ABSTRACT

In order to comfort others, children need to exhibit Theory of Mind (ToM) skills. The goal of the present study was to investigate the role of ToM in association with children’s spontaneous comforting behaviour in a laboratory task. Forty-seven children between 26 and 57 months of age completed three ToM tasks: diverse desires, diverse beliefs and belief-emotion. To evaluate comforting, we used a previously evaluated procedure in which an experimenter drops a tower of blocks and pretends to be upset. The results showed a significant positive relationship between children’s understanding of their own and others’ desires and comforting. However, no relationships were found between comforting and understanding of one’s own and others’ beliefs or belief-emotion. The relationship between the different ToM tasks and age was also assessed, but it was non-significant. The implications of these findings for understanding the onset of spontaneous prosocial behaviour are discussed.

摘要

为了安慰他人，孩子们需要展示心智理论（ToM）技能。本研究的目的是调查 ToM 在实验室任务中与儿童自发的安慰行为相关的作用。47 名 26 至 57 个月大的儿童完成了三项 ToM 任务：不同的欲望、不同的信念和信念-情感。为了评估舒适度，我们使用了之前评估过的程序，在该程序中，一名实验者放下一座积木塔并假装不高兴。结果表明，儿童对自己和他人欲望的理解与安慰之间存在显着的正相关关系。然而，在安慰和理解自己和他人的信仰或信仰情感之间没有发现任何关系。还评估了不同 ToM 任务和年龄之间的关系，但这并不重要。讨论了这些发现对理解自发亲社会行为的影响。