When cultural variation is the norm: A critical look at the Theory of Mind Scale

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Wellman and Liu’s (2004) seminal paper on the theory of mind (ToM) has provided the literature with a “standardized” ToM battery consisting of series of related tasks that tap different subcomponents of ToM and that are expected to be mastered in a certain order of complexity: Diverse Desires (DD), Diverse Beliefs (DB), Knowledge Access (KA), False Beliefs (FB) and Apparent-Real Emotions (ARE) (see Table 1 for the tasks). Although this order of the tasks was originally found with American children and extended to other cultures such as Australia (Peterson, & Slaughter, 2013), studies from China and Iran revealed variations that seem to be centered on the order of the DB and KA tasks (e.g., Shahaeian et al., 2011; Wellman et al., 2006). The two scaling studies conducted with Turkish children yielded conflicting results regarding the order of the tasks (Etel & Yagmurlu, 2015; Selcuk, et al., 2018).
The aim of the current study was to clarify the sequencing of the tasks on the ToM scale for Turkish children; and to shed some light on why the cultural variations exists. In line with these aims, we tested 366 3-,4- and 5 years-old Turkish children on the five subtasks of Wellman and Liu’s ToM Scale (i.e., DD, DB, KA, FB, and ARE). We also investigated a variety of cognitive and demographic variables known to be related to ToM understanding such as age, language, executive functions (EF), SES, and number of siblings, and whether any of them played a role in explaining the sequencing of the tasks.
Results revealed that, when all the age groups are combined, Turkish children seemed to follow the pattern that was found with Chinese and Iranian children before (i.e., DD, KA, DB, FB, ARE). However, when age groups were examined more closely, results revealed a variability between the patterns followed by each age group: the KA task became consistently easier as age increased and its place on the scale switched from third to first, whereas the DB task became harder as age increased from 3 to 4 and its place on the scale switched from second to third (see Figure 1). Logistic regression analysis revealed that children’s EF abilities predicted in which sequence children achieved these two tasks (i.e., DB before KA or KA before DB) above and beyond children’s age. Additional scaling analyses conducted by separating children into groups according to their performance on the EF task (low, middle, and high) revealed a similar variability: children with low EF abilities fit in the pattern in which DB task is acquired later than the DD but earlier than the KA task. Children with average EF abilities, however, fit in the pattern in which the KA task is acquired before DB. Finally, children with high EF abilities fit in the pattern that we previously found for 5-years old Turkish children: they acquired the KA task first and it was followed by DD and DB tasks.

Authors

• Feride Nur Haskaraca Kizilay, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (GAU)
  Presenting Author

• Hande Ilgaz, Bilkent University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jedediah WP Allen, Bilkent University
  Non-Presenting Author