A Cross‐cultural Perspective on Children's Theories of Mind and Social Interaction

Abstract

This study incorporated two cross‐cultural dimensions using both Singaporean and UK subjects as well as expert raters from both cultures to investigate links between children's “theories of minds” (ToM) and their social interactive behaviour. This trian‐gulation procedure examined 12 dyads paired on equal and unequal ToM status and were videotaped at social pretend play. The two‐fold aim of this procedure was (a) to obtain observers' judgements of the dyads at play and check for agreement of views, and (b) to predict the theory of mind status of the dyads from these judgements. Videotaped segments of the 12 dyads were rated independently by 6 Singaporean and 5 UK pre‐school teachers. These ratings produced three sets of measures of facilitation, shared meaning and thematic maintenance of interactive play. Agreement among raters and group differences between these scores were analysed using non‐parametric statistics. Results indicated a link between theory of mind ability and quality of social interaction.

Key words:

• Facilitation
• shared meaning
• social interaction
• social pretend play
• thematic maintenance and theory of mind

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carolyn S.L Tan‐Niam

This research is supported by (a) a grant from the Commonwealth Scholarship Association, and (b) study leave from the Nanyang Technological University. I would like to thank the panel of eleven pre‐school teachers who served as my raters in the triangulation procedure; and the staff, parents and children of the pre‐schools for their participation in this research. Some of the findings in this paper were presented at the British Psychological Society's Developmental Psychology Section Annual Conference, 5‐8 September 1997, Loughborough, UK.