cognitive performance.
This study reports a marked development between the ages of 3 and 5 years in children’s ability to conceal information. In a situation of high-affect involvement, 3-year-olds did not know to misinform or withhold information from a competitor who always chose the object for which they themselves had previously stated a preference. Although only 29% of 3-year-olds knew to influence the competitor’s mental state, 87% knew to physically exclude the competitor. There was no difference between children’s performance when trying to obtain the object for themselves or predicting what a story character would do. The success of the older children in concealing information indicated their new representational understanding that to influence another’s behavior, one must influence that person’s mental state.
Presents a theoretical analysis of the representational mechanism underlying a child's ability to pretend. This mechanism extends the power of the infant's existing capacity for (primary) representation, creating a capacity for "metarepresentation." It is this, developing toward the end of infancy, that underlies the child's new abilities to pretend and to understand pretense in others. There is a striking isomorphism between the 3 fundamental forms of pretend play and 3 crucial logical properties of mental state expressions in language. This isomorphism points to a common underlying form of internal representation that is here called metarepresentation. A performance model, the "decoupler," is outlined embodying ideas about how an infant might compute the complex function postulated to underlie pretend play. This model also reveals pretense as an early manifestation of the ability to understand mental states. Aspects of later preschool development, both normal and abnormal, are discussed in the light of the new model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The development of children's verbal communication about feeling states was studied by analyzing naturally occurring conversations at home. The data were recorded during two longitudinal studies. In Study 1, 43 second-born children were observed with mother and older sibling at 18 and 24 months. In Study 2, 16 firstborn children were observed with mother and younger sibling at 25 and 32 months. Both studies showed that by 2 years of age, the majority of children referred to a range of feeling states in self and other, and they discussed the cause of feeling states in a variety of contexts (including pretend games). References to feeling states made by mother and older sibling when the target child was 18 months were positively correlated with the target child's speech about feeling states at 24 months. Both mothers and older siblings mentioned feeling states more frequently to girls than to boys. By 24 months, the girls themselves referred to feeling states significantly more often than boys. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes a confluence model that explains the effects of birth order and family size on intelligence. Intellectual development within the family context is conceived of as depending on the cumulative effects of the intellectual environment, which consists primarily of the siblings' and parents' intelligence. Mutual influences, through time, on the intellectual development of the siblings are described by the growth parameter a. The confluence model predicts positive as well as negative effects of birth order, a necessarily negative effect of family size, and a handicap for the last born and the only child. The model explains several features of a large birth order study carried out on nearly 400,000 19 yr olds. Extensions of the confluence model to other social processes are discussed, along with the usefulness of the confluence model in explicating the emergence of individual differences in a social context. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others. A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behavior of others. As to the mental states the chimpanzee may infer, consider those inferred by our own species, for example, purpose or intention, as well as knowledge, belief, thinking, doubt, guessing, pretending, liking, and so forth. To determine whether or not the chimpanzee infers states of this kind, we showed an adult chimpanzee a series of videotaped scenes of a human actor struggling with a variety of problems. Some problems were simple, involving inaccessible food – bananas vertically or horizontally out of reach, behind a box, and so forth – as in the original Kohler problems; others were more complex, involving an actor unable to extricate himself from a locked cage, shivering because of a malfunctioning heater, or unable to play a phonograph because it was unplugged. With each videotape the chimpanzee was given several photographs, one a solution to the problem, such as a stick for the inaccessible bananas, a key for the locked up actor, a lit wick for the malfunctioning heater. The chimpanzee's consistent choice of the correct photographs can be understood by assuming that the animal recognized the videotape as representing a problem, understood the actor's purpose, and chose alternatives compatible with that purpose.
Piaget's cognitive-developmental variable is conceptualized as a quantitative construct, the central processor M. The set measure of M, i.e., the maximum number of discrete “chunks” of information or schemes that M can control or integrate in a single act, is assumed to grow in an all-or-none manner as a function of age in normal subjects. The M measure is taken as the quantitative characteristic of each developmental stage. M values for the Piagetian stages were inferred from Piagetian data and postulated as experimental hypotheses.A new compound-stimuli visual information (CSVI) type of task was designed for testing quantitatively the M construct. The stochastic model used for these predictions in the CSVI task is the Bose-Einstein occupancy model of combinatorial analysis.Successful results from two different series of studies with 5-, 7-, 9- and 11-year-olds are reported. In addition, the manifestation at the performance level of the “hidden parameter” M is shown to be mediated by a number of moderator variables such as Witkin's cognitive style, attentional learning-sets, etc.
