Neural Correlates of Children's Theory of Mind Development

Young children show significant changes in their mental-state understanding as marked by their performance on false-belief tasks. This study provides evidence for activity in the prefrontal cortex associated with the development of this ability. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded as adults ( N  = 24) and 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children ( N  = 44) reasoned about reality and the beliefs of characters in animated vignettes. In adults, a late slow wave (LSW), with a left-frontal scalp distribution, was associated with reasoning about beliefs. This LSW was also observed for children who could correctly reason about the characters' beliefs but not in children who failed false-belief questions. These findings have several implications, including support for the critical role of the prefrontal cortex for theory of mind development.     

Children's thinking about diversity of belief in the early school years: judgments of relativism, tolerance, and disagreeing persons

Children's thinking about diversity of belief in 4 realms--morality, taste, facts, and ambiguous facts--was examined. Ninety-six participants (ages 5, 7, and 9) were interviewed about beliefs different from their own that were endorsed by characters with different status; their judgments of relativism, tolerance, and disagreeing persons were assessed. Five-year-olds made fewer relative and tolerant judgments than 7- and 9-year-olds. Nevertheless, participants of all ages organized their judgments according to the realm of diversity, thought that some beliefs are relative and some are nonrelative, and made tolerant judgments of some divergent beliefs (and their proponents) but not of others. The findings suggest that, in the early school years, children have multiple and well-differentiated perspectives on belief diversity.     

“Are all beliefs equal?” investigating the nature and determinants of parental attitudinal beliefs towards educational inclusion

This study explores the nature of parental attitudinal beliefs towards educational inclusion and the factors that determine these beliefs. Participants were drawn from the Growing Up in Scotland Survey (N = 2200). Results indicate that majority of parents held positive generalised belief towards including children with additional support needs (ASN) in mainstream classrooms (90%), compared with belief about the benefits of inclusion for children with ASN (72%), or benefits for typically developing children (70%). Lower parental income and higher levels of satisfaction with child’s current school were associated with positive generalised beliefs. Belief about the benefits of inclusion for children with ASN was also positively associated with lower parental income, while belief about benefits for typically developing children was determined by higher parental education and age. Our findings suggest that efforts to increase parental attitudes should target salient beliefs and take into account the determinants of each of these beliefs.     

Developmental continuity in theory of mind: speed and accuracy of belief-desire reasoning in children and adults

On belief-desire reasoning tasks, children first pass tasks involving true belief before those involving false belief, and tasks involving positive desire before those involving negative desire. The current study examined belief-desire reasoning in participants old enough to pass all such tasks. Eighty-three 6- to 11-year-olds and 20 adult participants completed simple, computer-based tests of belief-desire reasoning, which recorded response times as well as error rates. Both measures suggested that, like young children, older children and adults find it more difficult to reason about false belief and negative desires than true beliefs and positive desires. It is argued that this developmental continuity is most consistent with either executive competence or executive performance accounts of the development of belief-desire reasoning.     

Young children's attribution of action to beliefs and desires

When and how children understand beliefs and desires is central to whether they are ever childhood realists and when they evidence a theory of mind. Adults typically construe human action as resulting from an actor's beliefs and desires, a mentalistic interpretation that represents a common and fundamental form of psychological explanation. We investigated children's ability to do likewise. In Experiment 1, 60 subjects were asked to explain why story characters performed simple actions, such as looking under a piano for a kitten. Both preschoolers and adults gave predominantly psychological explanations, attributing the actions to the actor's beliefs and desires. Even 3-year-olds attributed actions to beliefs and false beliefs, demonstrating an understanding of belief not evident in previous research. In Experiment 2, 24 3-year-olds were tested further on their understanding of false belief. They were given both false belief prediction and explanation tasks. Children performed well on explanation taks, attributing an anomalous action to the actor's false belief, even when they failed to predict correctly what action would follow from a false belief. We concluded that 3-year-olds and adults share a fundamentally similar construal of human action in terms of beliefs and desires, even false beliefs.     

