The development of Theory of Mind in Turkish preschoolers

The development of Theory of Mind in Turkish preschoolers 13th European Conference on Developmental Psychology 21-25 August 2007, Jena, Germany Müge Bayramoğlu, Annette Hohenberger, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey Abstract The ToM scale developed by Wellman and Liu (2004) was adapted to Turkish and used in the assessment of ToM development of 4 and 5-year-old Turkish preschoolers. The results showed a main effect of age, but no effect of gender or interaction. A Guttman scalogram was performed to obtain a sequence of ToM development. Only 61% of the sample fit in the Guttman scale, due to very similar performances in the ‘real apparent emotion’ and the ‘diverse belief’ task, which created two alternative subsequences. As compared to children from Western countries and China, Turkish children scored worse in ‘diverse belief’ but better in ‘knowledge-ignorance’ and ‘real apparent emotion’. The latter finding yields further evidence for Wellman et al.’s (2006) claim that culture plays an important role in ToM development – here in terms of politeness norms which may foster understanding of hidden emotions and display behaviour. Background and aim of the study Theory of Mind (ToM) has been shown to exhibit a stable ontogenetic progression from three to seven years of age, resulting in a predictable sequence of a variety of tasks all tapping various aspects of ToM, such as desires, intentions, knowledge, thoughts, and emotions (Wellman & Liu, 2004). However, besides universal aspects, socio-cultural influences have also been shown to influence ToM development (Wellman et al., 2006). Thus, Chinese children solve tasks related to ‘knowledge-ignorance’ earlier than their US, Australian, and German counterparts whereas those are more successful in tasks involving believing and thinking. Our study aims at inquiring further into the sociocultural modulation of ToM development by studying young children in Turkey, a country in the Middle-East with distinct cultural features and strong kinship and social relations. Diverse Desire Child judges that two people (herself vs. someone else) can have different desires about the same objects: The child must predict Osman’s choice of snack which is opposite from her own preference (carrot or cookie). Sample female 4 y male Diverse Belief Child judges that two people (herself vs. someone else) can have different beliefs about the same object when she does not know which belief is true: The child must predict where in two hiding places (bush or parked car) Ayse will look for her cat, knowing that Ayse holds the opposite belief from her. Content False Belief Child judges another person’s false belief about what is in a familiar container when she knows herself what is in it, a bird: The child must judge what Can, who has never looked in the container, believes what is in it: a bird False Belief or pencils. Tasks, Stimuli The original ToM scale of Wellman and Liu was translated and adapted to Turkish. Toy figurines with Turkish features and names were used. Picture material was taken from Hofer and Aschersleben (2005). n=17 n=15 53.4m 51.8m SD=3.8 SD=3.2 n=14 n=10 65m 65.3m SD=3.4 SD=3.9 56 5 y Σ Osman Child judges where a person with a mistaken belief will search: Knowing that Emre’s mittens are in his backpack but that he believes them to be in the cupboard, the child has to predict where Emre will search. Design IV: 2 betw subj factors: • gender (m,f) • age (4, 5 years) DV: ToM score (sum score of all 6 tasks) Child judges another person’s ignorance about the contents of a small box when she knows herself what is in the box: The child has to indicate whether Merve, who has never seen inside, knows what is inside the box: a toy dog. Procedure Children were tested individually in the METU kindergarten for 8 to 11 minutes. KnowledgeIgnorance Child judges that a person can feel one but displays a different emotion: The child has to predict Mert’s feelings as well as his overt expression (sad, neutral, happy face) when his aunt gives him an undesired present (book vs. toy car) Explicit False Belief Addit. Measures •WM (Word span; nonword repetition) •Language (Relative Clause Understanding) •Parents’ Education (academic edu Y / N) Realapparent Emotion Results ANOVA: Mean ToM scores for 4- and 5-year olds 5 4,5 4 ToM Score 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1 0,5 0 4-year Age 5-year 4-year 5-year Guttman Scale Main effect “age”: F(1,52)= 12.355, p=.001 5 year old children have a higher ToM score (M= 4.21, SD= 1.14) than 4 year old children (M= 3.16, SD=1.02). No main effect “gender” ; No interaction effect Pattern Knowledge-Ignorance Diverse Desire 1 95% 88% 2 + 3 + + 4 + + + 5 + + + + 6 + + + + + other WM (N=16) ToM x word-span: .418 n.s ToM x non-word repetition: r= -.042 n.s. Language (N=42) Real-Apparent Emotion 57% Diverse Belief Contents False Belief Participant 4-year-olds 5-year-olds total age 50% 34% - 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 1 8 4 yr 8 3 11 4-5yrs 4 2 6 4-5yrs 1 8 9 5 yr 12 10 22 Correlation with relative clause understanding r=.341, p=.031 Education (N=28) ToM x parents’ education: rho: .488, p= .008 Sequence of solved ToM tasks: 60.7% of the subjects fit the Guttman Scale. n= 16 with real/app emotion > diverse belief Knowledge Ignorance 95% > Diverse Desire 88% > Real-apparent Emotion 57% > Diverse Belief 50% >Explicit FB 38% > Contents FB 34% n= 12 with diverse belief > real/app emotion Discussion and Summary: In our study on ToM development of 4 and 5 year old Turkish preschoolers, a main effect of age was found, but no gender effect. These results are in line with Wellman and Liu (2004) and Kristen et al. (2006) although they partially contradict the finding of a gender effect in institutionalized Turkish children (Yagmurlu et al., 2005). In our sample ToM was modestly related with language comprehension and parents’ education, but unrelated to WM. Main differences to Western and Chinese samples are the higher performance of Turkish subjects in ‘knowledge-ignorance’ and ‘real-apparent emotion’, which might be facilitated by the usage of morphological marking of "evidentiality", but lower performance in ‘diverse belief‘. Only 61% of our sample fit the Guttman scale, due to two alternative subsequences for ‘real-apparent emotion’ and ‘diverse belief’. The high performance in ‘real-apparent emotion’ is in line with Wellman et al.’s (2006) claim that culture may modulate ToM development – here in terms of politeness norms and display behavior. References Hofer, T. & Aschersleben, G. (2005). ‘Theory of Mind’-Skala fuer 3-5-jaehrige Kinder. Authorized translation of the ToM Scale of Wellman & Liu (2004). MPI for Cognitive and Brain Science, Munich, Germany * Kristen, S., Thoermer, C., Hofer, T., Aschersleben, G., & Sodian, B. (2006). Skalierung von ‘Theory of Mind’- Aufgaben. Zeitschrift fuer Entwicklungspychologie und Paedagogische Psychologie, 38 (4), 186-195. * Wellman, H.M. & Liu, D. (2004). Scaling of Theory-ofMind Tasks. Child Development, 75, 2, 523-541. * Wellman, Henry M., Fang, Fuxi, Liu, David, Zhu, Liqi, and Liu, Guoxiong (2006). Scaling of Theory-of-Mind understandings in Chinese children. Psychological Science, 17, 12, 1075-1081. * Yagmurlu, B., Kazak Berument, S., & Celimli, S. (2005). The role of institution and home contexts in theory of mind development. Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 521-537. Contact: Müge Bayramoğlu: bayramoglumuge@gmail.com We wish to thank the Turkish Psychological Association TPD Annette Hohenberger: hohenberger@ii.metu.edu.tr for supporting Müge Bayramoğlu’s travel.