Understanding and Conceptualizing Internal-Mental States: a Longitudinal Study

• In Event: ToM in Middle Childhood: New Directions and Link to Social Abilities

Abstract

Introduction. Theory of mind (ToM) plays an important role in the development of the self-concept (Rochat, 2003). However, the associations between ToM and personal values, a key component in self-concept that develops intensively during middle childhood (e.g. Döring et al., 2016) is not clear yet. Values refer to aspirations that direct behavior within the social world. As such, their conceptualization requires reflection on one’s desires, and understanding of the needs, emotions and intentions of others. Such complex construction of values may require mature ToM skills. We thus hypothesize that ToM will be related to the development of the ability to mention internal-mental states (IS) in personal value narratives.
Method. 159 children (55.3% female) participated in two waves of the study (M in Time 1 = 7.14 years, SD = 0.66; M in Time 2 = 7.92 years, SD = 0.67). Participants performed two age-appropriate tasks: (1) ToM tasks, in which they were asked to infer the right mental state of an actor in multiple situations (Peterson et al., 2012; Wellman & Liu, 2004). (2) participants ranked their values according to the importance they ascribe to them (Döring et al., 2010) and then were interviewed about two values, one they ranked as “very important” and one they ranked as “not important at all” (Vraneski & Daniel, 2020).
Data Analysis. Children’s interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Two independent coders determined the presence of IS, in contrast to overt-behavior terms in the narratives. Coders were trained to criterion and worked together until they coded at least 20% of the narratives and reached inter-judge reliability (k = .75 in T1, k =.70 in T2).
Results. Correlations between variables in the study are presented in Table 1. Cross Lagged Panel Model analyses (CLPM) were conducted in ‘Lavaan’ R package. The models indicated continuity across time for both ToM and IS. The cross lagged association between T1 ToM and later IS was only marginally significant, controlling for gender. To deepen our understanding of the unique developmental patterns in different ages, CLPM analyses were conducted for older and younger children separately, by splitting the sample by median (85 months, 7.08 years). Among younger participants (n = 74), no cross-lagged associations were found. Among older participants (n = 79), T1 ToM was associated with later IS (see Figure 2). The results demonstrate that individual differences in ToM are stable across time in middle childhood. Moreover, they suggest that individual differences in ToM may have a role in promoting the perception of the social environment, by introducing mental states of the self and others. Thus, ToM may direct children’s social behavior within their society, and specifically their understanding and use of values.

Authors

• Kinneret Misgav, Tel Aviv University
  Presenting Author

• Ella Daniel, Tel Aviv University
  Non-Presenting Author