Social cognition in the dyad: how peer play partners influence children's use of mental state talk

Abstract

Children's use of mental state talk (MST) is commonly measured in dyadic contexts, such as interactions during shared play with peers. However, little is currently known concerning how specific features of the peer dyadic context might impact children's conversational behaviour. Across two studies we explore how individual-level (i.e., play partner theory of mind and language ability) and dyad-level (e.g., whether or not play partners are reciprocal friends) factors influence children's use of MST with peers using Dyadic Data Analysis (Kenny et al., 2020). Our results indicate that children's MST use is linked to partner behaviour and the friendship context of play but not to either play partner's theory of mind or verbal skills. Furthermore, we found the frequency with which children refer to mental states varies substantially across partner contexts, cautioning against investigating MST use with peers without considering features of the dyad within which interactions occur.