Second-order theory of mind as a predictor of children’s guilt proneness

ABSTRACT

The relation between children’s guilt proneness and theory of mind (ΤοΜ) was examined in children (Ν = 96) aged 7- to 11-years. Guilt proneness was assessed with a self-report scenario-based measure and ToM was examined with a battery of first-order and second-order mental-state tasks. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that second-order, but not first-order, mental state understanding, predicted children’s guilt proneness. Age and gender did not have a moderating influence on this relation. These results add to research investigating the significance of ToM for children’s moral emotions.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• guilt proneness
• second-order mental states
• theory of mind

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Melpomeni Dourou for her assistance in the collection of the data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Kriegel maintains that ‘conscious beliefs always include an awareness of themselves’ (Kriegel, 2004, p. 108) and Shoemaker (1995) argues ‘where the subject has the concept of belief and of herself, the first-order belief’s being available constitutes her having the at least tacit belief that she has the first order belief’ (pp. 92–93).

2. The ToM literature suggests that the majority of children pass standard first-order false belief tasks by 4 or 5 years of age (Perner et al., 1987; Wimmer & Perner, 1983). As our sample was 7 years of age and older, it could be argued that first-order ToM tasks are not appropriate to test participants’ ToM ability. However, it is uncommon for an entire sample to be at ceiling in the first-order false belief tasks even at this age (see, e.g., meta-analyses by Liu et al., 2008; Wellman et al., 2001) and some researchers have put forward that some of the errors observed in children aged 7 years or older (Apperly et al., 2011) are due to that they have not yet developed a firm grasp of first-order false belief concepts (Apperly, 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Plousia Misailidi

Plousia Misailidi, PhD, is an associate professor of Developmental Psychology in the Department of Primary Education at the University of Ioannina, Greece. Her research interests lie in the areas of theory of mind and emotional development in childhood.

Katerina Kapsali

Katerina Kapsali is a postgraduate student in the Department of Primary Education at the University of Ioannina, Greece. She is currently working on her MA thesis which focuses on children’s theory of mind.