Simplifying second-order belief attribution: what facilitates children's performance on measures of conceptual understanding?

Coull, Greig J., Leekam, Susan R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1122-0135 and Bennett, Mark R. 2006. Simplifying second-order belief attribution: what facilitates children's performance on measures of conceptual understanding? Social Development 15 (3) , pp. 548-563. 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2006.00340.x

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Abstract

This study investigated how 4- to 7-year-old children’s second-order belief attribution might be facilitated by either reducing information processing or varying the sequence of task questions. In Experiment 1, compared with Perner and Wimmer’s (1985) original second-order false-belief task, a new task with reduced information-processing demands promoted better second-order reasoning. In Experiment 2, half the stories included a second-order ignorance question before a second-order belief question. The ignorance question promoted second-order belief understanding, superseding the improvement induced by lowered processing demands. Together, the findings suggest that second-order belief performance can be facilitated if children focus on the concept of ignorance during the sequence of questioning.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Uncontrolled Keywords:	theory of mind; second-order beliefs; second-order ignorance; development
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
ISSN:	0961-205X
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2022 09:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/32233

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