Desires and beliefs: the development of second-order Theory of Mind reasoning in preschoolers and in school-age children.

IF 2.6 3区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY Frontiers in Psychology Pub Date : 2025-03-06 eCollection Date: 2025-01-01 DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1525368

Federica Bianco, Alessia Cornaggia, Davide Massaro, Antonella Marchetti, Ilaria Castelli

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Abstract

Introduction: Theory of Mind development is crucial for social life. Most studies on the development of this skill have focused on first-order recursive thinking, while the transition to second-order thinking remains relatively unexplored.

Methods: To address this gap, we administered a novel second-order Theory of Mind task to 59 children between the ages of 5 and 8 years. This task manipulated desires (desire to obtain, "positive desire," vs. desire to avoid, "negative desire") and beliefs (true vs. false) based on previous studies of first-order scaling.

Results: Results indicate that the tasks involving positive desire seem to be easier than negative counterparts, and that the tasks involving true belief are easier than those involving false belief. All children performed below chance level in negative desire and in false belief conditions, while only older participants performed above chance level in true belief - positive desire condition. There was also a significant main effect favoring positive desire and true belief.

Discussion: Our findings provide preliminary evidence for the developmental acquisitions of second-order recursive thinking about the understanding of desires and beliefs.

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导言思维理论的发展对社会生活至关重要。有关这一技能发展的大多数研究都集中于一阶递归思维，而向二阶思维过渡的研究则相对较少：为了弥补这一空白，我们对 59 名 5 至 8 岁的儿童进行了一项新颖的二阶思维理论任务。这项任务在以往一阶思维定势研究的基础上，对欲望（获得欲望，即 "积极欲望"；避免欲望，即 "消极欲望"）和信念（真假）进行了操作：结果表明，涉及积极愿望的任务似乎比涉及消极愿望的任务容易，涉及真实信念的任务比涉及虚假信念的任务容易。所有儿童在消极愿望和虚假信念条件下的表现都低于偶然水平，而只有年龄较大的参与者在真实信念--积极愿望条件下的表现高于偶然水平。积极愿望和真实信念也存在明显的主效应：我们的研究结果为理解欲望和信念的二阶递归思维的发展习得提供了初步证据。

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来源期刊

Frontiers in Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

13.20%

发文量

7396

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.