Theory of Mind

Beyond the Preschool Years

Scott A. Miller

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136334580
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive review of the burgeoning literature on theory of mind (TOM) after the preschool years and the first to integrate this literature with other approaches to the study of social understanding. By highlighting the relationship between early and later developments, the book provides readers with a greater understanding of what we know and what we still need to know about higher-order TOM. Although the focus is on development in typical populations, development in individuals with autism and in older adults is also explored to give readers a deeper understanding of possible problems in development.

Examining the later developments of TOM gives readers a greater understanding of:

• Developments that occur after the age of 5.
• Individual differences in rate of development and atypical development and the effects of those differences.
• The differences in rate of mastery which become more marked, and therefore more informative, with increased age.
• What it means to have a "good theory of mind."
• The differences between first- and second- order theory of mind development in preschoolers, older children, adolescents, and adults.
• The range of beliefs available to children at various ages, providing a fuller picture of what is meant by "understanding of belief."
  

After the introduction, the literature on first-order developments during the preschool period is summarized to serve as a backdrop for understanding more advanced developments. Chapter 3 is devoted to the second-order false belief task. Chapters 4 and 5 introduce a variety of other measures for understanding higher-level forms of TOM thereby providing readers with greater insight into other cognitive and social developmental outcomes. Chapter 6 discusses the relation between children's TOM abilities and other aspects of their development. Chapters 7 and 8 place the work in a historical context. First, the research on the development of social and mental worlds that predated the emergence of TOM is examined. Chapter 8 then provides a comparative treatment of the two literatures and how they complement one another.

Ideal as a supplement in graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in theory of mind, cognitive development, or social development taught in psychology and education. Veteran researchers will also appreciate this book's unique synthesis of this critical research.

1

Theory of Mind

Juliet takes a sleeping potion that mimics death; Romeo, however, believes that she is actually dead and kills himself in his grief. Hamlet believes that Claudius is behind the curtain and lashes out with his sword; it is actually Polonius behind the curtain, however, and it is Polonius whom Hamlet kills. Othello believes that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him and strangles her in his rage, but Othello is mistaken, for Desdemona was actually the most faithful of wives.

Much of literature would be impossible without two fundamental assumptions shared by its creators and its audience. One is that beliefs are representations of reality and not reality itself and as such they may sometimes be wrong. The second is that it is what people believe that determines how they act. If the belief is false, then the action may be something quite different from what the actor really wishes to happen.

Of course, the fact that adults share these assumptions does not mean that children do. Children, after all, are not the target audience for Shakespeare. But as any parent knows, stories for children often hinge on the same basic assumptions about beliefs and their fallibility. Thus, it is actually the wolf that Red Riding Hood finds in Grandmother’s bed, but Red Riding Hood believes (at least for a while) that it is her grandmother. Dorothy and her friends believe that the ruler of Oz is a benevolent wizard who can grant all their wishes; in reality, however, the “wizard” is simply a man behind a curtain. Or as a final example (an example I take from the philosopher Dennett, 1978), children at a Punch and Judy show laugh with glee as Punch prepares to throw a box containing Judy over the cliff; they laugh because they know that Judy has escaped, and they also know that Punch does not know this.

Several of these examples illustrate a further point as well, a further component in our commonsense beliefs about belief. False beliefs do not always simply happen; rather they may be deliberately created. Thus, Othello believes in Desdemona’s faithlessness because Iago has worked assiduously and skillfully to implant this belief in him. Red Riding Hood believes that her grandmother is in her bed because the wolf has donned a costume with the intention of creating exactly this belief. Often, comprehension of a story—or comprehension of a real-life social situation—requires taking not just one but two mental states into account: A intends that B believes….

