Children’s and Adults’ Judgments about the Time Duration of Mental States

• In Event: Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood and Adolescence: Measurement, Predictors, and Consequences.

Abstract

Do children and adults have intuitions about how long mental states last? Assessing these beliefs can expand scientific understanding of theory of mind and inform investigations of the potential impact of such lay theories on behavior and mental health (e.g., individuals who expect negative emotions to last a long time may be at higher risk for depression). We measured children’s and adults’ judgments about the time duration of emotions, desires, and preferences.
In Study 1, adults (N=45) estimated how long (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, a person’s lifetime) various emotions (e.g., “Something happened that made Sam feel sad.”), desires (e.g., “Alex wants milk.”), and preferences last (e.g., “Drew likes milk.”). Adults also responded to temporary control and stable control trials which asked them to judge the duration of various physical objects or states (e.g., how long a rock, ice cube, or sunburn lasts). A (mental state: temporary control, emotion, desire, preference, stable control) repeated measures ANOVA on duration estimates resulted in a main effect for mental state, F(4, 176)=599.85, p<.001, ηp²=.93. Adults judged preferences to be longer-lasting than desires and emotions (ps<.001). Separate analyses of discrete emotions further showed that adults expected startled and surprised to be the most temporary and self-conscious emotions (i.e., pride, shame) to be the longest lasting emotion.
In Study 2 (pre-registered on OSF), 8- to 10-year-olds and adults (N=108) responded to similar questions about the duration of emotions, desires, and preferences. Children and adults completed 8 trials for each type of mental state as well as 8 temporary control and 8 stable control trials (randomized order). They then responded to these same questions again approximately one week later. Children and adults also completed a separate temporal reasoning measure (e.g., judging whether an hour lasts longer than a minute). A 2 (age: 8- to 10-year-olds, adults) x 5 (mental state: temporary control, emotion, desire, preference, stable control) repeated measures ANCOVA on duration estimates with temporal reasoning score as the covariate yielded a main effect for mental state, F(4, 420)=2618.41, p<.001, ηp²=.96. Replicating and extending Study 1, children and adults expected preferences to last longer than emotions and desires (Figure 1). Although both children and adults judged that startled and surprised would be the most temporary emotions, only adults distinguished self-conscious emotions as the most stable (Figure 2). Children and adults showed adequate to good internal consistency (.66 The current research is the first to show that children and adults believe that mental state terms carry temporal duration information (emotions and desires last minutes to hours; preferences last years to decades). By 8 to 10 years, individuals expect preferences to last longer than desires and emotions, with participants responding consistently both within and between sessions. Still, we documented age-related differences: Adults had more nuanced beliefs about the time course of emotions than did children. Additional analyses will consider relations between beliefs about the time duration of emotions and mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression, emotion regulation).

Authors

• Hannah Jean Kramer, Queen’s University Belfast
  Presenting Author

• Hyowon Gweon, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jamil Zaki, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Hansen Lagattuta, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author