Poster #77 - Clarifying Socioeconomic Differences in False-belief Performance: the Role of Parent Knowledge and Mental-state Language

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Some studies suggest that children of lower socioeconomic status (SES) perform worse on traditional elicited-response false-belief tasks than would be expected for their age (e.g., Holmes et al., 1996; Hughes et al., 2000). In a recent meta-analysis, Devine and Hughes (2018) confirmed a robust positive relationship between family SES and children’s performance on elicited-response tasks. However, little is known about the mechanism underlying these socioeconomic differences in children’s false-belief performance.

The present study tested the hypothesis that SES impacts false-belief performance via effects on parent-child interactions. Parents’ use of mental-state language with their children, especially cognition terms such as think and know, predicts their preschoolers’ performance on elicited-response false-belief tasks (e.g., Ruffman et al., 2002). Some evidence suggests that higher SES parents engage in more cognition talk (e.g., Roby & Scott, 2022; Thompson et al., 2016). Higher SES parents also have greater knowledge of child development, which is associated with higher levels of child-directed speech (Rowe, 2008) and more emotion talk (Garrett-Peters et al., 2008). These findings raise the possibility that SES influences the amount of mental-state language parents produce, which in turn impacts false-belief performance. Moreover, the relationship between SES and parent mental-state language might be mediated by parent knowledge of child development.

To address these possibilities, this study tested a socioeconomically diverse sample of 82 parent-child dyads (child age: 43.7-66.2 months; M = 56.7 months). Children completed a battery of cognitive tasks that included two elicited-response false-belief tasks: a change-of-location task (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985) with one test question and an unexpected-contents task (Gopnik & Astington, 1988) with two test questions. If children incorrectly answered the task memory-check question, they received a 0 for that task. Otherwise, they received 1 point for each correct belief-based response. Scores were summed to create a composite elicited-response score (0-3).

Parents completed the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory (KIDI; MacPhee, 2002) and provided information on household education and income. Parent language was assessed via an interactive task in which dyads viewed a wordless picture-book that contained images designed to elicit discussion of mental states (Roby & Scott, 2022; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006). Interactions were transcribed and coded for parent mental-state language. Analyses controlled for the total amount of parent words produced in the task.

Preliminary analyses provided support for our hypothesized pathways from SES to false-belief performance (see Figure 1): higher levels of parental education were associated with more cognition talk, and this relationship was partially mediated by parents’ knowledge of child development as assessed by the KIDI. Higher levels of cognition talk were in turn associated with better elicited-response performance. In contrast, household income was not associated with parent mental-state language.

These findings suggest a dynamic and indirect relationship between SES and false-belief performance. SES influences specific aspects of parent-child interactions, which in turn impact children’s performance on elicited-response false-belief tasks. However, in the present sample these effects were specific to parental education, rather than household income. Implications of these findings will be discussed.

Authors

• Rose M Scott, University of California - Merced
  Presenting Author

• James Z Sullivan, University of California - Merced

• Maritza Miramontes, University of California - Davis

• Sarah Depaoli