The proliferation of mental states does not stop here. Any extended act of deception requires that the deceiver anticipate and monitor various mental states in his or her target. Thus, the wolf believes that Red Riding Hood wants to see her grandmother, that she thinks that he is her grandmother, that she is happy that her grandmother is awaiting her, and that she will therefore act as he wishes—namely, come close enough to be grabbed and eaten. Similarly, the wizard believes that Dorothy and her friends want various things (e.g., a brain, a heart), that they think that he has the power to grant them, and that they will therefore act as he wishes, namely, rid Oz of the Wicked Witch of the West. Furthermore, just as the child listeners or readers of these stories know what Red Riding Hood or Dorothy thinks, so too do they (or at least the more advanced of them) know what the wolf or wizard thinks about what Red Riding Hood or Dorothy thinks.

Let me introduce a little terminology that will be important later. Someone’s belief about something in the world (e.g., Romeo’s belief about Juliet, Red Riding Hood’s belief about the wolf) is referred to as a first-order belief. Someone’s belief about someone else’s belief (e.g., the wolf’s belief about Red Riding Hood’s belief, the wizard’s belief about Dorothy’s belief) is referred to as a second-order belief.

Both first-order and second-order beliefs, along with many other cognitions about the mental world, constitute what has long been known as folk psychology and what in more recent writings is often referred to as theory of mind. As the term folk psychology suggests, the assumption is that adults in all cultures share certain beliefs about the nature of the mental world, beliefs that govern the social interactions in which they engage. Although these beliefs may vary to some extent across people and across cultures, certain elements are assumed to be constant. These constant elements include the core belief that there is a mental world that is different from the physical world and that (as in false belief) mental and physical may not always agree. As the Shakespearean examples indicate, such a belief system about the human mind was in place long before the emergence of psychology as a science to study the mind. Indeed, one could go back thousands rather than hundreds of years to find examples in Greek literature (most famously, the false beliefs of Oedipus about his parentage).

What about children? As I noted, children eventually come to understand at least one core aspect of the folk psychology around them: the basic realization that beliefs can be false. But is this always the case? To anticipate conclusions that will be developed at greater length—no, it is not always the case. Prior to age 4 most children fail to understand that a belief can be false—thus fail to understand first-order false belief. Prior to age 6 most children fail to understand that a belief about a belief can be false—thus fail to understand second-order false belief.

A Little History

Few topics in psychology have a definite starting point—some event that could be said to have initiated the field of study. Theory of mind does, however. In fact, it has two.

The first came in 1978 in a paper by Premack and Woodruff, who reported a series of experiments with a chimpanzee named Sarah. Sarah was not just any chimpanzee; rather, she was a highly acculturated chimpanzee who at the time of the report had already been the subject of a number of language learning experiments. Sarah’s task in the research was not language learning but problem solving. Premack and Woodruff presented a series of problems, conveyed via videos, in which a human actor faced some dilemma that he needed to solve. In one instance, for example, the actor was shivering with cold; in another he was hungry, but the bananas he desired were out of reach. The final step in the procedure was presentation of two photographs, one of which showed a solution to the problem (e.g., lighting a heater to combat the cold, using a stick to reach the bananas) and the other of which presented the relevant objects but no solution. The question was whether Sarah could select the outcome that would solve the problem. The answer was yes; in fact, Sarah was close to perfect across a range of different problems. (Indeed, almost her only errors occurred when the actor shown in the photos was a handler whom she disliked!)

In interpreting their results, Premack and Woodruff (1978) argued that Sarah’s performance was possible only if she took into account the relevant mental states of the actor. Thus, to solve the bananas problem, for example, she would have to realize that the actor desired the bananas and believed that the stick would allow him to reach them. She would have to possess what Premack and Woodruff called a “theory of mind.” In their words:

In saying that an individual has a theory of mind, we mean that an individual imputes mental states to himself and to others…. A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory, first, because such states are not directly observable, and second, because the system can be used to make predictions, specifically about the behavior of other organisms. (p. 515)

The Premack and Woodruff (1978) article was followed by a number of commentaries by both psychologists and philosophers. Although all agreed that Sarah’s problem-solving prowess was impressive, several suggested that the task set for her was in a sense too easy. On each of the problems Sarah could reach a solution by acting on her own knowledge of reality—her belief, for example, about how to reach out-of-reach bananas. It is possible that she attributed the same belief to the actor, but there was no way to be certain as long as her own belief was sufficient. More impressive, and more clearly indicative of a theory of mind, would be a demonstration that Sarah could recognize and act on a belief different from her own—in particular, another’s false belief. It was in this context that Dennett (1978) presented his Punch and Judy example. Children can recognize false beliefs in others. Can chimpanzees?

