The complex associations between scientific reasoning and advanced theory of mind

Abstract

This 6‐wave longitudinal study (2014–2018) of 161 German 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds from a midsized city and rural area in southern Germany (89 females, 72 males; predominantly White; mostly middle class) found that scientific‐reasoning abilities first develop at 6 years. Abilities were highly stable, with the kindergarten score predicting 25% of end‐of‐elementary‐school variance. Individual but not developmental differences were related to language abilities (0.39), mindreading skills (0.33), and parental education (0.36). In early elementary school, mindreading skills predicted scientific reasoning (0.15), but not vice versa; in late elementary school, bidirectional associations emerged (0.11–0.33). Our findings suggest that mindreading is a precursor for the development of scientific reasoning and that older children use scientific reasoning to revise their advanced theories of mind.

The personal epistemology of parents predicts the development of scientific reasoning in children aged 6–10 years

“…Understanding that science is influenced by social and cultural framework theories involves recursive reasoning and the appreciation that our beliefs are influenced by other, possibly more‐broad (social) beliefs. Understanding the recursive nature of mental states is a key aspect in advanced mind theory (Osterhaus et al., 2016) and has been identified as an important factor in scientific reasoning development (Astington et al., 2002; Osterhaus & Koerber, 2023; Kyriakopoulou & Vosniadou, 2020; Osterhaus et al., 2017). Our findings complement this view, suggesting that this aspect of personal epistemology drives the effect of personal epistemology of parents on the reasoning abilities of children.…”

“…Some items revealed low discrimination parameters; discrimination parameters were not available for those items applied during some but not all waves. Personal abilities were computed based on weighted likelihood estimates and used in all subsequent analyses (see Online Supplementary materials, as well as Osterhaus & Koerber, 2023).…”

The promotion of mature theory of mind skills in educational settings: a mini-review

“…To this respect, the hottest question at the moment is the lack of experimental evidence that acting on mature ToM skills can have effects on academic achievement. There are good reasons to hypothesize such a cascade of effects, given the well-known associations between ToM and metacognition (see previous paragraphs), between metacognition and academic performance, and between ToM and reading comprehension/scientific reasoning/mathematical competences (Lecce, 2021;Osterhaus and Koerber, 2023). Another intriguing research question regards the possibility to address the metalinguistic competence that seems to decline in old people, given that this detrimental aspect is predicted by ToM mature scores (Bianco et al, 2022).…”

The effect of peers’ theory of mind on children’s own theory of mind development: A longitudinal study in middle childhood and early adolescence.

“…The overarching aim of the current study was to examine, for the first time, the effect of peers’ ToM on children’s own ToM using a longitudinal design. Understanding whether and how peers, and more generally school environments, influence the development of children’s ToM is vital because children who excel at reasoning about others’ minds during the primary school years are more likely to be accepted by their peers (Slaughter et al, 2015), to be viewed as socially skilled by teachers (Devine & Apperly, 2022), and show higher academic achievement (Lecce, 2021), especially in the area of reading comprehension (Lecce et al, 2021) and scientific reasoning (Osterhaus & Koerber, 2023).…”