Findings from cross-cultural theory-of-mind studies highlight potential measurement effects and both general (e.g., East-West) and specific (e.g., pedagogical experiences) cultural contrasts. We compared theory-of-mind scores for children from UK and Italy (two Western countries that differ in age of school entry) and Japan (a Far-Eastern country in which children, like their Italian counterparts, start school later than British children). Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to data from 268 age-gender-and verbal ability-matched 5-to 6-year olds. Key findings were that (i) all 8 indicators loaded onto a single latent factor; and (ii) this latent factor explained significant variance in each group, with just one indicator showing differential item functioning. Supporting the importance of pedagogical experiences, British children outperformed both their Italian and Japanese counterparts.
This study examined young children's understanding of apparent crying and its potentially misleading consequences. Gross and Harris (1988) showed that 6-yearolds can understand that one can simulate an emotion while feeling another, and that such a display can mislead others. In this study, 69 children aged 4, 5, and 6 were given "crying tasks" and "Standard and Second-order False Belief tasks". In "crying tasks", participants were asked to identify whether the protagonist was actually crying, and whether the other character believed that the protagonist was actually crying. The results indicate that children's understanding of apparent crying develops between the ages of 4 and 6. However, most of the children did not understand its misleading consequences. Furthermore, relationships were found between the understanding of apparent crying and the False Belief tasks. This finding suggests that the development of young children's understanding of apparent crying relates to the development of theory of mind.Key words: apparent crying, theory of mind, young children Although emotions are natural, people sometimes express different emotions from the emotions they are actually experiencing. Young children do not understand this at first. Imagine that someone receives a disappointing gift and experiences negative emotion yet expresses happiness (Saarni, 1979). Previous research has shown that most 4-year-olds cannot understand that one can simulate an emotion while feeling another; 6-year-olds on the other hand, were able to distinguish between real emotion and apparent emotion (Harris, Donnely, Guz, & Pitt-Watson, 1986;Gross & Harris, 1988;Josephs, 1994;Joshi & MacLean, 1994; Mizokawa, in press) 1 . There were no differences in age in regards to understanding the incongruence between apparent and real emotions between American, British, and Japanese children (Gardner, Harris, Ohmoto, & Hamazaki, 1988).The Authors are grateful to the children, teachers and parents whose cooperation made this study possible. They also thank Emmanuel Manalo and Rosabel Tan for English editing, and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ai Mizokawa, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan (e-mail: mizokawa.ai@02p1142511.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp).1 There is evidence that young children understand the difference between the appearance and reality of objects. For example, when children are shown an object such as a sponge which looks like a rock, and are then asked about it, 4 year-olds are able to distinguish its appearance (i.e., rock) from the reality (i.e., sponge), while most 3 year-olds cannot (Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1983). However, in the case of distinguishing between apparent and real emotions, the real emotion is unavailable to the senses, so there is a need to rely on reasoning from information such as the situation which generated the emotions, and the characteristics of the person who...
We conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global versus local processing and their developmental trajectories. In Study 1 (N = 363), we found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentine participants. We replicated this effect in Study 2 (N = 1,843) using a nationally representative sample of Japanese and American adults ages 20 to 69, and found further that adults in both cultures became more globally oriented with age. In Study 3 (N = 133), we investigated the developmental course of the cultural difference using Japanese and American children, and found it was evident by 4 years of age. Cultural variations in global versus local processing emerge by early childhood, and remain throughout adulthood. At the same time, both Japanese and Americans become increasingly global processors with age.
Reasoning about another's pretend and real crying is related to ma'ny important social cognitive abilities (e.g., emotional understanding, appearance-reality, and theory of mind). This study investigated whether children aged 6 years and younger could distinguish between instances of pretend crying and real crying as presented in stories. Sixty-five Japanese children aged 4-6 years were given stories within two contexts (Play and Non-play). In the Play context, the protagonist of the story was pretending to cry or really crying during a pretend play activity. In the Non-play context, the protagonist was also pretending to cry or really crying after his/her toy had been hidden by another child. The children answered questions about these crying events. The results showed that the 4- and 5-year-olds showed significantly better understanding of pretend crying in the Play context compared to the Non-play context. In the Non-play context, they were significantly less likely to understand the cause of pretend crying compared to the 6-year-olds. The results suggest that the context of pretend play facilitates the children's understanding of pretend crying.
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