Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 381

The contexts in which children are embedded contribute to their developing understanding of the mind. Children in many countries, including Canada, India, Thailand, Norway, China, and the United States, show the onset and development of theory of mind between the ages of 3 and 5 (Callaghan et al., 2005; Wellman, Fang, & Peterson, 2011). However, social and contextual factors may influence the specific pattern of theory of mind development. North American and Chinese children develop theory of mind in early childhood, but along different paths (Wellman, 2017). Chinese culture emphasizes collectivism, commonality, and interdependence among community members. Chinese parents’ comments to children tend to refer to knowing and shared knowledge that community members must learn. U.S. parents emphasize Western values such as individuality and independence. They comment more on thinking, including differences in thoughts among individuals. U.S. children, and other children from individualist cultures, develop an understanding of beliefs before knowledge. Chinese children tend to show the reverse pattern: an early understanding of the knowledge aspect of theory of mind and later come to understand beliefs (Wellman, 2017). Children from Iran and Turkey follow a similar pattern in theory of mind development (Shahaeian, Peterson, Slaughter, & Wellman, 2011).

Everyday conversations aid children in developing a theory of mind because such conversations tend to center on and provide examples of mental states and their relation with behavior. When parents and other adults speak with children about mental states, emotions, and behaviors, as well as discuss causes and consequences, children develop a more sophisticated understanding of other people’s perspectives (Devine & Hughes, 2018; Pavarini, Hollanda Souza, & Hawk, 2012). In addition, siblings provide young children with opportunities for social interaction, pretend play, and practice with deception. Children with siblings perform better on false-belief tests than do only children (McAlister & Peterson, 2013). Success in false-belief attribution tasks is most frequent in children who are the most active in shared pretend play (Schwebel, Rosen, & Singer, 1999).

Children’s interactions with people in their immediate contexts can also influence the development of theory of mind. Children can be trained in perspective taking. For example, when children are presented with a series of objects that look like a certain thing but are actually something else (candle and apple) and are shown the appearance and real states of the objects, along with explanation, 3-year-olds showed improvements on false-belief tasks (Lohmann & Tomasello, 2003). Discussion emphasizing the existence of a variety of possible perspectives in relation to an object can improve performance in false-belief tasks—dialogue can facilitate the development of theory of mind (Bernard & Deleau, 2007). Other studies have engaged North American and European children in discussion about the thoughts, beliefs, and desires of characters in stories, especially stories in which characters play tricks to surprise or deceive one another. Children who receive the training improved their performance in subsequent false-belief tasks (Liu, Wellman, Tardif, & Sabbagh, 2008; Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007; Slaughter & Perez-Zapata, 2014). Similarly, conversation about deceptive objects (e.g., a pen that looked like a flower) also improves performance on false-belief tasks (Lohmann & Tomasello, 2003).