Differences in the Relations Between Antisocial Behavior and Peer Acceptance Across Contexts and Across Adolescence

Abstract

In this study of the origins of individual differences in theory of mind (ToM), the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study sample of 1,116 sixty-month-old twin pairs completed a comprehensive battery of ToM tasks. Individual differences in ToM were striking and strongly associated with verbal ability. Behavioral genetic models of the data showed that environmental factors explained the majority of the variance in ToM performance in this sample. Shared environmental influences on verbal ability had a common impact on ToM and explained more than half the phenotypic correlation between these two skills. Possible underlying proximal mechanisms are discussed, including maternal speech and mind-mindedness, sibling interactions, and peer influences.

Child language and parent discipline mediate the relation between family income and false belief understanding

“…Higher family income predicted higher vocabulary, which in turn predicted children’s false belief understanding. Thus, as suggested by other researchers (e.g., Hughes et al, 2005; Seidenfeld et al, 2014), children’s verbal ability does explain SES-related differences in children’s false belief understanding. This finding was important because few studies have examined SES, false belief understanding, child language, and parent discipline in the same analysis.…”

“…A composite false belief score ranging from 0 to 5 was created because other researchers argue that using summed scores when multiple theory of mind tasks are given improves reliability (Devine & Hughes, 2014; Hughes et al, 2005). We examined the frequency with which children answered the false belief question correctly but failed the control question (i.e., “What is really in the box?”).…”

“…Researchers have not directly examined child language as a mediator of the relation between SES and false belief understanding, although researchers have suggested this mechanism (e.g., Hughes et al, 2005; Seidenfeld et al, 2014). Hughes and colleagues (1999) found an association between children’s false belief understanding and a composite measure of SES; however, this relation was no longer significant after controlling for children’s language abilities.…”

Training children’s theory-of-mind: A meta-analysis of controlled studies

“…Specifically, past studies have shown that children's language ability (Astington & Baird, 2005; Harris et al, 2005; Hughes et al, 2005; Lillard & Kavanaugh, 2014), especially in the context of perspective-taking that is needed for everyday conversation (Deleau, 2012), and children's involvement in pretend play, particularly pretend role play in which children enact another person's perspective (Astington & Jenkins, 1995; Harris, 2000, 2005; Lillard & Kavanaugh, 2014; Taylor, Carlson, Maring, Gerow, & Charley, 2004; Youngblade & Dunn, 1995) are associated with ToM abilities. In addition, a large body of research has shown that the extent to which caregivers attend to and discuss mental states has an impact on ToM development (Meins et al, 2002; Ruffman, Perner, & Parkin, 1999) as does social interaction with children of different ages (Cassidy, Fineberg, Brown, & Perkins, 2005; Cutting & Dunn, 1999; Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements, 1998; Wang & Su, 2009).…”

Being LabeledNerd: Factors That Influence the Social Acceptance of High-Achieving Students

“…In our investigation, we focused on students in Grade 8 because exclusion on the basis of outstanding achievement is especially likely at this age (Juvonen & Murdock, 1995;Kiesner & Pastore, 2005;Pelkner & Boehnke, 2003). This investigation differed from previous research in the following aspects: (a) We systematically studied the evaluation of average students and of students who have already been stigmatized as nerds and tested whether certain factors increase or decrease negative evaluations; (b) Besides studying the effects of effort and athletics in high-achieving students (e.g., Juvonen & Murdock, 1993, 1995Tannenbaum, 1962), we added two additional factors: modesty and sociability; and (c) In the studies by Juvonen andMurdock (1993, 1995), the hypothetical students were of the same gender as the participants.…”