This chapter discusses the nature of 2-year-olds' pretend play with mother and with sibling. Dale's study examined in detail a range of issues raised by the observations of the children playing with mother, with sibling, and alone: the sources of individual differences in the nature of pretend play and the significance of the children's gender, of linguistic ability, and of differences in their affectional relationships within the family. The chapter discusses two of these issues, namely, the differences in initiation, thematic content, pretend transformation, and partner participation in pretend play with mother and with sibling; and the evidence for joint enactment and role play in the families. The study of 2-year-olds playing in the context of the familiar and supportive relationship with a sibling indicates that children may begin to understand, cooperate in, and contribute to joint pretend play considerably earlier than supposed. there are distinctive differences in the child's play with mother and with sibling A concentration on solitary play in children under 3 years of age may have led to a misleading picture of the development of symbolic play.
The Beginnings of Social Understanding examines the nature of young children's social understanding, and presents an argument for the processes important in its development. In response to Hay's 1990 review, which focuses on one aspect of that argument—the role of self-interest in those processes—the significance of self-concern is discussed. Self-concern is seen not in terms of a drive to satisfy self-interest, but as a facet of children's developing sense of self and of social efficacy; it is when in pursuit of immediate social goals (to tease, joke, cooperate effectively, to get wants met) that children pay attention to and learn about the social world. Developmental changes in the significance of these social-emotional contexts for the growth of social understanding, and the increase in “disinterested” reflective discussion in the fourth year are discussed; the continuing importance of humor and manipulation of other family members is emphasized. It is argued that sociobiological approaches do not add explanatory power to the observational evidence, and that there are no necessary connections between influences on normative development, and on individual differences.
3-6-year-old children were either put into real-life situations or were read stories in which another person or story character was excluded from certain information. Their competence in attributing absence of knowledge (ignorance) was compared to their competence in attributing a false belief to the other. A marked difference between attributions was found. In a transitional stage at 3-4 years children were able to attribute ignorance but failed to attribute the resulting false belief. The same developmental gap for children about 2 years older was found between the attribution of second-order ignorance and second-order false belief. Results are interpreted to show that children at a transitional stage find it difficult to represent the incompatible propositions describing the true state of affairs and the state of affairs falsely believed to be true by the other. Such a complexity is not involved in the understanding of ignorance where it has just to be represented that the other does not share the representation of the true state of affairs.
look at two verbal forms of teasing and deception; jokes and lies / my aim is to show how children's understanding of falsehood is related to their developing understanding of people's intentions and beliefs
focus primarily on the child's understanding of jokes and lies because the distinction between these two acts seems to rely on distinguishing the higher-order intentions and beliefs (i.e. what A wants B to believe) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
63 5–7 yr olds heard 2 stories that ended in a deceptive or an ironic statement. Ss distinguished between the stories in terms of whether (1) the speaker wanted the listener to believe him or not (2nd-order intention judgment) and (2) the speaker was mean or nice (attitude judgment). In one condition, final utterances were distinguished by intonation (sarcastic for the irony; sincere for the lie); in the other condition, the utterances were spoken identically without intonation. Most Ss who failed to make correct 2nd-order judgments also failed to distinguish which speaker was being mean (ironist) and which was being nice (white liar). Ss who succeeded on the 2nd-order question but failed the attitude question were equally distributed across conditions. Thus, intonation failed to facilitate the ability to distinguish the negative attitude conveyed by irony from the positive attitude conveyed by a white lie. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The hypothesis of the 1st and 3rd authors (see record
1983-27705-001) that a conceptual limitation underlies 3-yr-olds' difficulty with false-belief attribution was tested against 3 competing hypotheses. Results from 2 experiments involving 101 3- and 4-yr-olds show that false-belief attribution remained difficult for younger 3-yr-olds, despite their retention of essential facts and attempts to make expectations more explicit and prevent pragmatic misinterpretation. Findings strengthen the original hypothesis, specified as the inability to assign conflicting truth values to propositions. This hypothesis can explain why 3-yr-olds find pretend play, the distinction between expected and achieved outcomes, the real–imaginary distinction, and level 1 perspective taking easier to understand than false belief, the reality–appearance distinction, and level 2 perspective taking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
