Attribution of Intentionality and Theory of Mind in Pre-school and School-aged Children

In analyzing my development, the two theories that best resonate with me are the cognitive theory of Baxter Magolda’s Model and the moral theory of Rest’s Approach. I plan to first begin explaining Baxter’s cognitive model and relate it to my personal development through personal examples. I will transition to talk about Rest’s moral development approach and how the approach applies to my personal development.

In order to function in a social world, acquiring a theory of mind is a fundamental component in a child’s early cognitive development (Premack & Woodruff, 1978; Wellman, 1990). Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to understand the mental state of one’s self and others (Greene, Sandoval, & Bråten, 2016) and to comprehend and forecast others’ actions (Tager-Flusberg, Baron-Cohen & Cohen, 1993; Wellman & Lagattuta, 2000). When children begin to develop a theory of mind (ToM) they develop awareness that human behaviour is governed by belief, knowledge, memory and imagination that conflict with overt reality. However, while the notion of theory

Part 6: Communication (400 words) What is meant by ‘theory of mind’? Why is it so important in understanding how infants communicate, and how does this relate to the formation of attachments?

Although the control of action in humans is fairly well understood, the processes that underlie action understanding from observation are much more unclear. In general, action understanding refers to the ability to recognize the purpose of an action performed by another person (Hickok 2008). Two prominent theories exist to explain this phenomenon. The first posits that action understanding is an inferential process that integrates contextual clues to determine the goal of a movement. In contrast, the second theory asserts that action understanding arises from the simulation of the observed action in the motor areas of the viewer (Brass et al. 2007). While the inferential process theory enjoyed a period of general acceptance, the

The cognitive development work currently focuses on how cognition operates in infants and children and how the cognitive abilities arise. Usually these studies occur in controlled lab environments, where the formation of mental representations can be observed when the children confront specific objects and events. Typically research focuses on the analyses of mental processes and looks closely at mental representations (Olson and Dweck, 2008). While cognitive developmentalists have shown some interest in social phenomenon, they often do not look at the social representations. Usually research does not focus on child differences, different mental representation, and the implications for children’s well-being. This perspective could benefit from a social cognitive perspective.

Theory of mind is the ability to infer mental and emotional states of others and behave accordingly and predict the others’ behavior or thoughts ( ). ToM was historically described as a single cognitive process but new research has shown that ToM is included in several brain regions and the ToM concepts exceed the original definition (Westby & Robinson, 2014). Now, ToM has been found to be involved in thinking of emotions, thoughts, and intentions as well as, dissociable ToM which is thinking of others’ thoughts, emotions, and intentions (Westby & Robinson, 2014). In addition, ToM can be thought of as affective-cognitive which is also known as cognitive empathy were a person can recognize and respond to their own feelings and others. Another component that research has revealed is affective empathy, which is when a

The long-standing question in joint attention research, as described by Tomasello, Carpenter, and Liszkowski (2007) are “the current theoretical debates about infant pointing and prelinguistic communication center [around] whether the most accurate interpretation is a cognitively rich or cognitively lean one” (p.705). The arguably dominant rich interpretations of the debate suggest that infant pointing is intended to influence the mental and intentional states of others. Conversely, the lean interpretations of infant pointing suggest that infants are merely trying to bring about a behavioural response in others, without necessarily understanding them as

Nguyen Chaplin and Norton (2015) investigated how Theory of Mind (ToM), that is, the ability of a child to be successful by understand other people's minds; is connected to the unwillingness of children to behave in performative ways such as singing and dancing. Researchers believe that ToM is important for social cognition, and as ToM increases, it would affect children's emotional and social experiences, like increased sensitivity to criticism and embarrassment making their self esteem decrease as they enter puberty.

The theory of mind or ToM is the instinctive ability to perceive yourself and recognize that others have their own minds just like ours, but they might think and believe different things. This perception is thought to develop within the early years of infancy and continue to develop through adulthood (Alic). This ability should allow someone to perceive another's intentions and thoughts, and possibly be able to assume what they are going to do or what they're going to think. ToM goes hand in hand with cognitive learning, including language, social skills, and the ability to manipulate others (Alic). It has been believed since famous psychologist Piaget proposed that ecocentrism, or the ability to differ your own view points from other's, isn't

Children do not think like an adult, their mind are not fully developed until after childhood. Keep this in mind is something fundamental with a view to their education and we will save much frustration and setbacks on the difficult task of their education (Brownell & Kopp, 2007). Compared to other animals, human beings are born only with some abilities, but this immaturity at birth, which makes us dependent for a long time of others, allows us to have more plasticity, and learn more things, to have a more flexible mind. Plasticity is a human feature that allows us to establish new neural connections that makes new areas of the brain are in charge of new features.

and resolve conflicts with other children in a more effective way, they show presence of

Young children learn emotions and the way to respond to stressful situations and events by emulating what they observe in adult role models (Berger, 2014). With that said, the cognitive factor of development encompasses the inability of children to appropriately comprehend the difference between reality and fantasy as logical operations are not yet applied (Berger, 2014). Jean Piaget, a Swiss scientist, believes limitations exist which create obstacles in problematic thinking because operational thinking at this age is not yet feasible (Berger, 2014). This is best observed in the self-centered or egocentric way in which a six year old typically views and observes the world from his own vantage point or perspective and not from selfish desires (Berger, 2014). Furthermore, the child believes that the world is unchanging and remains the way in which it is presently exists (Berger, 2014). Lev Vygotsky, a Russian developmentalist, takes a different approach in that children are unable to think critically for themselves and often learn through the observation of those around them while mimicking behavior, action and speech (Berger, 2014). His thinking emphasizes the social aspect of development within children and the way in which they are impacted by the world (Berger,

The core concepts involved in Theory of Mind are beliefs, desires, and intentions, which are used to understand why someone acts in a certain way or to predict how someone will act (Kloo et al., 2010). Overall, Theory of Mind involves understanding another person's knowledge, beliefs, emotions, and intentions and using that understanding to navigate social situations. A commonly used task to measure Theory of Mind is a false-belief task, such as this:

In humans, early attention to social stimuli can be connected to individual differences in later high order socio-cognitive abilities, such as the theory of mind. It attributes beliefs, desires and knowledge to oneself and acknowledges that the beliefs of others may differ from one’s own. Wellman, Lopez-Duran, LaBounty and Hamilton (2008) investigated forty-five infants’ early social attention. They found infants with deliberately reduced attention, through distraction, had significantly impacted theory of mind when they were four years old. Therefore, findings propose importance of early socio-cognitive abilities on development of higher order skills. However, a limitation of this study is that environmental factors were not considered which

Why is it that when you are on the phone with a three-year-old, they point at something and expect you to know what they are looking at? Is it simply because they are not paying attention or have they not developed their theory of mind completely yet? The theory of mind is a cognitive ability that enables us to understand others, or our own actions in terms of mental states such as desires, belief, or wants is a cognitive mechanism that develops for human’s social lives (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). The development of this theory is crucial to understand action prediction, explanation, and general communication in our everyday lives. We will study preschooler’s ability to rationally act on a prediction or think about other people’s thought process to test their development of this theory. The study of The theory of Mind has important implications for developmental disorders concerning diagnosis, treatment and a child overall ability to communicate effectively. This study will pursue the question; Does age influence a child’s ability to understand that others do not share the same thoughts and desires they do?