Thirty years later the question of whether chimpanzees can impute false beliefs—and indeed, what chimpanzees understand more generally about mental phenomena—is still not resolved. For those who are interested, I will note that the two leading programs of research directed to chimpanzees’ mentalizing abilities come from teams headed by Michael Tomasello (e.g., Call & Tomasello, 2008) and Daniel Povinelli (e.g., Povinelli & Vonk, 2004). In general, the Tomasello group is toward the more positive end of the chimps’-abilities continuum and the Povinelli group is toward the more negative end. That disagreements and uncertainties still exist—and exist despite the efforts of some of the most talented researchers in the field—is a testament to how challenging the question is.

For children, however, the situation is a good deal clearer. Interestingly, it was not clear at the time that Dennett (1978) posed his example, for at that point no one had studied understanding of false belief in children. A basic finding has been clear since 1983, however, which is the other starting-point date for the field of theory of mind.

In 1983 Wimmer and Perner reported the first false belief study with children. They devised a procedure that has come to be known as the unexpected location or unexpected transfer task. Children heard a story in which a boy named Maxi brought home some chocolate, put it in the green cupboard, and went out to play. In Maxi’s absence his mother removed the chocolate from the green cupboard, broke off a piece for cooking, and put the rest back in the blue cupboard. Maxi then came in from playing and wanted his chocolate. The question for the children was, “Where will Maxi look for his chocolate?” The correct answer, of course, is the green cupboard, since Maxi has no way to know that the chocolate has been moved in his absence. To give this answer, however, the child must be able to set aside his or her own knowledge of the reality and realize that Maxi would hold a false belief. Some 4-year-olds and most 5-year-olds were able to do so, but 3-year-olds and many 4-year-olds could not. There have been hundreds of false belief studies since, but they have not changed the basic descriptive picture provided by this first study: Young preschool children fail the standard false belief task, and for most children success emerges by age 4 or 5.

I will return to false belief and other first-order achievements in Chapter 2. First, though, I will introduce yet one more starting-point date, one that initiated the aspect of theory of mind on which I concentrate in this book.

In 1985 Perner and Wimmer published the first study of second-order false belief—that is, the first examination of whether children can appreciate one person’s false belief about another person’s belief. Their approach (which I describe more fully in Chapter 3) was similar to that devised for first-order false belief, that is, presentation of a scenario in which the central character would form a false belief, followed by questioning about the character’s belief. In this case, however, the false belief at issue was a belief about someone else’s belief: John believed that his friend Mary believed that the ice cream truck was in the park; in fact, however, Mary, unbeknownst to John, had learned of the true location at the church.

Judging John’s false belief about Mary’s belief turned out to be difficult. Children in the 5- and 6-year-old age groups—ages that are typically close to perfect on first-order belief—showed little success. It was only at age 7 or 8 that most children were able to attribute a second-order false belief.

As we will see, later research has modified this conclusion somewhat. When simpler assessment methods are used, success on the second-order task often comes earlier than Perner and Wimmer (1985) reported. Nevertheless, their basic conclusion remains valid: Mastery of second-order false belief is a post-preschool development, a development that requires abilities beyond those sufficient for first-order success.

Goals of the Book

Premack and Woodruff (1978) and Wimmer and Perner (1983) initiated a revolution in the study of young children’s cognitive abilities. Theory of mind has been the most popular topic in research on cognitive development for at least 20 years now. Thousands of journal articles have been devoted to the topic, and the pace shows no signs of slackening. Numerous books have taken on the task of summarizing at least some parts of all this research effort. These books include three early contributions by three of the pioneering researchers of the topic: Janet Astington’s (1993) The Child’s Discovery of the Mind, Josef Perner’s (1991) Understanding the Representational Mind, and Henry Wellman’s (1990) The Child’s Theory of Mind. More recently other established researchers have added their own overviews (Carpendale & Lewis, 2006; Doherty, 2009; Hughes, 2011; Moore, 2006). In addition to such general treatments, other books have taken up more specialized aspects of the topic, for example, the role of language in theory-of-mind development (Astington & Baird, 2005) and individual differences in theory-of-mind abilities (Repacholi & Slaughter, 2003).

