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BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to examine the relations between children’s social competence and initial index of theory of mind at 30 months of age.MethodsThe participants of the study were 322 toddlers and parents/caregivers who were registered with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) project. They completed a five-minute interaction session, which was coded using the Interaction Rating Scale (IRS) as an evidence-based practical index of children’s social competence. In addition, the children were asked to complete a diverse-desire task as a ToM (theory of mind) index.ResultsThe results showed that the ToM index was related to the total score and subscales of the IRS, such as Empathy and Emotional regulation.ConclusionsThese findings show that the IRS score was related to ToM task performance at 30 months of age.

Clear and observable social referencing behavior only emerges when infants are old enough to regulate their own behavior according to adult's emotional messages, but like the findings from other studies on infants' social looking behavior, infants before their first birthday may demonstrate gradual change in their referential looking behavior. In this paper, we attempted to examine possible developmental changes in the infants' referential looking behavior at 7 and 9 months, especially in terms of where and whom they look to for referencing. By analyzing the looks in the particular sequence to referees, we found that infants became more willing to look at a familiarized stranger's face as well as mother's body, as they got older. This might suggest a qualitative change in the referential looking behavior during this period of infancy.