Beliefs About Social Skills Among Mothers of Preschoolers with Special Needs

Mothers of preschoolers with special needs (N = 280) were interviewed about their beliefs regarding the development of social skills. Children were viewed as below average in social competence, and social skills were perceived to be very important to develop but difficult to teach or change. Indirect, rather than direct strategies for helping children develop social skills were suggested most frequently. A belief in internal causation was more frequent than external; as hypothesized, internal attributions were negatively associated with the children's social-skills and adaptive abilities. Both internal attributions and low social-skills ability contributed independently to parenting stress.     

Beliefs About Social Skills Among Mothers of Preschoolers with Special Needs

Mothers of preschoolers with special needs (N = 280) were interviewed about their beliefs regarding the development of social skills. Children were viewed as below average in social competence, and social skills were perceived to be very important to develop but difficult to teach or change. Indirect, rather than direct strategies for helping children develop social skills were suggested most frequently. A belief in internal causation was more frequent than external; as hypothesized, internal attributions were negatively associated with the children's social-skills and adaptive abilities. Both internal attributions and low social-skills ability contributed independently to parenting stress.     

Between Desires and Beliefs: Young Children's Action Predictions

1 view of children's developing understanding of mind contends that children adopt a succession of naive psychological theories, moving from a desirefocused theory to a mature theory that attributes a greater role to beliefs. Between these, a transition theory, in which desires are primary but beliefs play an auxiliary role, is characteristic. Novel predictions arising from this view were tested in 2 experiments utilizing within participants designs. Preschool children ( N s = 20 and 24) were asked to predict the actions of story characters who believed a desired object to be in one of two containers (which were shown to actually contain the desired object, nothing, or a different object). In both experiments, children's predictions accorded with belief significantly more when objects of the type desired were in both containers than when containers held nothing or other sorts of objects, supporting a transition theory interpretation over competing interpretations.     

南宁五通庙信仰现状初步考察

民间信仰对人们的生产、生活都有一定的影响,庙宇为人们的信仰是提供一个立足之地。南宁五通庙虽是个小庙,但是它浓缩了老南宁人的信仰,水神、佛、文武财神、送子神等信仰都能从庙里的神像了解到。这说明民间的信仰是多元融合的,信仰是有一定的现实功利的。这与宗教信仰自由政策的实施、社会结构的改变、人们的信仰心理的改变等着密切的关系。     

Preschoolers' Attributions of Mental States in Pretense

When young children appear to recognize that someone else is engaging in make-believe play, do they infer what the pretender is thinking? Are they aware that the pretender is thinking about a pretend scenario yet knows what the real situation is? Preschoolers ages 3–5 ( N = 45) viewed scenes from the Barney & Friends television series depicting either make-believe or realistic actions. Children were questioned concerning the presence of pretense and the thoughts and beliefs of the TV characters. The children where also presented with false belief and appearance/reality theory of mind tasks. Children who identified when TV characters were engaging in pretend play did not necessarily infer the pretenders thoughts and beliefs. Inferring pretenders' thoughts was related to performance on false belief and appearance/reality tasks, but simply recognizing pretense was not. These data support the view that children initially learn to recognize pretense from contextual cues and are able to infer pretenders' beliefs only with further development of metarepresentational ability.     

Mothers' Acculturation and Beliefs About Emotions,Mother–Child Emotion Discourse,and Children's Emotion Understanding in Latino Families

Research Findings: We examined associations among Anglo acculturation, Latino enculturation, maternal beliefs, mother–child emotion talk, and emotion understanding in 40 Latino preschool-age children and their mothers. Mothers self-reported Anglo acculturation, Latino enculturation, and beliefs about the value/danger of children's emotions and parent/child roles in emotion socialization. Mother–child emotion talk was observed during a Lego storytelling task. Children's emotion understanding was measured using 2 age-appropriate tasks. Correlations showed that mothers' Latino enculturation was associated with mothers' stronger belief in guiding children's emotions and children's lower emotion understanding. Anglo acculturation was associated with mothers' lower belief that emotions can be dangerous and children's better emotion understanding. Mothers with a stronger belief in guiding children's emotions more frequently labeled emotions. Mothers with a stronger belief that emotions can be dangerous less frequently explained emotions. Regressions controlling for child age and maternal education demonstrated that mothers with a stronger belief that children can learn about emotions on their own and mothers with greater Latino enculturation had children with lower emotion understanding, whereas mothers with greater Anglo acculturation had children with better emotion understanding. Practice or Policy: Results suggest that understanding both family acculturation and family enculturation will be helpful for early childhood researchers and educators seeking to assess and promote children's socioemotional development.     

