Theory of mind, in practice.

[rivka]

One of my favorite developmental psych concepts is "theory of mind." It's a complicated idea, but essentially, if you have a well-developed theory of mind, you understand that people have mental states (beliefs, ideas, desires, perspectives) which differ from person to person and affect how people behave.

For example, here's one of the common experimental tasks for assessing theory of mind: There are two dolls, Sally and Anne. Sally hides a marble in a box and then goes away. While she is gone, Anne moves the marble from the box to a basket. Then Sally comes back. Where will she look for the marble? It seems to be a trivially easy question, but before the age of three or four children universally predict that Sally will look for the marble in the basket. Why? Because that's where it is. Around three or four years old, children start to have the ability to understand that even though they know where the marble really is, Sally will act on a false belief about where the marble is.

I've never run Alex through the Sally-Anne task, but I think she's had the basics of a theory of mind for a while. (A lot of fiction doesn't make sense without it.) It's clear, though, that lately she's really been developing a more elaborate sense of other people's mental representations. She's playing with these ideas a lot, figuring out what you can do with them.

Deception, for example. She's figured out the basic concept, but right now she's hilariously bad at it. She'll get a crafty look on her face and announce, "Mom, don't look at what I'm about to do." Then she'll take some cookies out of the package and run away. She's almost got it! She's figured out that if I don't see her do it, I won't know... but now she has to work out the part about not notifying me beforehand.

Or secrets. She's developed a fascination with keeping pointless secrets, I think just because she enjoys the idea of one person knowing something another person doesn't know. She's always asking Michael and I to keep something secret from each other - "don't tell Dad how far we went on the scooter!" "Don't tell Mom what we got at the store!"

Once I went in to tell him about something she'd done wrong, and she asked me (in front of him) not to tell him. When I said "I certainly am going to tell him," she broke in anxiously with "Don't listen, Dad! It's all nonsense!" Heh. Only four years old, and she's already poisoning the well!

I tremble to think about what it will be like around here when she actually masters this stuff.

She's also doing some neat stuff with perspective taking. At the museum, as we left one room to go into another, she commented: "If someone was out here, they'd think we were coming into the room." At the O's game we went to, which the O's predictably lost: "If someone was from Detroit, they would say 'Hooray, the Tigers won!'" It always comes out of nowhere - she's just doing it for practice, I guess.

Comments

[ailbhe]

I.

Am so glad I didn't know that two years ago.

But I do love being told what I'm not to find out someone is doing :)

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

When my niece (now 16) was not much older than Alex, my brother started teaching her the difference between lies, stories, and jokes. I thought that was awfully complicated, but she learned it. I'd love to have been taught that at that age!

[zeldajean.livejournal.com]

How did he do this? It seems to be a complicated concept, and I for one have no idea how to combat this. I also had trouble with the concept growing up - probably due to sarcasm being invoked so as a child I really couldn't tell if they were being serious.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, he did it by example. "That was a joke. How can we tell it was a joke?" "If I said you had blonde hair, would that be a joke, a story, or a lie? Why?"

I'm guessing it can only be done in a household where the kids are treated with honesty and respect. My brother is a huge tease, and a very well-mannered one, which is hard to pull off. I think he was trying to instill that ability in his daughter.

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

I'm incredibly pleased that he did that. A lot of my family members were awful teases, and to this day, I don't always "get" sarcasm. My knee-jerk reaction is to take it seriously and act accordingly.

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

I still have trouble with jokes vs lies. Especially when the jokes are very unfunny (to me). e.g. "Please can I have the spare key?" "No".

[ailbhe]

I think it's pretty straightforward in a household where the children are very (sorry about this word) empowered and respected. My 3-year-old knew that "If you do that again I will beat you with a big stick" was a joke, and that doing-something-naughty-and-denying-or-concealing-it was wrong, and that making up stories about things she hadn't done in real life was making up stories. Sarcasm here is usually to add emphasis when there's clearly no cruel intent ("All we have in the fridge for lunch is... moldy tomatoes. I LOOOOOVE moldy tomatoes. I wish we could have them every day! Who else wants moldy tomatoes?" sounds very different depending on tone of voice, which is what a child will pick up on, and the younger the child the clearer the tone needs to be), but if she'd been in an atmosphere where sarcasm was used to hurt or mock people, and make them really believe even for a second that moldy tomatoes were all there was to eat, it would be much harder for her.

But then, if they don't say what they want for breakfast, I start with suggesting elephants on toast and work up to sandpit porridge ("No mummy, you tant eat effant on toast, you eat a RAFFE on toast. Effant too big a doh on toast.")

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

"No mummy, you tant eat effant on toast, you eat a RAFFE on toast. Effant too big a doh on toast.

I love this!

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"(I)f you have a well-developed theory of mind, you understand that people have mental states (beliefs, ideas, desires, perspectives) which differ from person to person and affect how people behave."

Which is wonderfully recursive. Only someone with a theory of mind would come up with the idea of a theory of mind. And only a genuine optimist would believe a theory of mind is a developmental stage, and something everyone will eventually come to.

[curmudgn]

She gon' be dangeroust, about the time she really learns Fight Club Rules 1 and 2.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

For some reason, this reminded me of a friend of mine who has twins. When the twins were around 8 years of age, the little girl went upstairs to talk with her mom. Meanwhile, the little boy poked a hole in the screen in the rec room in the basement so that neighbor kids could push candy through to them. (They were in trouble and could not go out to play.) It didn't take too long for my friend to figure out what was going on.

Kids are....amazing.