social cognition - theory of mind

Question 1

theory of mind

Answer 1

• refers to our ability to ‘mind-read’ or to have a personal theory of what others know or are thinking or feeling
• each of us has a ToM when we have a belief about what is in someone else’s mind

Question 2

intentional reasoning in toddlers

Answer 2

• Meltzoff provided evidence to show that toddlers around 18 months have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions
• children observed adults placing beads into a jar
• in experimental condition, adults appeared to struggle and some beads fell outside the jar
• in control condition, adults successfully placed beads into jar
• in both conditions the toddlers successfully placed all the beads into the jar and did not drop any
• this suggests that they were imitating what the adult intended to do and not what they actually did
• very young children have a simple ToM

Question 3

false belief tasks

Answer 3

• to test whether children can understand that people can believe something that is not true
• Wimmer and Perner told 3-4 year olds a story where Maxi left his chocolate in a blue cupboard in the kitchen and then went to the playground. later his mother used some of the chocolate in her cooking and placed the remainder in the green cupboard. children were asked where maxi would look for his chocolate when he came home.
• most 3 year olds said that he would look in the green cupboard because they assume that Maxi knows that they know
• most 4 year olds correctly identified the blue cupboard, suggesting that ToM undergoes a shift and becomes more complex at around 4 years old

Question 4

sally-anne study

Answer 4

• Baron-Cohen told children a story involving 2 dolls, Sally and Anne
• Sally places a marble in her basket, when she isn’t looking Anne moves the marble to her box
• children have to work out where Sally will look for her marble
• understanding that Sally does not know that Anne moved the marble requires an understanding about Sally’s false belief about where it is
• links between ToM deficits and autism were studied using the same task -

procedure - Sally-Anne task given to 20 autistic children, 27 non-autistic children and 14 children with down syndrome (control groups)

findings - 85% of children in control groups identified where Sally would look for her marble, but only 20%of the autistic children could do this. Baron-Cohen argued that autism involves a ToM deficit and that this may be a complete explanation for autism

Question 5

testing older children and adults

Answer 5

• many autistic people without learning disabilities have problems with empathy, social communication and imagination, but their language development may be relatively unaffected
• studies of older autistic children and adults without learning disabilities showed that this group could succeed on false belief tasks, blow to the idea that autism could be explained by ToM deficits
• Baron-Cohen and colleagues developed a more challenging task to assess ToM
• The Eyes Task involves reading complex emotions in pictures of faces just showing a small area around the eyes
• found that many autistic adults without a learning disability struggled with The Eyes Task, supporting the idea that ToM deficits might be a cause of autism

Question 6

evaluation limitation - false belief tasks

Answer 6

• hundreds of studies have made use of false belief tasks however these may have serious problems with validity
• false belief tasks require other cognitive abilities such as visual memory, so failure on a false belief task may be due to a deficit in memory rather than ToM
• some children who can engage in pretend play, which requires some ToM ability, still find false belief tasks difficult
• tasks may not really measure ToM and so ToM lacks research evidence

Question 7

evaluation limitation - theory of mind vs perspective taking

Answer 7

• perspective taking and ToM are similar but are different cognitive abilities
• can be difficult to make sure we are measuring one and not the other
• in intentional reasoning tasks, child might be visualising the beads tasks from the adults perspective rather than expressing a conscious understanding of their intention
• with the exception of The Eyes Task, tasks designed to measure ToM may actually measure perspective taking

Question 8

evaluation strength - real-world application

Answer 8

• tests used to assess ToM are challenging for some autistic people, possibly because they may not fully understand what other people are thinking
• this offers an explanation for why autistic people may find social interaction difficult, it is hard to interact with someone if you dont get a sense of what they are thinking and feeling