| Theory of mind(To M)refers to the ability of individuals to understand and attribute their own and others’ mental states,and predict their behavior accordingly,usually including multiple components such as wishes,beliefs,intentions,emotions,etc.(Wellman &Liu,2004).3-6 years old is a critical period for the development of children’s theory of mind.It plays a role in helping individuals to know the purpose and behavioral intention of others,understand the feelings of others and other processes in children’s social interaction.Its development level will have an important impact on their social interaction activities in adulthood.Therefore,it is of high scientific value and practical significance to study the development characteristics of the theory of mind of 3-6 years old children.However,most studies only regard "false belief understanding" as the only indicator of the development level of theory of mind,and examine the level of theory of mind only by asking children questions related to their understanding of mental state,lacking the examination of children’s high-level social cognitive ability based on theory of mind in life situations.However,in the research paradigm of theory of mind,most of them are conducted in the way of story situations.Previous studies have confirmed that the better children’s language ability develops,the better their theory of mind develops.In particular,the use of cognitive terms that point to mental states such as beliefs,wishes,intentions,and emotions has an important impact on the understanding of false beliefs(Ruffman,et al.,2002).However,there were few studies on the relationship between mental state vocabulary and the development of theory of mind in the past.The only research perspective also focused on the relationship between mental state terminology and false belief understanding,and there was no consensus on the use of mental state terminology and the development order of theory of mind.Therefore,this study will systematically investigate the development characteristics of children’s theory of mind ability at the age of 3-6 years,expand the research from a single belief to a variety of theory of mind components such as desire,belief,intention,and emotion,and combine the pretense task and deception task to investigate the impact of children’s theory of mind development on the development of pretense and deception two advanced social cognitive abilities(Study 1).This study will also explore the impact of the use of mental state vocabulary on the development of theory of mind by examining the use of mental state vocabulary by 3-6 year olds and the relationship between the use of mental state vocabulary and various components of theory of mind(Study 2).In study 1,the theory of mind development scale(Chinese version)developed by Wellman et al.(2004),pretend play and deception tasks were used to investigate the development level and characteristics of 3-6 year old children’s theory of mind.A stratified sampling method was used to select 423 young children from 6 kindergartens in 3 regions of Chongqing city,county,town,and rural areas for measurement,using 4 age groups × 2(Gender)Experimental design examines the development level and characteristics of theory of mind in four age groups(3-4 years old,4-5 years old,5-6 years old,6-7 years old),and uses regression analysis to explore the relationship between theory of mind ability and pretense ability and deception ability.The results showed that:(1)The theory of mind task score of 3-4 year olds was significantly lower than that of other age groups,the score of 4-5year olds was significantly lower than that of 5-6 and 6-7 year olds,while the score of 5-6year olds was slightly lower than that of 6-7 year olds,but there was no significant difference between the two groups;(2)In the development order of different levels of theory of mind,it is found that the order of children’s passing the tasks of the theory of mind scale is: Different Desire Task;Knowledge Access;Different Belief;Intentional Understanding;False Belief;Hidden Emotion.With the increase of task difficulty,the accuracy of children’s passing the tasks gradually decreases;(3)This study found that children’s theory of mind can significantly and positively predict their pretense ability,among which "Knowledge Access" and "Different Belief" can significantly and positively predict their pretense task performance;At the same time,it was also found that the theory of mind of young children could significantly positively predict the deceptive ability.Among them,"Knowledge Access","Different Belief" and "False Belief" could significantly positively predict the deceptive task performance.The above results show that there is a certain rule in the development of theory of mind of 3-6year old children.With the growth of age,children’s theory of mind ability is stronger.3-4years old is the embryonic stage of theory of mind.Children begin to understand their wishes and realize that they may have different perceptions of the same thing from others;The rapid growth period of theory of mind is 4-5 years old.Children gradually begin to understand false beliefs and know that different individuals will have different behaviors due to different intentions;Children aged 5 to 6 enter a mature stage,where they are able to predict others’ behavior through false belief tasks and based on their beliefs;When children are 6-7 years old,the development of theory of mind begins to stabilize gradually.At this time,children have begun to understand the intention and the difference between others’ real emotions and disguised emotions.This discovery means that the failure to pass false beliefs does not mean that children do not have theory of mind ability at all,but that children’s theory of mind has not been fully developed.In addition,this study also found that theory of mind can significantly positively predict the ability to pretend and cheat.The mastery of these two abilities reflects children’s understanding and application of other people’s wishes,beliefs and other basic mental states,indicating that theory of mind plays an important role in the development of advanced social cognitive ability.Study 2 investigated the use of children’s mental state vocabulary in daily life through the "Children’s Mental State Vocabulary Questionnaire" to explore the relationship between the use of mental state vocabulary of 3-6 year old children and the development of theory of mind.Using 4(age group)× 2(Gender)Experimental design,to investigate the use of mental state terms in four age groups(3-4 years old,4-5 years old,5-6 years old,6-7 years old),and to conduct regression analysis to explore the relationship between the use of mental state terms and the development of theory of mind.The results showed that:(1)there was a significant difference in the use of psychological state vocabulary between children aged 3-4and 4-5 compared to those aged 6-7;The use of mental state vocabulary of children aged 3-4and 4-5 can significantly and positively predict their theory of mind ability at this stage.(2)For children aged 3-4,the use of "intention" words can significantly and positively predict the "Knowledge Access" task performance in the theory of mind scale,while for children aged4-5,the use of "intention" and "emotion" words can significantly and positively predict the "Hidden Emotion" task performance,Further stepwise regression analysis revealed that the "intention" dimension vocabulary could significantly positively predict the performance of the "Hidden Emotion" task.(3)For 4-5 year old children,the use of psychological state vocabulary can significantly positively predict the performance of pretense ability.These results indicate that the use of mental state vocabulary has a significant positive impact on the development of children’s theory of mind,especially when children begin to understand false beliefs at the age of 4-5.To sum up,the results of this study show that:(1)With the growth of age,the theory of mind ability of children aged 3-6 years old continues to improve,children aged 3-4 years old have certain theory of mind ability,4-5 years old is the rapid development period of children’s theory of mind,5-6 years old theory of mind level further improves,6-7 years old tends to mature and stable;(2)There is a certain order law in the development of the components of the theory of mind of 3-6 year old children,which shows that children first master the concept of desire,followed by belief,followed by intention,and finally understand emotion;(3)Theory of mind can significantly and positively predict the development level of children’s ability to pretend and cheat;(4)As age increases,the frequency of using psychological state vocabulary in 3-6 year old children continues to increase,with 6-7 year old children using psychological state vocabulary significantly more frequently than 3-5 year old children;(5)Children’s use of mental state vocabulary at the age of 4-5 has a significant positive impact on the development of theory of mind.This study comprehensively reflects the development characteristics,trends and laws of children’s understanding of theory of mind at different levels,enriches the content of the development characteristics of children’s theory of mind,and provides theoretical guidance for families and preschool education institutions to promote the development of children’s theory of mind;This study also summarizes the relationship between the use of mental state vocabulary and the different components of theory of mind at different ages of children,provides more detailed empirical evidence for the specific role of language in the development of children’s theory of mind,and has certain guiding significance for preschool education institutions,such as kindergartens,to carry out mental state vocabulary training and intervention at different ages of children. |
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