Following My Head and My Heart: Integrating Preschoolers' Empathy,Theory of Mind,and Moral Judgments

Associations among hypothetical, prototypic moral, and conventional judgments; theory of mind (ToM); empathy; and personal distress were examined in 108 socioeconomically diverse preschoolers (M_age = 42.94 months, SD = 1.42). Repeated measures analysis of covariance with empathy, false beliefs, and their interaction as covariates indicated that empathy was significantly associated with judgments of greater moral but not conventional transgression severity, particularly for psychological harm, and with deserved punishment for unfairness. False beliefs were associated with (combined) moral criterion judgments of rule and authority independence and inalterability. Empathy also was positively associated with criterion judgments but only for children low in ToM. Personal distress was unrelated to judgments. Results demonstrate the importance of both affective and cognitive processes in preschoolers' moral judgments.     

Development of Food Safety Psychosocial Questionnaires for Young Adults

ABSTRACT:  Food mishandling is thought to be more acute among young adults; yet little is known about why they may engage in risky food handling behaviors. The purpose of this study was to create valid, reliable instruments for assessing key food safety psychosocial measures. Development of the measures began by examining published studies and behavior change theories to identify the psychosocial factors associated with personal health choices and 3 psychosocial factors were identified: beliefs, locus of control, and self-efficacy. Development of items for the belief questionnaire began by identifying the belief constructs that could provide insight into how food safety behavior change programs should be framed to evoke improved behaviors and drafting items. The locus of control questionnaire was modeled after the Health Locus of Control Questionnaire. Self-efficacy questionnaire development included defining self-efficacy, identifying environmental contexts affecting self-efficacy, and constructing an item pool. The questionnaires were pretested with young adults ( n = 180) and refined. A pilot test ( n = 77) was conducted to further refine the beliefs and self-efficacy questionnaires. Finally, young adults ( n = 4343, mean age 19.9 ± 1.7 SD y) from 21 universities and colleges across the country completed the questionnaires. Analysis of their responses revealed that these questionnaires met or exceeded standards indicative of high-quality psychosocial food safety measures. These questionnaires should be useful in generating baseline data from adults as well as establishing the value of these measures in assessing the effectiveness of food safety interventions.     

Child discipline in low- and middle-income countries: Socioeconomic disparities at the household- and country-level

BackgroundIn the past month, an estimated eight of ten children worldwide have experienced violent discipline. Understanding the economic and social contexts in which parents are more likely to use particular disciplinary practices is necessary to reduce violence against children. Critical examination of disciplinary practices and beliefs in cross-country analysis of low- and middle-income countries (LMICS) has been limited.ObjectiveTo estimate the association of country-level stressors and household-level economic stressors with disciplinary behaviors and beliefs.Participants and settingUsing Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data between 2010 and 2013, 231,221 parents from 32 LMICS were included.MethodsThe prevalence of past-month nonviolent discipline, physical discipline, psychological aggression, belief in the utility of physical discipline, and incongruence of disciplinary practice and belief were estimated. Country-level prevalence was regressed on country-level stressors (economic burden, economic inequality, human security, and human development). Individual-level disciplinary practices and beliefs were regressed on household wealth.ResultsCountry-level stressors predicted psychological and physical discipline use and belief in the utility of physical discipline. Lower household wealth was associated with increased violent disciplinary practice and belief. Lower household wealth was associated with increased likelihood of using violent discipline, even when the caregiver did not believe in its utility (OR = 1.63 [1.34, 1.98]).ConclusionsDiscipline use and belief in LMICS should be understood within the context of salient societal and household stressors.Parental disciplinary beliefs and practices reflect complex interplay with broader social, political and economic contexts and should not be taken to be defined by monolithic views of culture.     

Gesture as a window on children's beginning understanding of false belief

Given that gestures may provide access to transitions in cognitive development, preschoolers' performance on standard tasks was compared with their performance on a new gesture false belief task. Experiment 1 confirmed that children (N=45, M age=54 months) responded consistently on two gesture tasks and that there is dramatic improvement on both the gesture false belief task and a standard task from ages 3 to 5. In 2 subsequent experiments focusing on children in transition with respect to understanding false beliefs (Ns=34 and 70, M age=48 months), there was a significant advantage of gesture over standard and novel verbal-response tasks. Iconic gesture may facilitate reasoning about opaque mental states in children who are rapidly developing concepts of mind.     

