The Origins of Theory of Mind in Infant Social Cognition: Investigating Longitudinal Pathways from Intention Understanding and Joint Attention to Preschool Theory of Mind

ABSTRACT

A growing body of literature has established longitudinal associations between key social cognitive capacities emerging in infancy and children’s subsequent theory of mind. However, existing work is limited by modest sample sizes, narrow infant measures, and theory of mind assessments with restricted variability and generalizability. The current study aimed to extend this literature by (a) recruiting a large sample of participants (n = 116; 53 boys; 63 girls; all U.S. residents; 88 White, 8 Hispanic or Latino, 2 Black or African American, 14 two or more races/ethnicities, 4 unknown; median family income: $74-122,000), (b) examining multiple measures of infant social cognition (intentional action understanding, responding to joint attention, initiating joint attention) at Time 1 (8–12 months), and (c) using an ecologically valid theory of mind assessment designed to capture individual differences in preschoolers’ mental state understanding (the Children’s Social Understanding Scale) at Time 2 (37–45 months). Measured variable path analysis revealed a significant longitudinal association between infants’ initiating joint attention and later theory of mind: infants who engaged in more attempts to initiate joint attention with experimenters through gaze alternation or gestures went on to show better parent-reported mental state understanding as preschoolers. Notably, the paths from infants’ responding to joint attention and intentional action understanding to later theory of mind did not emerge as significant. These findings bolster and clarify existing claims about how mental state reasoning is rooted in foundational social-cognitive capacities emerging in infancy.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Grant HD-076311. We thank Kelsey Moty, Zhangzhichun Xu, and the undergraduate research assistants in Lehigh University’s Cognitive Development Lab for their help with data collection and coding. Special thanks, as well, to the families who participated in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/xfkyv/.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/xfkyv/ and https://osf.io/xfkyv/.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [HD-076311].