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Understanding pretence and understanding action
Author(s) -
Berguno George,
Bowler Dermot
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1348/0261510042378254
Subject(s) - psychology , action (physics) , set (abstract data type) , stipulation , developmental psychology , task (project management) , cognition , social psychology , cognitive psychology , physics , management , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , computer science , political science , law , economics , programming language
Two studies were carried out in an attempt to replicate an earlier but controversial set of findings that suggested that young children are able to understand pretence in a mentalistic sense (Hickling, Wellman, & Gottfried, 1997). In Study 1, 65 three‐year‐olds and 77 four‐year‐olds were asked to either judge the thoughts of an absent teddy bear, who had not witnessed a change in the original pretence stipulation, or were asked to complete a similar, standard false‐belief task. Study 2 repeated the experimental procedures of the first study with 24 three‐year‐olds and 16 four‐year‐olds, with the difference that all children had to complete both tasks in a single session. The results obtained across both studies showed that 3‐year‐olds were unable to correctly judge the discrepant thoughts of the teddy bear, suggesting that young children do not attribute a false belief to another actor during pretend play, and that instead they view pretence in terms of overt action.