reviews progress in research on the development of deceptive competence, including his own recent experiments and naturalistic observations
early research on children's deception
intentionality
behavioural inhibition and affective control
an experimental study of children's deception (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
33 normal 3-yr-old, 16 normal 4-yr-old, 11 7–17 yr old autistic, and 14 7–28 yr old mentally handicapped (MH) children completed a task to measure capacity for strategic deception. A competitive game was played between the Ss and an experimenter in which participants tried to win chocolates. In the training phase, Ss learned that it was in their interest to tell the experimenter to look into an empty box for the chocolate, although Ss did not know until after the search which box was empty. In the testing phase, Ss could see the empty box. The 4-yr-olds and MH Ss generally pointed to the empty box on the 1st trial. The 3-yr-olds and autistic Ss frequently continued to point to the baited box for the full 20 test trials. The ability to apply the correct strategy was associated with success on a standard false-belief task. The tasks may be difficult because they require Ss to inhibit the tendency of salient knowledge about object locations to overwrite knowledge of epistemic states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We investigated 5- to 10-year-old children's understanding of the conditions under which a person becomes committed to carrying out an intended action in a series of three experiments. We asked subjects to pass moral judgment on story protagonists for not carrying out an action that, if it were carried out, would have prevented a friend's misfortune. In a
commitment story the protagonist agreed to act, whereas in a
no-commitment story the protagonist only predicted that he would act without understanding that his friend would later rely on this action. Up to the age of 9 years children thought both protagonists equally reprehensible for not acting. By varying the no-commitment story, a developmental sequence emerged in the understanding of when failure to act need not be reprehensible. Even the youngest children did not blame the protagonist if he never had the intention to act or if he was prevented from acting by external force. By the age of 7 years, they did blame the protagonist if he kept his intention to act a secret. Although children from a very early age have the concept of commitment, the understanding of the interpersonal conditions for becoming committed develops later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Most research suggests that it is not until age 4 that children understand deception as a means of creating a false belief. Yet children could have failed on these tasks because of either (1) conceptual problems (an inability to understand that deception is a means of creating false belief), or (2) pragmatic problems (an inability to articulate an understanding of false beliefs) and task complexity (an inability to follow the narrative or make appropriate inferences). Three experiments were conducted to determine why children might fail deception tasks, and results indicated that (1) children were no better at understanding deception whether they were "active deceivers" or observers of a deceptive act, and (2) children's difficulty appeared to be associated with a conceptual deficiency (e.g., they could leave clues that would lead another to a possible belief but not a false belief). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experiments with 145 children (aged 2 yrs 8 mo to 4 yrs 11 mo) explored Ss' ability to deceive a competitor in a hiding game, using a paradigm similar to the one introduced by G. Woodruff and D. Premack (see record
1981-04926-001) for the study of deception in chimpanzees. There was a significant increase with age in the frequency of deceptive pointing, with children below the age of about 3.5 yrs consistently failing to deceive a competitor even under conducive conditions. Two deception tasks were significantly more difficult for 3–4 yr olds than parallel "sabotage" tasks. Findings demonstrate 3-yr-olds' difficulty with false belief representation and are discussed with regard to controversies on the early acquisition of a theory of mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
How do children (and indeed adults) understand the mind? In this paper we contrast two accounts. One is the view that the child's early understanding of mind is an implicit theory analogous to scientific theories, and changes in that understanding may be understood as theory changes. The second is the view that the child need not really understand the mind, in the sense of having some set of beliefs about it. She bypasses conceptual understanding by operating a working model of the mind and reading its
The ability to understand false beliefs is critical to a concept of mind. Chandler, Fritz, and Hala challenge recent claims that this ability emerges only at around 4 years of age. They report that 2- and 3-year-olds remove true trails and lay false ones to mislead someone about the location of a hidden object. Experiment 1 confirmed that 2- and 3-year-olds produce apparently deceptive ploys, but they produce them less often than 4-year-olds, require prompting, and rarely anticipate their impact on the victim's beliefs or search. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that 3-year-olds produce deceptive and informative ploys indiscriminately, whether asked to mislead a competitor or inform a collaborator. By contrast, 4-year-olds act selectively. The results support earlier claims that an understanding of false beliefs and deceptive ploys emerges at around 4 years of age. 2- and 3-year-olds can be led to produce such ploys but show no clear understanding of their effect.
