The Basics of Theory of Mind

The theory of mind is a complex concept and, at the same time, an utterly simple notion, which can elaborate the intricate process of thinking in individuals. The basic or core concepts of theory of mind involves ideologies, beliefs, desires and intentions of a person, which serve as a basis to understand why does an individual act in a certain way or to predict how would a person react under specific circumstances (Rabkina et al., 2017). In this essay the overall development of the social identity of the children are discussed with respect to their cognitive development. Social situations can be navigated to by using a person’s beliefs, knowledge, experience, emotions and their intentions.

Theory of mind is one of the most important social cognitions to be developed in early childhood. Social cognition is the most basic thing that helps children to perceive things from others’ view points and thus, enable them to get along with the people around them. Without theory of mind developing in a child, it is almost impossible to see something from another perspective. Theory of mind advocates that we should see ourselves as mental beings, and not simply flesh and bones or existing in a physical space (Dufour, 2017). This theory says that each human has her or his own mental state: they have their own feelings, emotions, desires, motives and thoughts. Only by using theory of mind, can we explain our thoughts, behaviours and mental states to others. Humans also interpret others’ behaviours and thoughts by listening to what they talk about and observing how they behave (Schaafsma et al., 2015).

The development of theory of mind in children, from birth to the age of five, is well researched and discussed extensively. By observing them in certain conditions, researches can now tell how do children behave under experimental situations and then use this information to predict how may they react to something or behave in natural conditions (Hawkins & Goodman, 2016). The development of the theory of mind can progress in a predictable order. During the stages of infancy and early childhood, children develop the most basic skills, that would facilitate in the development of mind later on in their lives. Some of these skills include: paying attention to the people around them and copying their behaviour or actions, recognising the emotions of others as well as the ability to describe those as they see them, establishing the idea to themselves about the fact that they are different and have different likes or dislikes than the others, understanding that human behaviour is motivated by their needs or desires, comprehending the causality and consequences of actions or emotional portrayal, pretend-play while impersonating someone else (Taylor & Carlson 1997). 

Theory of Mind and Social Cognition in Early Childhood

The theory of mind emerges and starts to develop properly between the ages four and five. This is the stage when the children properly start to understand the thoughts and feelings of other people and this development happens in a proper order.

Understanding what is “wanting”: The children comprehend the fact that different people want different things and they act as they do because they want to achieve or possess their desired things.

Understanding the concept of “thinking”: Different people have different beliefs or views on the same thing. However, the dissimilarity does not render any of the views to be false or wrong. The actions of a person are based on the person’s ideas about what may happen.

Understanding the fact that “seeing leads to knowing”: This helps the children to understand that they may lack knowledge on something or person, because they have not seen the thing or the person (Rabkina et al., 2017). When a child has not seen a specific thing, they require extra information on the same to properly understand about it or comprehend it functions.

Comprehending the idea of “false beliefs”: During this point of time, the children understand that some people believe in things that not true. Also, they understand that people act according to their beliefs and convictions and not always based on facts.

Understanding the aspect of “hidden beliefs”: People often do not portray exactly how they feel. Rather, they supress their true emotions and project something completely different to others.

When the children are around the age of 4, they start to greatly improve upon the tasks the involve theory of mind. This ability gives them the understanding that some of the people around them may be acting based on a belief that is false. The false-belief understanding helps children of the ages between four and five to speculate more believable things about a thing or event that they do not know about, much more than children who are around three years of age (Ruffman et al., 2017). However, children with mental health issues such as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) take much more time to develop these cognitive skills than those without the same. For those children, the average level of human skills or mind development would take much longer to develop, or not develop at all. While, there may be a difference among the children with autism and the ones with not, understanding the other’s beliefs can often become a problem, even though understanding their intentions is more or less the same (Panero et al., 2016). This may happen like so because, understanding a person’s intentions is a more basic skill that develops earlier than the skill of understanding others’ emotions or beliefs.

The Stages of Development of Theory of Mind

Like every other cognitive skill, the theory of mind develops in a sequential pattern, that is also predictable. Most of the researches of theory of mind show that the cognitive skills develop the most between the ages four and five. However, a number of attributes that facilitate in the development of the theory of mind start at early infancy.

The two most notable stages that can be used to explain the evolution and development of theory of mind are: 

Engagement: During this stage, the children learn to engage themselves with the others around them and also maintain a medium of communication by responding to the behaviour of those who surround them (Panero et al., 2016). From birth to the first eight months of the lives of the babies, they essentially mirror the emotions and the behaviours of their caregivers and this is one of the earliest indicators of an effective development of theory of mind. From eight moths onwards till the age of a year, children begin to attract attention towards them by their behaviours and also use the same for their requests. By this, they also achieve to instigate social interactions. During this period, children understand the consequences of their emotional portrayal or behaviours on others and how may those be used for their own interests. By doing so, children also accomplish to understand or interpret the emotional meaning of the people do not know and predict, to some degree, as to how shall they react to certain incidents or circumstances. Emotional traits such as anger, happiness or fear can be distinguished by the children during this age.