I list these sources partly because they are wonderful resources for the interested reader but also to raise the obvious question: Why yet another book about theory of mind? The answer lies in my title. All previous treatments of the topic have concentrated on young children. By an admittedly rough estimate, approximately 90% of the space in the books just cited is devoted to developments in the first 4 or 5 years of life. Such an emphasis is understandable: The early years have been the focus for most theory-of-mind research, and this research has revealed numerous striking and important developments that typically occur by age 5. But neither the research literature nor the developmental picture stops once children turn 6. There are now several hundred studies that explore various aspects of theory of mind in older children (and in some instances adults). The second-order false belief task sketched earlier is the most often used paradigm, but it is only one of a number of interesting and informative measures. Many of these studies, moreover, address not only the further developments in understanding that occur beyond age 5 but also the consequences of these developments—that is, what can children now do socially or cognitively that they could not do before? They thus speak to the two reasons for an interest in theory of mind: as an important aspect of cognitive development in itself and as a contributor to other developments.

Beyond simply summarizing an important literature, several further reasons can be advanced for a focus on advanced forms of theory of mind. I note three here and pick up others as we go.

One concerns the question of individual differences in theory of mind. Theory of mind has always been primarily a normative topic, in the sense that it concerns basic developments (such as mastery of false belief) that eventually almost all children demonstrate. The individual differences that have been addressed in the first-order literature are of two sorts. One is differences in rate of development. Although almost all children master false belief, some do so more quickly than others, and the same point applies to every other development under the theory-of-mind heading. The second way individual differences enter in comes in the study of atypical development. In some syndromes (autism is the clearest and most heavily researched example), not all children master false belief and other basic aspects of theory of mind, and such departures from the norm have proved informative in two ways. Most obviously, they help us to understand the clinical condition in question—why, for example, children with autism show such striking deficits in social interaction. But they also, as we will see, help us to understand theory of mind, for the study of atypical cases extends the evidential base for a number of important questions.

These two approaches to individual differences remain available, of course, when the focus shifts to older ages. In general, however, differences in rate of mastery become more marked, and therefore potentially more informative, with increased age. Deficits in clinical conditions also become more likely the more advanced the ability in question. Beyond simply differences in rate or in presence/absence, however, individual differences of a more gradated or qualitative sort become more likely as children develop and as more and more forms of knowledge enter the repertoire. The possible effects of these differences also multiply as related cognitive and social abilities develop. For these reasons, a consideration of advanced forms of theory of mind provides a much richer basis than does first-order study alone for determining what it means to have, or to fail to have, a “good theory of mind.”

A second justification for a focus on later developments is the expanded scope with respect to what is arguably the most interesting—and certainly by far the most often studied—mental state: the epistemic state of belief. The preschool literature includes hundreds of studies directed to various aspects of young children’s understanding of beliefs. With a handful of exceptions, however, the beliefs that have been examined are limited to arbitrary physical facts of two sorts: the location of an object and the identity of a concealed object. This is not, of course, because these are the only kinds of beliefs with which preschoolers deal, and I will consider some other forms in Chapter 2. Nevertheless, the first-order literature has been remarkably restricted in what has been meant operationally by belief. The range of beliefs available to children clearly expands as their cognitive abilities develop. Even more markedly, however, the research literature expands as well once we move to research with older children, encompassing beliefs of a wide range of different sorts. The result is a much fuller...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Theory of Mind
• 2. First-Order Developments
• 3. Second-Order False Belief
• 4. Other Higher-Order Developments: Part 1
• 5. Other Higher-Order Developments: Part 2
• 6. Consequences of Higher-Order Understanding
• 7. Historical Connections: What Did We Know Before Theory of Mind?
• 8. Conclusions
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index