3 studies involving more than 70 3- and 4-year-olds were carried out in an effort to better secure an earlier but controversial set of findings interpreted as demonstrating that children younger than 4 already have a grasp of the possibility of false belief, and consequently deserve to be credited with some authentic if fledgling theory of mind. These studies, which relied on a measure of deceptive hiding rather than more familiar “unexpected change” procedures for indexing false belief understanding, all demonstrated that even the youngest of these subjects: (a) accurately anticipated the likely impact of their deceptive strategies on both the behaviors (Study 1) and beliefs (Study 3) of their opponents, and (b) were able to selectively employ these same methods of information management as a means of helping as well as hindering the efforts of others (Study 2).
Eighty children aged between 4 years 2 months and 6 years 3 months were tested on length and number conservation, both when the transformation occured because of a direct action by the experimenter and when it happened ‘accidentally’ as the by-product of an activity directed towards a different goal. Fifty children conserved when the transformation was ‘accidental’, whereas only 13 were successful when it was intentional. These results are interpreted as evidence that characteristics of the experimenter's behaviour, in particular his actions towards the task materials, can influence children's interpretation of utterances by suggesting the experimenter is thinking about a different attribute from that specified linguistically. It is suggested that traditional procedures may underestimate children's cognitive abilities.Résumé80 enfants de 4;2 et 6;3 ans ont été testés sur la conservation de la longueur et du nombre dans les deux conditions suivantes: Lorsque la transformation est le réultat de l'action directe de l'expérimentateur et lorsque la transformation découle, indirectement, d'une action ayant un but différent (transformation ‘accidentelle’). 50 enfants conservent lors d'une transformation ‘accidentelle’ alors que 13 seulement, répondent correctement dans le cas d'une transformation intentionnelle. Ces résultats montrent l'influence de l'attitude de l'expérimenteur et notamment de ses actions sur le matériel, sur l'interprétation de la tâche par l'enfant. En particulier, l'attitude de l'expérimentateur peut suggérer à l'enfant que les caractéristiques pertinentes ne sont pas celles qu'il exprime linguistiquement. On peut alors penser que les procédures classiques ont tendance à sousestimer les capacités cognitives de l'enfant.
Rhesus monkeys with selective lesions of the frontal cortex were tested on a motor conditional associative-learning task. Monkeys with lesions of the periarcuate area were severely impaired in acquiring this task, whilst monkeys with lesions of the principalis region showed only a mild retardation in learning.
Four- to twelve-year-old children's use of the verb “lying” and their moral judgment of true and false assertions was tested. Two types of stories were used in which a speaker was led to a false belief and therefore mistakenly produced either a false statement despite his truthful intentions or a true statement despite deceptive intentions. It was first tested whether children understood that the speaker held a false belief. As a test of moral judgment children were then asked to reward the speaker. Even 4-year-olds tended to reward according to the speaker's intentions and showed little sign of “moral realism” by rewarding according to the truth value of the assertion. As a test of the lexical definition of lying, children were first tested as to whether they understood that the falsity of the assertion by the well-meaning speaker was unintentional. Then they were asked whether this speaker had told a lie or not. Of those children who had given correct answers to the control questions (i.e., who understood that the speaker entertained a false belief and that the falsity of his assertion was therefore unintentional) most 4-year-olds, a fair proportion of 6-year-olds, but practically no 8-year-olds showed a realist concept of lying. They called the well-intended, mistakenly false statement a lie. This conceptual realism persisted even in children who just before had rewarded this speaker for his truthful intentions.
Since it was introduced to the English-speaking world in 1962, Lev Vygotsky's Thought and Language has become recognized as a classic foundational work of cognitive science. Its 1962 English translation must certainly be considered one of the most important and influential books ever published by the MIT Press. In this highly original exploration of human mental development, Vygotsky analyzes the relationship between words and consciousness, arguing that speech is social in its origins and that only as children develop does it become internalized verbal thought. In 1986, the MIT Press published a new edition of the original translation by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar, edited by Vygotsky scholar Alex Kozulin, that restored the work's complete text and added materials to help readers better understand Vygotsky's thought. Kozulin also contributed an introductory essay that offered new insight into Vygotsky's life, intellectual milieu, and research methods. This expanded edition offers Vygotsky's text, Kozulin's essay, a subject index, and a new foreword by Kozulin that maps the ever-growing influence of Vygotsky's ideas.