Introduction: Do Metarepresentation and Narratives Play a Role in Reflective Thinking?
Abstract
Reflective thinking can mean three different things. A first form of reflective thinking consists in elaborating personal conceptions about the mental activities and abilities and in becoming aware of what occurs in our and other people’s minds when we are engaged in intellectual tasks. This form of reflective thinking encompasses the research field usually labeled as “metacognition.” A second meaning of “reflective thought” regards Theory of Mind, which concerns more closely the realm of social interactions and relationships. Theory of Mind in fact is conceived as the recognition of one’s and others’ affective and epistemic mental states as the psychological causes and motives underlying behaviors. Metacognition and Theory of Mind are in part explicit and can be recognized by asking people to express verbally their beliefs about the mind; they are, however, also partially implicit, and they can be detected by observing how people behave – both in natural and in experimental settings – and speak. The third kind of reflective thinking takes the form of narration. In this case individuals reflect on their own and others’ mental lives by trying to make sense of what happens within and around them. People’s storytelling, on one hand, reveals their naïve psychological ideas and, on the other hand, hints at exploring and understanding their own and other persons’ mental states and intentions better. The forms of reflective thinking mentioned are seen as important competences that are needed to equip an individual to face the demands of reality. Their functional meaning appears in informal settings – such as spontaneous conversations and dialogues – as well as in formal contexts, such as instructional environments. Furthermore, they are shaped by interpersonal relationships and by literacy because an individual is an active partner in social exchanges, belongs to a given culture, and uses specific artifacts in which values, norms, and rules are embedded.
... Theory of Mind (ToM) is "the recognition of one's and others' affective and epistemic mental states as the psychological causes and motives underlying behaviours (p. 1)" [1]. The strict interconnection between language and ToM has led scholars to use children's mental state talk as an indicator of their ability to understand others' mental states [2][3][4][5][6], with narratives providing an ideal inquiry context [6]. ...
... As such, children need an advanced ToM to implement mental state talk in their narratives and centre them around a protagonist's intentions and subsequent actions [25]. Narrative is also a form of reflective thinking, as it reveals people's understanding of their own and other people's mental states [1]. There is a general consensus that the ability to tell narratives is related to sociocognitive, linguistic, and cognitive skills [26][27][28]. ...
is study analysed children’s eory of Mind (ToM) as assessed by mental state talk in oral narratives. We hypothesized that the children’s mental state talk in narratives has an underlying structure, with speci c terms organized in clusters. Ninety-eight children attending the last year of kindergarten were asked to tell a story twice, at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Mental state talk was analysed by identifying terms and expressions referring to perceptual, physiological, emotional, willingness, cognitive, moral, and sociorelational states. A cluster analysis showed that children’s mental state talk is organized in two main clusters: perceptual states and a ective states. Results from the study con rm the feasibility of narratives as an outlet to inquire mental state talk and o er a more ne-grained analysis of mental state talk structure.
... Today, Theory of the Mind [TOM] (Premack and Woodruff 1978;Wimmer and Perner 1983) is at the center of an active and partly controversial debate. As far as the present contribution is concerned, it is interesting to consider how, from a socio-constructivist perspective (Antonietti et al. 2014;Antonietti et al. 2006), the child's representation of the other's mind is considered an essential element in explaining how the child can anticipate and influence the activities of the partners with whom she or he interacts. ...
