Development of Preschoolers' Emotion and False Belief Understanding: A Longitudinal Study

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 645-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yifang Wang ◽  
Hongyun Liu ◽  
Yanjie Su
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
False Belief ◽  
First Year ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Location Task ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Developmental Relationship ◽  
Time Point

To explore the developmental trajectory of emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, and fear) and false belief understanding (an unexpected-location and an unexpected-contents task), we measured the performance of 3- and 4-year-olds 4 times at approximately half-yearly intervals. The results indicated that the children's ability to understand emotions and false beliefs increased significantly at each time point in the first year and a half, but no significant increases were found in the last 6 months. The developmental trajectories of the understanding of emotions and false beliefs were similar during the 2 years, however, the developing track of the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, and anger were different. Understanding of happiness developed earlier and faster than understanding of sadness, fear, and anger. In regard to understanding false beliefs, the children performed better in the unexpected-contents task than in the unexpected-location task. We found that a developmental relationship existed between emotion and false belief understanding.

Do children understand desires before they understand beliefs? A comparison of 3-year-olds’ grasp of incompatible desires, competitive games and false beliefs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Proft ◽  
Cornelia Hoss ◽  
Katharina Manfredini Paredes ◽  
hannes rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Active Choice ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Competitive Games ◽  
Cognitive Attitudes

A long-standing dispute in theory of mind research concerns the development of understanding different kinds of propositional attitudes. The asymmetry view suggests that children understand conative attitudes (e.g., desires) before they understand cognitive attitudes (e.g., beliefs). The symmetry view suggests that notions of cognitive and conative attitudes develop simultaneously. Relevant studies to date have produced inconsistent results, yet with different methods and dependent measures. To test between the two accounts more systematically, we thus combined different forms of desire tasks (incompatible desires and competition) with different forms of measurement (verbal ascription and active choice) in a single design. Additionally, children’s performance in the desire tasks was compared to their false-belief understanding. Results revealed that 3-year-olds were better at ascribing desires than at ascribing beliefs for both desire tasks whereas they had difficulties actively choosing the more desired option in the competition task. The present findings thus favor the asymmetry theory.

scholarly journals Relationship between implicit false belief understanding and role play: Longitudinal study

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Moriguchi ◽  
Midori Ban ◽  
Hidekazu Osanai ◽  
Ichiro Uchiyama
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Role Play ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Belief Understanding

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

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 ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Developmental Readiness in the Understanding of Own and Other’s False Beliefs

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Amadó ◽  
Elisabet Serrat ◽  
Francesc Sidera
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Developmental Readiness ◽  
Representational Change

One of the most important milestones in the development of theory of mind is the understanding of false beliefs. This study compares children’s understanding of representational change and others’ false beliefs and evaluates the effectiveness of an appearance-reality training for improving children’s false belief understanding. A total of 78 children ranging in age from 41 to 47 months were trained in three sessions and evaluated in a pretest and in a posttest. The results show that for children it is easier to understand representational change than false beliefs in others, and that the improvement after training was greater when starting from a higher score in the pretest. The implications of this for training in false belief understanding are discussed.

scholarly journals Early false-belief understanding in traditional non-Western societies

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20122654 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Clark Barrett ◽  
Tanya Broesch ◽  
Rose M. Scott ◽  
Zijing He ◽  
Renée Baillargeon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Psychological Adaptation ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Social Reasoning ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
The West ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Psychological Capacity

The psychological capacity to recognize that others may hold and act on false beliefs has been proposed to reflect an evolved, species-typical adaptation for social reasoning in humans; however, controversy surrounds the developmental timing and universality of this trait. Cross-cultural studies using elicited-response tasks indicate that the age at which children begin to understand false beliefs ranges from 4 to 7 years across societies, whereas studies using spontaneous-response tasks with Western children indicate that false-belief understanding emerges much earlier, consistent with the hypothesis that false-belief understanding is a psychological adaptation that is universally present in early childhood. To evaluate this hypothesis, we used three spontaneous-response tasks that have revealed early false-belief understanding in the West to test young children in three traditional, non-Western societies: Salar (China), Shuar/Colono (Ecuador) and Yasawan (Fiji). Results were comparable with those from the West, supporting the hypothesis that false-belief understanding reflects an adaptation that is universally present early in development.

scholarly journals Dogs follow human misleading suggestions more often when the informant has a false belief

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1955) ◽  
pp. 20210906
Author(s):  
Lucrezia Lonardo ◽  
Christoph J. Völter ◽  
Claus Lamm ◽  
Ludwig Huber
Keyword(s):  
Canis Familiaris ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Pet Dogs ◽  
Primate Lineage ◽  
Location Task

We investigated whether dogs ( Canis familiaris ) distinguish between human true (TB) and false beliefs (FB). In three experiments with a pre-registered change of location task, dogs ( n = 260) could retrieve food from one of two opaque buckets after witnessing a misleading suggestion by a human informant (the ‘communicator’) who held either a TB or a FB about the location of food. Dogs in both the TB and FB group witnessed the initial hiding of food, its subsequent displacement by a second experimenter, and finally, the misleading suggestion to the empty bucket by the communicator. On average, dogs chose the suggested container significantly more often in the FB group than in the TB group and hence were sensitive to the experimental manipulation. Terriers were the only group of breeds that behaved like human infants and apes tested in previous studies with a similar paradigm, by following the communicator's suggestion more often in the TB than in the FB group. We discuss the results in terms of processing of goals and beliefs. Overall, we provide evidence that pet dogs distinguish between TB and FB scenarios, suggesting that the mechanisms underlying sensitivity to others' beliefs have not evolved uniquely in the primate lineage.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document