Poster #123 - Effect of Family SES on the Development of Explicit and Implicit Theories of Mind in Preschool and School-Aged Children

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

Theories of mind (ToM, Premack & Woodruff, 1978) allow us to perceive ourselves and others as psychological beings with sometimes divergent beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions (Astington & Dack, 2008). ToM develop at different rates when they are the result of explicit or implicit processes. Explicit ToM, relying on conscious and deliberate processes, develop around the age of 4 or 5 (Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Baron-Cohen et al., 1985), as suggested by the performance in the false belief tasks (Wellman et al., 2001). Implicit ToM develop much earlier. For instance, infants, as early as 15 months of age (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005), look longer a protagonist acting contrary to their own beliefs. These implicit ToM allow us to automatically, quickly, and without being aware of it, take into account the mental states of people in our environment (Frith & Frith, 2008). While language and executive functions support the development of explicit ToM (Bloom & German, 2000), their role in the development of implicit ToM remains largely debated (Grosse-Wiesmann et al., 2016; Yott & Poulin-Dubois, 2012). Children's socio-economical background (i.e., family SES) also has an effect on performance in explicit ToM tasks (Devine & Hughes, 2018; Cole & Mitchell, 1998; Cutting & Dunn, 1999). The effect of the family SES on children's ToM might be in part mediated by the effect of family SES on children's language (Hughes & Ensor, 2005), and executive functions (Noble et al., 2005) development. To date, no study has investigated whether the family SES has an effect on implicit ToM performance. Thus, the aims of the present study are threefold: (a) to assess the effect of SES on explicit (explicit false beliefs) and implicit (implicit false beliefs) ToM performance in preschool and school-age children, (b) to determine whether this effect is mediated by the effect of family SES on language (vocabulary, syntax, learning new words) and executive function (inhibition and flexibility) and (c) whether the effect is moderated by the age of the children. To do so, we will test 500 children aged 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and analyze the data using a structural equation model using the lavaan package in R with the following variables: SES, implicit and explicit ToM scores, executive function scores, language scores, and child age.

Authors

• Julia Houdayer, Université Paris Cité
  Presenting Author

• Alex de Carvalho, Université de Paris

• Lorna Le Stanc

• Olivier Houdé

• Lara Bardi

• Grégoire Borst, Paris Descartes University