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Scaling of Advanced Theory‐of‐Mind Tasks
Author(s) -
Osterhaus Christopher,
Koerber Susanne,
Sodian Beate
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.12566
Subject(s) - psychology , scaling , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , mathematics , geometry
Advanced theory‐of‐mind (AToM) development was investigated in three separate studies involving 82, 466, and 402 elementary school children (8‐, 9‐, and 10‐year‐olds). Rasch and factor analyses assessed whether common conceptual development underlies higher‐order false‐belief understanding, social understanding, emotion recognition, and perspective‐taking abilities. The results refuted a unidimensional scale and revealed three distinct AToM factors: social reasoning, reasoning about ambiguity, and recognizing transgressions of social norms. Developmental progressions emerged for the two reasoning factors but not for recognizing transgressions of social norms. Both social factors were significantly related to inhibition, whereas language development only predicted performance on social reasoning. These findings suggest that AToM comprises multiple abilities, which are subject to distinct cognitive influences. Importantly, only two AToM factors involve conceptual development.