Theory of Mind

All adults develop a theory of mind which has 3 parts:

• that the mind exists
• that the mind consists of various mental states such as intention, knowledge, desire, belief, emotion
• that there are causal links between the mind and actions

A ToM allows you to

• understand that different people have different points of view and see the world differently
• understand that your emotions and thoughts and beliefs, etc are about the world but are separate from what they are about (like a picture is separate from what it represents); thus they are a particular “take” on things and as such they can be false
• predict what other people may think and feel in particular situations; predict what they might do in particular situations

How do you test for a ToM?

To test for a theory of mind you need to be able to determine when children understand that other people can have and act upon false beliefs (and other things surely LY?)

False belief tasks

The Unexpected Transfer Test [LY called this the False Belief Test but I think it is actually an example of a false belief task] by Wimmer and Perner (1983) is a story shown to children as a series of images. In it Maxi hides his chocolate but while out of the room his mother finds it and moves it. The question put to children is “where will Maxi look for the chocolate?” Most 3 year olds get it wrong but most 4 year olds get it right (ie, he will look in his original hiding place). However Siegal and Beattie (1991) argued that the difficulty experienced by younger children may be a conversational one rather than a cognitive one. They found that if children were asked “where will Maxi first look when he returns?” then many 2 and 3 year olds got the right answer. Wimmer and Hartl (1991) performed another experiment, the Deceptive Box Test, where children were put into one of 2 groups. In condition A the children were shown a tube of Smarties. the tube was opened, the smarties removed and a pencil put inside. In condition B the children were shown a tube of Smarties. It was opened to reveal a pencil (and no Smarties). Both groups of children were asked the same question “when you first saw the tube, what did you think was inside?” In condition A 80% were correct, in condition B 40% were correct. Condition B required knowing about false beliefs. They concluded that the wording was not an issue since both conditions had the same question.

Deception tasks

To deceive someone you need to have a ToM. This is because you have to instil a false belief in them and understand that they will act upon it.
Peskin (1989) devised a deception task where children are presented with a puppet and some stickers. The children are told (or learn by experience depending on which source you read) that the monkey will always want the stickers they want. Children who can deceive the monkey can therefore get the stickers they really want by pretending they want others. 3 year olds are bad at this task, 4 year olds are much better.

Appearance-reality tasks

Understanding the difference between appearance and reality involves holding two contradictory representations of an object, this is cognitively similar to understanding false beliefs. Flavell (1988) devised the Sponge-Rock Test, a sponge that looks like a rock. The children were asked “what does it look like?” and “what is it really?”. 3 year olds struggle but most 4 year olds can do it easily.

Most children seem to acquire a ToM at about 4 years old, although there is still much debate about this. Autistic children are very poor at ToM tests. The implications of ToM include

• empathy
• role playing, perspective taking, pretend play
• social understanding
• emotion regulation

Implications for attachment are

• If a parent gives mixed messages then the child may develop an insecure-attachment style [why?]
• The child is more vulnerable if they are under 4 years old because they are less able to deal with contradictory feelings or contradictory evidence.
• Thus children are more likely to develop “Multiple Models” of attachment if they are under 4. Refer to Main (1991) for more details.