Social Influences on Theory of Mind Flashcards
Mind-mindedness
Meins (1997) coined it
a caregiver’s tendency to attribute mental states to their children
(drew on attachment literature to propose that mind-mindedness was the cognitive substrate of parental responsiveness during parent-child interactions)
Two approaches to measuring mind-mindedness
- Interview: assesses caregivers’ tendency to use mental states when describing their child
- Observational: scored from parents’ verbal response to infant mental states during interaction
What are the two theoretical account for differences in ToM?
Developmental lag account (differences between ToM should not extend past early childhood, because children will catch up)
Genuine variation account (reflects real differences between children that may extend to adulthood)
Types of evidence for environmental influences on ToM?
twin studies - show similar correlations between the performance of identical and fraternal twins
longitudinal studies- which demonstrate that the quality of early family interactions predicts variation in theory of mind for typically developing preschoolersand young children with hearing impairments born to either deaf or hearing parents
training studies - exposure to mental‐state discourse improves preschoolers’ theory of mind
cross‐cultural contrasts
in the timingand sequenceof theory‐of‐mind development.
Studies on deaf children showing language is important?
Deaf children who are born to deaf parents (who are fluent users of sign language) show intact theory-of-mind performance
Deaf children born to hearing parents show delays of similar magnitude to those displayed by children with ASD
(but can benefit from exposure to enriched environments (e.g., schools that use both oral and signed language).
What is the debate around the language -> ToM link?
EXPERIMENTAL CONFOUND - Most false belief tasks are verbal tasks
CAUSAL ROLE - language helps to develop false belief understanding
Theory of mind
the ability to understand others’ emotions, beliefs and desires
evolution of ToM research
traditionally research on ToM has focused on passing/failing of the false beliefs task and implications on relationships
now there has been a growth of interest in individual differences and variation of theory of mind over the past two decades
on nativist accounts
Nativist accounts of ToM acquisition have been challenged, hence the main focus here is to examine the social influences of differing levels of ToM in young children, especially families (but also peers)
What is SES a mix of
education, income and occupation
why is the effect of siblings on ToM stronger for child-aged siblings (as found by Devine and Hughes)
- more communication opportunities (esp if similar age as similar language opportunity)
- able to observe interactions between parents and sibling
- sibling conflict -> more parental discussion of different points of view
Two theories for HOW language -> ToM?
Vgotsky: suggests that language skills are important for children to develop their executive functioning skills -> theory of mind.
Alternative theory: as executive functioning skills improve, children are able to develop more complex language -> boosts their understanding of other’s minds.
nativist account
emerged in studies of Autism Spectrum Disorder, assumed it was due to neural mechanisms
% of ToM studies that are long
<1% of ToM studies apply longitudinal designs
why such modest findings of social competence studies?
- Many things involved in social interactions, not just ToM
- Difficult to measure social interactions, social behaviours are broad and encompass making friends/conflict measurement and can be done by observing/teach reports
- Depends on age, and studies tend to focus on young, preschool aged children
- Few longitudinal studies
