Family Context and Theory of Mind Development

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of diverse variables on theory of mind development in a group of 114 pre-school children aged between 3 years 1 month and 4 years 2 months. Development levels in diverse areas were assessed, along with the quality of family interaction, quality of attachment and the children's performance when faced with a staggered series of theory of mind tasks ranging from simple desire situations to a false belief task. The percentage of children classified as securely attached who responded correctly to the false belief task proved significant, whereas no significant relationship was found between a correct response to this task and number of siblings or number of older siblings. We propose the development of a multi-causal model in order to continue our research into the optimum family environment for theory of mind development. Keywords: AttachmentSiblingsFamily EnvironmentTheory Of Mind