Little pranksters: Inhibitory control mediates the association between false belief understanding and practical joking in young children

To successfully pull a practical joke on someone, children need to understand that their victims do not know what they themselves know, be able to intentionally manipulate others’ beliefs, and maintain a straight face to safeguard the integrity of the joke. This study examined the relationship between children’s developing theory of mind (ToM), inhibitory control, and their ability to pull a practical joke. Ninety-five children between ages 2 and 6 participated in, among other measures, a practical joke task that required them to knowingly give one of the experimenters a gift box containing a rubber insect. Results showed that children’s ability to pull a practical joke was significantly related to their age, false belief understanding (FBU), inhibitory control, and verbal ability. Children with more siblings were more likely to successfully pull a practical joke. Most importantly, inhibitory control was shown to mediate the relation between FBU and practical joking. The findings provide evidence that practical joking as an example of ToM use is effortful.

Theory of mind and inhibitory control in three cultures: Conflict inhibition predicts false belief understanding in Germany, Costa Rica and Cameroon

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025406066759 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 249-260 ◽

Cited By ~ 57

Author(s):

Athanasios Chasiotis ◽

Florian Kiessling ◽

Jan Hofer ◽

Domingo Campos

Keyword(s):

Costa Rica ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Inhibitory Control ◽

False Belief ◽

Moderating Effects ◽

Three Samples ◽

Culture Independent ◽

Relationship Of ◽

This study investigates the relationship of theory of mind and inhibitory control in three samples from Europe, Africa and Latin America differing in relevant socioeconomic and psychological background. The relationship between false belief understanding and inhibitory control was tested using samples of 3 to 5 year-old preschoolers from Germany ( N = 116), Costa Rica ( N = 82) and Cameroon ( N = 116). Inhibitory control and theory of mind were examined using test batteries. Age, gender, siblings, language understanding and mother's education were controlled. Results of regression analyses controlling for moderating effects of culture show a culture-independent relation between conflict inhibition and false belief understanding while delay inhibition is not a significant predictor for false belief understanding across cultures. Conflict inhibition is discussed as a universal developmental prerequisite for the development of theory of mind in the preschool years.

A Longitudinal Study of the Relations Between Theory of Mind, Executive Function, and Lying in Children

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.766891 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Changzhi Zhao ◽

Siyuan Shang ◽

Alison M. Compton ◽

Genyue Fu ◽

Liyang Sai

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Executive Function ◽

Longitudinal Study ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Inhibitory Control ◽

Emotion Understanding ◽

False Belief ◽

Chinese Children ◽

Knowledge Access

This study used longitudinal cross-lagged modeling to examine the contribution of theory of mind (ToM), executive function (EF) to children’s lying development and of children’s lying to ToM and EF development. Ninety-seven Chinese children (initial Mage = 46 months, 47 boys) were tested three times approximately 4 months apart. Results showed that the diverse desire understanding and knowledge access understanding components of ToM, as well as the inhibitory control component of EF predicted the development of children’s lying, while the diverse belief understanding and false belief understanding components of ToM, and the working memory component of EF did not predict development of children’s lying. Meanwhile, children’s lying predicted development of children’s belief-emotion understanding components of ToM, but not any other ToM components, or EF components. These findings provide longitudinal evidence for the relation between ToM, EF, and children’s lying during the preschool years.

A two-lab direct replication attempt of Southgate, Senju, & Csibra (2007)

10.31234/osf.io/gzy26 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Dora Kampis ◽

