Theory of mind development in Chinese children: A meta-analysis of false-belief understanding across cultures and languages.

Abstract

Theory of mind is claimed to develop universally among humans across cultures with vastly different folk psychologies. However, in the attempt to test and confirm a claim of universality, individual studies have been limited by small sample sizes, sample specificities, and an overwhelming focus on Anglo- European children. The current meta-analysis of children's false-belief performance provides the most comprehensive examination to date of theory-of-mind development in a population of non-Western children speaking non-Indo-European languages (i.e., Mandarin and Cantonese). The meta-analysis consisted of 196 Chinese conditions (127 from mainland China and 69 from Hong Kong), representing responses from more than 3,000 children, compared with 155 similar North American conditions (83 conditions from the United States and 72 conditions from Canada). The findings show parallel developmental trajectories of false-belief understanding for children in China and North America coupled with significant differences in the timing of development across communities-children's false-belief performance varied across different locales by as much as 2 or more years. These data support the importance of both universal trajectories and specific experiential factors in the development of theory of mind.

The role of religious context in children's differentiation between God's mind and human minds

“…False-belief understanding is the understanding that the human mind can have a false representation of the state of reality (Flavell, 2004). This representational understanding of the mind develops over the preschool years, with about 50% of 4-to 5-year-olds and nearly 100% of 8-to 9-year-olds passing standard false-belief tasks (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001), a developmental pattern that has been replicated in Canada, India, Peru, Samoa, and Thailand (Callaghan et al, 2005) and in China (Lui, Wellman, Tardif, & Sabbagh, 2008;Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006).…”

Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands

“…Beginning around age 4 y, children answer correctly and point to the marble's original location; in contrast, younger children point to the marble's current location, as though they fail to understand that Sally holds a false belief about the marble's location. This developmental pattern (from below-chance to above-chance performance) has been observed in cultures around the world, although its timing varies somewhat across cultures (8,9). …”

Social Ecology and Theory of Mind

“…In fact, some studies have found partial support for this hypothesis (Hughes et al, 2014;Liu, Wellman, Tardif, & Sabbagh, 2008). For example, Liu et al (2008) compared Chinese children (i.e., from mainland China and Hong Kong) and North American children (i.e., children in the United States and Canada), and found that children from Canada develop theory of mind the earliest, those from the United States and mainland China came next, and those from Hong Kong were the last.…”

“…For example, Liu et al (2008) compared Chinese children (i.e., from mainland China and Hong Kong) and North American children (i.e., children in the United States and Canada), and found that children from Canada develop theory of mind the earliest, those from the United States and mainland China came next, and those from Hong Kong were the last. Hughes et al (2014) compared Japanese, Italian, and British children, and reported that Japanese children developed theory of mind later than British children, again suggesting cultural influence on theory of mind.…”