Referring to the notion of “possible worlds”, the paper aims to investigate an intriguing aspect of children’s thinking: the function that play narrative scenarios in sharing with other partners (peers and adults) the child’s understanding of the physical and social reality. The idea of possible worlds to which this work relates, can be considered in some way as the legacy of Piaget’s pioneering research on symbolic thinking, currently referred in Harris’s perspective as “work of imagination”. Over the past few decades now, the notion of possible worlds has supported a new representation of the child’s thinking that is based on the idea that imagination allows children to explore alternative and multiple versions of reality. Among other things, imagination permits to the child to use sophisticated forms of causal reasoning and understanding of the rules of social life. By reconsidering a part of the literature on “possible worlds” and presenting two empirical observations, this paper wants to draw attention to the central role played by explorative thinking in child’s argumentative activities. Angelo, the three-year-old who is the protagonist of the episode reported, is a child like many: constantly relating to the social world, attentive to what is happening around him and, in particular, to the events in which he finds himself involved. Surprisingly equipped to position himself and act in the routines that he knows, but also capable of adopting effective strategies with respect to events that he cannot foresee and that are built constantly, and in a manner situated during interpersonal events. From a certain point of view, he acts in a competent way in the present, but thanks to previous experiences he seems equally ready to anticipate the activities that follow each other in the many scenarios of reality and fiction of which his daily experience is made up. In the example above, Angelo shows a precise interpretation of the situation (evidently based on previous experiences) and provides a solidly argued answer to his mother’s request. The reference to the socio-material context fully supports his argument with the use of a perceptive fact that is difficult to contest. As highlighted by the short sequence presented, the dialogue between Angelo and his mother undoubtedly takes on the characteristics of an argumentative activity. As in a court debate, the child/lawyer explores the relationships with the other participants, offering to the jury “material” evidence. This will allow him both to challenge his mother’s point of view and to defend his own authoritatively. To give an account of the variety of thinking strategies that Angelo exhibits and also to illustrate the exploratory function of argumentation in children, this paper will explore the idea that during social interaction each participant builds narrative versions of the world from his own point of view. As Bruner (2002) wrote, possible worlds offer the possibility of throwing new light on the “real” world. On a theoretical level, this rapid exchange in the family can be defined as an illustration of sophisticated thinking activities (partly argumentative) in a three-year-old child. In fact, only a few sequences of observation of the unstoppable activities of Angelo are sufficient, as they are of any other child in everyday life situations, to obtain a large number of useful elements to understand the active role of younger generations in challenging the rules of social worlds and in reproducing and creating new cultural forms during social interactions (Corsaro 1997). More specifically, this paper aims to showcase firstly how this way of acting in the physical and social reality emerges early in children’s development, especially in situations where they have to defend their point of view or try to convince someone to do something. Secondly, it wants to show that these early thinking strategies are displayed by children mainly as activities of exploration of narrative scenarios (possible worlds) that emerge during social interactions. In order to answer these central questions for the study of thinking in children, this paper will a) analyse the notion of “possible worlds” as Bruner refers to it, b) present two transcripts of social interactions that allow clear examples of the children’s thinking activity, and c) discuss studies that support the acceptance of early cognitive activity in children and the multipurpose and flexible nature of child’s learning capacities (Gopnik and Meltzoff 1998).
... Once language skills have been acquired, the attachment relationship represents the affective environment in which a child could experience her/his own and others' mind thanks to verbal communication with parents (Antonietti, Liverta Sempio & Marchetti, 2006;Antonietti, Confalonieri & Marchetti, 2014): daily conversations about mental contents, more frequently and precise in the secure than in insecure attachment relationships, are considered the most important way to understand minds (Fonagy & Campbell, 2016). Fonagy and Luyten (2009) consider attachment relationships at the basis of children mentalization ability, showing that secure attachment relationships support mentalization development, and non-secure ones could lead to the formation of low mentalization abilities. ...
The present work investigates the link between attachment relationships, mentalization, and emotional regulation in 10-year-olds children. The aim is to verify if children-teacher attachment relationship could influence children's mentalization style and cognitive/emotional regulation strategies. For this purpose, 110 children were tested with the Separation Anxiety Test-School Version, the Mentalizing task and the kids' version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Question-naire. The results show that Self-Reliance component of the attachment representation with teacher predicts both the negative scale of mentalization and the propensity to use the emotional regulation strategy of "Positive Refocusing". Likewise, the Avoidance scale and the Total scale of the Separation Anxiety Test-School Version also influence the use of the cognitive emotion regulation strategy "Putting into Perspective" and of "Positive Refocusing," respectively. Results are discussed within the theoretical framework of multiple attachment theory, confirming the hypothesis that affective relationships with professional caregivers-namely school teachers-play an important role in constructing self-representation and the abilities to regulate emotions in stressful situations.
This study investigates the relationships between narrative competence and mental state talk at different age levels. Specifically, we explored whether a higher level of structure in narratives is associated with children's mental state talk, and whether this effect is moderated by age (kindergarten, lower and upper primary school). The participants in the study were 172 Italian children. The children were asked to tell a story and their productions were coded for narrative structural level and mental state talk. Data showed higher levels of narrative structure were associated with a higher frequency of emotional, cognitive, moral, and socio‐relational terms. Results of the present study contributed to improve our understanding about how mental state talk and narrative competence are associated in different ways at different ages. This result suggests that children may develop in the ability to coordinate mental state talk and narrative structure as an effect of both, age and schooling.
Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject?
Theory of mind and language are interconnected.
Theory of mind can be assessed through mental state talk.
Mental state talk is elicited through narrative tasks.
What does this study add?
Narrative competence is associated with mental state talk.
The first years of primary school seem to represent an important transition in children's development in narrative competence and MST.
Children may develop in the ability to coordinate mental state talk and narrative structure as an effect of both, age and schooling.
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