Petra Karman ◽

Gergely Csibra ◽

Victoria Southgate ◽

Mikołaj Hernik

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Young Children ◽

Collaborative Study ◽

False Belief ◽

Action Prediction ◽

Belief Attribution ◽

False Belief Understanding

The study by Southgate, V., Senju, A., and Csibra, G. (Southgate et al., 2007) has been widely cited as evidence for false-belief attribution in young children. Recent replication attempts of this paradigm have yielded mixed results: several studies were unable to replicate the original finding, raising doubts about the suitability of the paradigm to assess non-verbal action prediction and Theory of Mind. In a preregistered collaborative study including two of the original authors, we tested 160 24- to 26-month-olds across two locations using the original stimuli, procedure, and analyses as closely as possible. We found no evidence for action anticipation: only roughly half of the infants looked in anticipation to the location of an agent’s impending action when action prediction did not require taking into account the agent’s beliefs and a similar number when the agent held a false-belief. These results and other non-replications suggest that the paradigm does not reliably elicit action prediction and thus cannot assess false belief understanding in 2- year-old children. While the results of the current study do not support any claim regarding the presence or absence of Theory of Mind in infants, we conclude that an important piece of evidence that has to date supported arguments for the existence of this competence, can no longer serve that function.

A two-lab direct replication attempt of Southgate, Senju and Csibra (2007)

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.210190 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (8) ◽

pp. 210190

Author(s):

D. Kampis ◽

P. Kármán ◽

G. Csibra ◽

V. Southgate ◽

M. Hernik

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Young Children ◽

Collaborative Study ◽

False Belief ◽

Action Prediction ◽

Belief Attribution ◽

Link Type ◽

False Belief Understanding

The study by Southgate et al. (2007 Psychol. Sci. 18 , 587–592. ( doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01944.x )) has been widely cited as evidence for false-belief attribution in young children. Recent replication attempts of this paradigm have yielded mixed results: several studies did not replicate the original findings, raising doubts about the suitability of the paradigm to assess non-verbal action prediction and Theory of Mind. In a preregistered collaborative study including two of the original authors, we tested one hundred and sixty 24- to 26-month-olds across two locations using the original stimuli, procedure and analyses as closely as possible. We found no evidence for action anticipation: only roughly half of the infants looked to the location of an agent's impending action when action prediction did not require taking into account the agent's beliefs and a similar number when the agent held a false-belief. These results and other non-replications suggest that this paradigm does not reliably elicit action prediction and thus cannot assess false-belief understanding in 2-year-olds. While the present results do not support any claim regarding the presence or absence of Theory of Mind in infants, we conclude that an important piece of evidence that has to date supported arguments for the existence of this competence can no longer serve that function.

False belief understanding: Children catch it from classmates of different ages

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025409104525 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 33 (4) ◽

pp. 331-336 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Yifang Wang ◽

Yanjie Su

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Young Children ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

False Belief ◽

Location Task ◽

The Social ◽

Different Ages ◽

Larger Sample ◽

Better Than

Two experiments were conducted to compare the false belief understanding of children who have no siblings, but have classmates of different ages in kindergarten. In Experiment 1, 4- and 5-year-olds completed two unexpected location tasks. We found that 4-year-olds with classmates of different ages performed significantly better than those with classmates of the same age. This result was replicated in a larger sample in Experiment 2 in which the children were asked to complete an unexpected location task and an unexpected content task. The findings suggested that the presence of minds with varied ages stimulates the social cognitive understanding of young children, particularly for 4-year-olds. The findings of the present study give a particularly clear view of the effect of classmates of different ages on young children's theory of mind development, extending findings in other research on the advantage of having siblings.

On the Relationship between Theory of Mind and Syntax in Clinical and Non-Clinical Populations: State of the Art and Implications for Research

The Open Psychology Journal ◽

10.2174/1874350101811010095 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 95-104 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Elena Fontana ◽

Mauro Adenzato ◽

Jacopo S. Penso ◽

Ivan Enrici ◽

Rita B. Ardito

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Specific Language Impairment ◽

