Theory of Mind, Self-Knowledge, and Perceptions of Loneliness in Emerging Adolescents

The Development of Advanced Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood: A Longitudinal Study From Age 5 to 10 Years

“…In particular, children begin to acquire morecomplex forms of false-belief understanding (Perner & Wimmer, 1985), they become more proficient in interpreting complex social situations (Baron-Cohen, O'Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999;Bosacki & Astington, 1999;Devine & Hughes, 2013;Happé, 1994), and they improve their ability to interpret mental states and emotions from facial expressions (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001). Many of these aspects of advanced ToM (AToM) are closely linked to children's social competences, including feelings of loneliness or the ability to form friendships (Bosacki, Moreira, Sitnik, Andrews, & Talwar, 2020;Caputi, Cugnata, & Brombin, 2020;Devine, White, Ensor, & Hughes, 2016;Fink, Begeer, Peterson, Slaughter, & de Rosnay, 2015;Koerber & Osterhaus, 2020;Slaughter, Imuta, Peterson, & Henry, 2015). Despite its relevance for children's everyday experiences, there is a paucity of longitudinal work that narrowly tracks the development of AToM in middle childhood across multiple time points and over extensive periods of time.…”

Silence, Solitude and Social Cognition in Adolescence: Implications for Research and Education

“…For instance, excerpts that encourage adolescents' reflection, from Sylvia Plath's (1996) The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit, Judy Blume's (1972) Blubber, andMargaret Atwood's (1988) Cat's Eye, could be used to illustrate the landscape of adolescents' private worlds and inner voices. Moreover, consistent with work in positive youth psychology (Seligman, 2002), as well as our past and ongoing work on adolescents' psychosocial development and mental health (Bosacki, 2002;Bosacki et al, 2020), future research in this area may provide a framework for a holistic curriculum that aims to foster both inter-and intrapersonal competencies.…”

“…Compared to research on the 'simple' or primary and basic emotions (i.e. emotions linked to underlying physiology) such as happy and sad, complex or moral or self-conscious emotions that involve the ability to self-evaluate against internalised standards of behaviour, such as pride and shame, receive less attention (Bosacki, Pissoto-Moreira, Sitnik, Andrews & Talwar, 2020;Saarni, 1999). Thus, although theoretical links exist among self-conscious emotions, self-cognitions or identity, solitude, and social relations (Bain, 1875;Blote, Miers, Van den Bos & Westenberg et al, 2019;Hull, Petrides, Allison, Smith, Baron-Cohen, Lai & Mandy, 2017), little is known about how such a nexus develops in ado-lescents (de Hooge, Breugelmans, Wagemans & Zeelenberg, 2018;Karbach & Unger, 2014).…”

“…Regarding practical tools for educators, further exploration of various experiences of silences and their socio-emotional and spiritual consequences suggests the need for useful assessment tools and interventions. Drawing on research that shows links between psychological and spiritual understanding and positive school experiences (Bosacki et al, 2019), we can teach a 'psychological language' to adolescents that focuses on self-reflection, self-compassion and self-acceptance (Bosacki et al, 2020). As educators, we can encourage children to develop a mental-state vocabulary of the self and others (Bruner, 1996).…”

Theory of mind and loneliness: Effects of a conversation‐based training at school

“…In other words, mindreading abilities and loneliness could be intimately linked to one another. In confirmation of this supposition, a significant association between ToM and feelings of loneliness was recently found among 326 students attending primary and middle schools (Caputi et al, 2017) and among 146 adolescents (Bosacki, Moreira, Sitnik, Andrews, & Talwar, 2020). Interestingly, this association was stronger among girls in both studies, suggesting that among boys it could be masked by an indirect link through peer rejection or isolation.…”