Children's Judgments and Reasoning About Same‐Sex Romantic Relationships

Children's (5‐, 7‐ to 8‐, and 10‐ to 11‐year‐olds), and adolescents’ (13‐ to 14‐year‐olds) judgments and reasoning about same‐sex romantic relationships were examined (N = 128). Participants’ beliefs about the acceptability and legal regulation of these relationships were assessed, along with their judgments and beliefs about excluding someone because of his or her sexual orientation and the origins of same‐sex attraction. Older participants evaluated same‐sex romantic relationships more positively and used more references to personal choice and justice/discrimination reasoning to support their judgments. Younger participants were less critical of a law prohibiting same‐sex relationships and were more likely to believe it was not acceptable to violate this law. Beliefs about origins of same‐sex attraction showed age‐specific patterns in their associations with evaluations.     

Measuring and exploring the structure of teachers’ educational beliefs

This study explores the structure of French teachers’ educational beliefs. First, instruments to measure these beliefs are adapted and developed. Data is collected through focus group discussions and an online survey (n = 302). Factor analyses reveal a three-factor structure to measure teachers’ general beliefs about teaching and learning: ‘beliefs about student regulation of learning processes and knowledge construction’, ‘beliefs about teacher regulation of learning processes’, and ‘beliefs about knowledge reproduction’. Furthermore, a two-factor structure to measure teachers’ subject-specific beliefs about French language teaching is found: ‘traditional beliefs about French language teaching’ and ‘constructivist beliefs about French language teaching’. Second, this study explores the relationships between and within teachers’ general beliefs about teaching and learning and their subject-specific beliefs about French language teaching. Results show two distinct and independent belief structures: a traditional and a constructivist belief structure. Via cluster analyses, two clusters of teachers are found whose beliefs are consistent with these belief structures.     

The Influence of First‐Hand Testimony and Hearsay on Children's Belief in the Improbable

Children (3.5–8.5 years; n = 105) heard claims about the occurrence of improbable or impossible events, then were asked whether the events could really happen. Some claims were based on informants' first‐hand observations and others were hearsay. A baseline group (n = 56) reported their beliefs about these events without hearing testimony. Neither first‐hand claims nor hearsay influenced beliefs about impossible events, which remained low across the age range. Hearsay (but not first‐hand claims) did influence beliefs about improbable events. Preschoolers expressed greater belief following hearsay, compared to their beliefs following first‐hand claims and compared to the baseline group's beliefs. By contrast, older children expressed less belief following hearsay, compared to their beliefs following first‐hand claims and compared to the baseline group's beliefs.     

Heterogeneity and Change in the Patterning of Adolescents' Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Parental Authority: A Latent Transition Model

Changes in the patterning of adolescents' beliefs about the legitimate domains of parental authority were modeled in 2,611 Chilean adolescents, 11–16 years old. Transitions in adolescents' belief patterns were studied over 3 years. Latent transition analysis (LTA) revealed 3 distinct patterns of beliefs— parent control , shared control , and personal control— that differed in the extent to which adolescents believed that parents had legitimate authority over personal, prudential, and multidomain issues. Younger adolescents with fewer problem behaviors, higher self-efficacy, and more parental rules were more likely to espouse the parent control belief pattern. Adolescents' patterning of beliefs was relatively stable over time. Older adolescents with more problem behaviors and fewer parental rules were most likely to move away from the parental control status.     

Children’s Beliefs About Possibility Differ Across Dreams,Stories, and Reality

Are children’s judgments about what can happen in dreams and stories constrained by their beliefs about reality? This question was explored across three experiments, in which four hundred and sixty-nine 4- to 7-year-olds judged whether improbable and impossible events could occur in a dream, a story, or reality. In Experiment 1, children judged events more possible in dreams than in reality. In Experiment 2, children also judged events more possible in dreams than in stories. Both experiments also suggested that children’s beliefs about reality constrain their judgments about dreams and stories. Finally, in Experiment 3 children were asked about impossible events more typical of dreams and stories. In contrast with the other experiments, children now affirmed the events could happen in these worlds.