Sense of self: Between the ages of eighteen months to four years, the children slowly begin to distinguish themselves from others and create an identity of them, which is detached from the others. They also develop their own likes and dislikes. Pretending and role-playing are also developed during this age as well. An intrapersonal theory of mind evolves through these pretending and the development of sense of self. At the age of 18 months, children begin to understand that others’ likes and dislikes may vary from their own. They also understand that people’s behaviours are generally aimed towards trying to achieve what they wish for. From two years onwards, children recognize words such as “happy”, “angry” or “sad”. The children also can recognize distress among other people and they try to console and comfort them as much as they can (Frye, 2014). Children also develop the ability to distinguish between real and imaginary and also establish the fact to themselves that people have knowledge on different things and objects by seeing those. They learn that actions are determined by intensions and begin to display conscious emotions such as feelings of embarrassment, shame, pride or guilt (Saracho, 2014). They can more or less be able to comprehend different emotions and also fathom the consequences of their actions and behaviours. 

The Impact of Autism Spectrum Disorders on Theory of Mind

Irrespective of the age of a child or their language skills, false-believe understanding is closely related to various aspects of a child’s social functioning. This also includes the child’s ability of engaging in meaningful conversations, maintaining healthy relationships with other members of the society or with friends, the ability to resolve conflicts and other social competences (Saracho, 2014). By this aspect, children who are capable of false beliefs are more advanced in being socially developed as well. Understanding other’s beliefs and emotions helps to establish and develop social competency to the fullest and the children who have mental health issues like autism, may lack severely in that sphere. Executive function skills, such as inhibition, cognitive flexibility etc., are also related to theory of mind in a way that the pre-schoolers who have better executive function skills are better at comprehending more perspectives and keeping them in their minds (Frye, 2014). This can help them to distinguish between how another person perceives something and what is the actual reality that exists.

First order theory of mind revolves around the understanding the emotions of another person and reflecting upon what the other person is thinking or feeling. This generally emerges in the children between the ages four and five who have typical developing patterns. The understanding of various desires, the difference of the beliefs among different individuals, the understanding that only seeing enhances believing and knowing all foster in this period of time. Researches have shown that children with autism develop the first three stages of first order theory of mind like every other child (Winter et al., 2017). However, the last two stages that have been talked about before take much longer time to develop in those who have mental health issues than those without. 

The second order theory of mind involves anticipating and predicting how may a person think or feel at certain situations, or, feeling what the other person is thinking about. Multiple embedding are required for this capability to predict the feelings or actions of the others. Understanding and comprehending lies, sarcasm and social implications. This understanding level is developed during the ages of six and ten (Schneider, Schumann-Hengsteler & Sodian, 2014). There are arguments that say that theory of mind never actually ceases to develop, rather it gradually evolves throughout the lives of every individual through constant exposure to newer events and situations and gaining increasingly higher levels of experiences through them.

To conclude, it could be inferred that theory of mind develops in children through various stages of their growth and each stage has different implications and impacts on the development of the same in the children. Theory of mind is one of the most vital things to develop in the children, that helps them to be more social and in some way, more sensitive as well. Those who have problems in the development of theory of mind, must be extended help from the society so that they are not left out or shunned to the borders of the society. 

References

Dufour, V. (2017). Theory of Mind. The International Encyclopedia of Primatology.

Frye, D. (2014). Children’s theories of mind: Mental states and social understanding. Psychology Press.

Hawkins, R. X., & Goodman, N. D. (2016). Conversational expectations account for apparent limits on theory of mind use. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

Panero, M. E., Weisberg, D. S., Black, J., Goldstein, T. R., Barnes, J. L., Brownell, H., & Winner, E. (2016). Does reading a single passage of literary fiction really improve theory of mind? An attempt at replication. Journal of personality and social psychology, 111(5), e46.

Rabkina, I., McFate, C., Forbus, K. D., & Hoyos, C. (2017). Towards a Computational Analogical Theory of Mind. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.

Ruffman, T., Puri, A., Galloway, O., Su, J., & Taumoepeau, M. (2017). Variety in Parental Use of” Want” Relates to Subsequent Growth in Children’s Theory of Mind. Developmental psychology. Wang, L., & Leslie, A. M. (2016). Is Implicit Theory of Mind the ‘Real Deal’? The Own?Belief/True?Belief Default in Adults and Young Preschoolers. Mind & Language, 31(2), 147-176.

Saracho, O. N. (2014). THEORY OF MIND. Contemporary Perspectives on Research in Theory of Mind in Early Childhood Education, 409.

Schaafsma, S. M., Pfaff, D. W., Spunt, R. P., & Adolphs, R. (2015). Deconstructing and reconstructing theory of mind. Trends in cognitive sciences, 19(2), 65-72.

Schneider, W., Schumann-Hengsteler, R., & Sodian, B. (Eds.). (2014). Young children’s cognitive development: Interrelationships among executive functioning, working memory, verbal ability, and theory of mind. Psychology Press.

Taylor, M., & Carlson, S. M. (1997). The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind. Child development, 68(3), 436-455.

Winter, K., Spengler, S., Bermpohl, F., Singer, T., & Kanske, P. (2017). Social cognition in aggressive offenders: Impaired empathy, but intact theory of mind. Scientific reports, 7(1), 670.