A Mind-Reader Does Not Always Have Deontological Moral Judgments and Prosocial Behavior: A Developmental Perspective

Abstract

The rationalistic theories of morality emphasize that reasoning plays an important role in moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Theory of mind as a reasoning ability in the mental domain has been considered a facilitator of moral development. The present study examined whether theory of mind was consistently positively associated with morality from middle childhood to late adulthood. Two hundred and four participants, including 48 elementary school children, 45 adolescents, 62 younger adults, and 49 older adults, completed theory of mind, moral judgment and prosocial behavior tasks. Theory of mind was measured with strange stories that tapped into an understanding of lies, white lies, double bluffs, irony, and persuasion. Moral judgments were measured with variants of the trolley dilemma. Prosocial behavior was measured through participants' performance in an interactive situation in which a helping request was made. The results indicated specific rather than similar developmental trajectories of theory of mind, moral judgments, and prosocial behavior. There was a quadratic trend in theory of mind, a combination of quadratic and cubic trends in deontological moral judgments and a linear decline in helping behavior. It is thus suggested that theory of mind may not be associated with morality in an unchanging way during development. Further results indicated that theory of mind and deontological moral judgments were negatively correlated for children, adolescents, and older adults but positively correlated for younger adults. Theory of mind and helping behavior were positively correlated for children but negatively correlated for adolescents. However, the relationships disappeared in adulthood. In sum, the present study reveals that theory of mind may be a nice tool for its facilitation of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but it may also be a nasty tool for its blocking of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Moreover, theory of mind may be a permanent tool for moral judgment development but a temporary tool for prosocial behavior development. Thus, the present study enriches the rationalistic theories of morality from a developmental perspective. Different relationships between theory of mind and morality from middle childhood to late adulthood are discussed.

Face-to-Face Sharing with Strangers and Altruistic Punishment of Acquaintances for Strangers: Young Adolescents Exhibit Greater Altruism than Adults

“…Their self-absorption does not mean that they cannot understand others’ thoughts and feelings. Young adolescents perform as well on theory of mind tasks as young adults (e.g., Hao and Liu, 2016 ). Therefore, self-absorption may not necessarily result in lack of altruism, but idealism may facilitate altruism.…”

Theory of Mind Development in School-Aged Left-Behind Children in Rural China

“…This may be due to the complex nature of theory of mind ( Brizio et al, 2015 ). Researchers have increasingly emphasized the necessity of distinguishing cognitive theory of mind from affective theory of mind ( Abu-Akel and Shamay-Tsoory, 2011 ; O’Brien et al, 2011 ; Wang and Su, 2013 ; Hao and Liu, 2016 ). Cognitive theory of mind involves an understanding of beliefs and intentions, whereas affective theory of mind refers to an understanding of emotions and feelings.…”

“…Children were assessed by trained research assistants individually in a quiet room. Happé (1994) Strange Stories Test, adapted by Hao and Liu (2016) , a second-order false belief task ( Happé et al, 1998 ), and a faux pas task ( Wang and Su, 2013 ) were used to examine different types of theory of mind. Sessions B and C in Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) were used to test children’s reasoning ability.…”

“…Five stories were used to test children’s understandings of lie, white lie, double bluff, irony, and persuasion ( Happé, 1994 ; Hao and Liu, 2016 ). Following Hao and Liu (2016) procedure, the research assistants told the stories loudly, and a cartoon-style illustration accompanied the stories to eliminate children’s memory load. After each story, children were asked to answer why the protagonist said what he/she had said.…”

“…Theory of mind refers to reasoning about mental states such as intentions, desires, beliefs, feelings, and emotions, and it also refers to explaining behaviors in accordance with individual mental states ( Premack and Woodruff, 1978 ), which not only plays a vital role in social interactions ( Keenan, 2003 ; Paal and Bereczkei, 2007 ; Hao and Liu, 2016 ) but also has an influence on children’s school achievement ( Garner and Waajid, 2008 ; Lecce et al, 2017 ). Previous research on theory of mind developmental trajectories has indicated that by age 4–5 years, children can pass first-order false belief tasks – that is, they can differentiate people’s internal beliefs from reality ( Wellman et al, 2001 ).…”