Spontaneous false belief attribution develops earlier in less inhibited children

Abstract

Inspired by the emotional reactivity hypothesis, Wellman et al. (2011) found that explicit false belief attribution is more mature in 5-year-old children who are more observant and less aggressive. Our goal was to complement this result by providing new data on the role of observationally measured behavioral inhibition in the development of early, spontaneous false belief attribution. We assumed that spontaneous false belief attribution develops through social interactions, and it is the child’s temperament that determines how they participate in these. We therefore expected to identify interrelations between temperament and spontaneous false belief attribution. We tested 217 children twice: at 18 months, when the children’s response to unfamiliar objects was measured, and at 36 months, when anticipatory looks following a non-direct prompt were used to measure spontaneous false belief attribution. We found that children who appear confident/less inhibited at the age of 18 months seem to be more skillful at recognizing false beliefs at the age of 3. Our results are consistent with the concept behind the emotional reactivity hypothesis and with the social-interactional and usage-based approach to the development of theory of mind (ToM). They are discussed with respect to the methodology of measurement of false belief attribution and the relationship between spontaneous and explicit ToM.