Mental States ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

False Belief ◽

Neuropsychological Disorders ◽

Implicit And Explicit ◽

Background:Over the years, different explanations have been given on the relationship between syntax and Theory of Mind,i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others and predict, describe, and explain behavior based on such mental states. In the present study, we focus on the relationship between false-belief understanding as a crucial aspect of Theory of Mind, and on the ability to master the syntax of complementation,i.e., the ability to produce and comprehend sentences in a recursive way.Objective:Our purpose is to test two main hypotheses on the relationship between false-belief understanding and the ability to master the syntax of complementation: the dependence and the independence of false-belief understanding on syntactic complementation.Method:We analyze studies on children with typical development, deaf children with deaf signing or hearing parents, children with specific language impairment, children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, longitudinal and training studies, and studies on adults with neuropsychological disorders.Conclusion:Strengths and weaknesses of the two hypotheses are discussed and limitations of the current state of knowledge are presented. A lifespan approach taking into account both the emergence and maintenance of false-belief understanding and using both implicit and explicit false-belief tasks is proposed to face the issue discussed.

Language and Theory of Mind in Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Relationship Between Complement Syntax and False Belief Task Performance

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders ◽

10.1007/s10803-009-0702-y ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 39 (6) ◽

pp. 929-937 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

Sophie E. Lind ◽

Dermot M. Bowler

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Task Performance ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

False Belief ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

False Belief Task ◽

The Relationship ◽

Complement Syntax

The relationships among verbal ability, executive function, and theory of mind in young children with cochlear implants

International Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1080/14992027.2018.1498982 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 57 (12) ◽

pp. 881-888 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Meizhu Liu ◽

Lingxiang Wu ◽

Weijing Wu ◽

Guangdi Li ◽

Taisheng Cai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Executive Function ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Young Children ◽

Cochlear Implants ◽

Verbal Ability

Do bilingual and monolingual preschoolers acquire false belief understanding similarly? The role of executive functioning and language

First Language ◽

10.1177/0142723717752741 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 38 (4) ◽

pp. 382-398 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Vanessa Diaz ◽

M. Jeffrey Farrar

Keyword(s):

Executive Functioning ◽

Inhibitory Control ◽

Language Proficiency ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Language Ability ◽

False Belief ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Short Term ◽

False Belief Understanding

Bilingual children often show advanced executive functioning (EF) and false belief (FB) understanding compared to monolinguals. The latter has been attributed to their enhanced inhibitory control EF, although this has only been examined in a single study which did not confirm this hypothesis. The current study examined the relation of EF and language proficiency on FB reasoning in bilingual and monolingual preschoolers to answer two questions: (1) Are there differences in bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ FB, language proficiency, and EF? If so, (2) is there a differential role for language proficiency and EF in predicting FB reasoning in these two groups? Thirty-two Spanish–English bilinguals and 33 English monolinguals (three to five years old) were compared. While monolinguals outperformed bilinguals on language proficiency, after controlling for this, bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on FB reasoning, and marginally on EF. General language ability was related to FB performance in both groups, while short-term memory and inhibitory control predicted FB only for monolinguals.

Labelling Improves False Belief Understanding. A Training Study

The Spanish Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1017/sjp.2013.8 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 16 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Elisabet Serrat Sellabona ◽

Carles Rostan Sánchez ◽

Eduard Vallès Majoral ◽

Moisès Esteban Guitart ◽

Francesc Sidera Caballero ◽

...

Keyword(s):

False Belief ◽

Control Group ◽

Test Results ◽

Training Study ◽

Linguistic Experience ◽

Training Conditions ◽

Remarkable Improvement ◽

Post Test ◽

AbstractA total of 104 children aged between 41 and 47 months were selected to study the relationship between language and false belief understanding. Participants were assigned to four different training conditions: discourse, labelling, control (all with deceptive objects), and sentential complements (involving non-deceptive objects). Post-test results showed an improvement in children’s false belief understanding in the discourse and the labelling conditions, but not in the sentential complements with non-deceptive objects or the control group. Furthermore, the most remarkable improvement in false belief understanding occurred in the labelling group. These results suggest that some types of linguistic experience promote the development of false belief understanding, provided that differing perspectives are confronted.