Theory of Mind in Preadolescence: Relations Between Social Understanding and Social Competence

Abstract

Theory of mind (ToM) underlies the ability to attribute mental states to people as a way of understanding their social behaviour. Although ToM development is an active area of research, most empirical investigations focus on infants and young children. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to assess ToM in preadolescents and to determine whether individual differences in this mentalizing ability relate to social competence and relate differently for girls and for boys. It was hypothesized that preadolescents' ability to understand thoughts and emotions in others would be associated with their social competence. 128 preadolescents (64 girls; 64 boys; mean age 11-9) completed peer social competence ratings, a vocabulary task, and participated in a social understanding (ToM) interview. Teacher ratings of the participants' social competence were also collected. Based on composite ToM scores, results indicated positive associations between ToM and (a) peer ratings of social-interaction skills, (b) general vocabulary ability. Separate gender analyses revealed significant effects. Results are discussed in relation to (1) individual differences in social understanding and social competence and (2) effects of socio-cultural context.

The adolescent mind in school: theory of mind and self-concept in Canadian and Polish youth

“…Consequently, in one of the two stories, participants could get 0 -2 points for including mental states in predicting behaviours (answers 1 and 3) and 0 -6 points for the quality of each explanations (answers 2 and 4). The aggregate results lead to a range of 0-8 points in one story, 0 -16 points in the whole two-story task for the Polish sample and 0-42 in Canadian sample (see Bosacki, 2000;Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Regardless of the range of results, in each study, higher scores reflect higher ToM understanding.…”

“…Gleaned from past research, to assess ToM adapted versions of two brief vignettes consisting of an ambiguous social situation were used (social ambiguous stories; Bosacki, 2000Bosacki, , 2008Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Borrowing from theoretical work that views ToM as a vehicle or instrument that is used to co-construct or narrate one's social reality (Astington, 1993;Astington & Pelletier, 1996), and studies that investigate an advanced ToM through the use of narratives (Hughes, 2011), this task aimed to assess the ToM involved in interpreting social meaning from ambiguous stories.…”

Children's understanding of mental states as causes of emotions

“…Several authors (Astington, 2001;Bosacki and Astington, 1999;Slomkowski and Dunn, 1996) have stressed the point that theory of mind development should be studied in relation to 'real-world consequences' (Astington, 2001, p. 685). Most research on theory of mind and emotions provides participants with explicit information about the protagonist's mental states and children are asked for emotion predictions (Hadwin and Perner, 1991;Harris et al, 1989;Rieffe et al, 2001;Symons et al, 1997;Wellman, 1990).…”

Compreensão de emoções, aceitação social e avaliação de atributos comportamentais em crianças escolares

“…Um estudo com pré-adolescentes, por exemplo, não revelou uma relação significativa entre teoria da mente e popularidade controlando-se o efeito da competência verbal (Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Os participantes que apresentavam uma compreensão social mais elaborada, por outro lado, foram avaliados pelos pares como mais hábeis em lidar com situações sociais.…”