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Children’s Theory of Mind: Understanding of Desire, Belief and Emotion with Social Referents
Author(s) -
Nguyen Leanh,
Frye Douglas
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9507.00081
Subject(s) - psychology , theory of mind , false belief , object (grammar) , social psychology , social cognition , developmental psychology , task (project management) , cognitive psychology , cognition , linguistics , philosophy , management , neuroscience , economics
Preschooler’s understanding of belief, desire, and emotion was assessed in a new false belief task that explored childen’s mental state reasoning about social situations. The social analog task presented a change in a partner’s play activity rather than a change in the location of a physical object. Two main differences from the usual pattern of theory of mind results were obtained. Five‐year‐olds had more difficulty understanding a false belief about another’s current social activity compared to a false belief about a physical situation. The understanding of desire exhibited a 3‐ to 5‐year age change that may have been shown because the social situation involved conflicting desires. When there was a conflict, the younger children tended to disregard the stated desire and exhibited ‘social opportunism’ by misattributing desires to permit a social interaction. The new results give a more varied picture of the development of theory of mind, and argue for expanding its study into social frames of reference.