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

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to understand and attribute mental states to oneself and others, is often perceived as a developmental milestone that children reach during early childhood. Current perspectives challenge this view, applying new research methods and discovering that ToM is still developing in middle childhood and even later. The present symposium not only solidifies this claim by summarizing data about ToM in these ages, but also demonstrates its importance, by presenting studies that show associations between middle-childhood ToM and core aspects of social development.
The first presentation is a meta-analysis of cumulated data from a widely used ToM scale, drawing different paths of ToM development during middle childhood for typical and abnormal populations, and among different cultures. The second presentation investigates eight- to 10-year-olds’ and adults’ interpretations of other’s mental states across circumstances, showing that negative social information compromised perspective taking more than positive one. In the third presentation, the associations between ToM and conceptualizing values in mental states expressions are examined among six to eight-years-old children in a longitudinal design, demonstrating that ToM is associated with an increase in conceptualizing values in mental states terms in the older age group. The fourth presentation presents and association between ToM and social motivation, suggesting that the link between social motivation and social competence in middle childhood and adolescence is partly explained by mindreading ability.
Overall, the presentations demonstrate the importance of ToM in middle childhood, and its contributions to the social development of children.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Kinneret Misgav, Tel Aviv University

• Ella Daniel, Tel Aviv University

Individual Presentations

• A Meta-Analysis of Progressions in Theory-of-Mind Understandings - Presenting Author: Chi-Lin Yu, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Non-Presenting Author: Jean Anne Heng, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Henry M. Wellman, University of Michigan

• Social-Emotional Interpretive Theory of Mind - Presenting Author: Hannah Jean Kramer, Queen’s University Belfast; Non-Presenting Author: Kristin Hansen Lagattuta, University of California - Davis

• Understanding and Conceptualizing Internal-Mental States: a Longitudinal Study - Presenting Author: Kinneret Misgav, Tel Aviv University; Non-Presenting Author: Ella Daniel, Tel Aviv University

• Willing and Able? Social Competence, Mindreading and Social Motivation in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence - Presenting Author: Rory T. Devine, University of Birmingham