Individual Differences In Theory Research Articles

Association Between Children's Theory of Mind and Responses to Insincere Praise Following Failure.

This study examined children’s interpretations of and responses to insincere praise in a situation involving failure and explored the association between these responses and the maturity of their theory of mind. Seventy-two young Japanese children (mean age = 5.70 years, SD = 0.61) completed a test battery that included tasks designed to assess responses to teacher feedback (i.e., insincere praise, no feedback) in hypothetical failure situations, theory of mind, and verbal ability. The results showed that children who failed experienced higher levels of positive emotion and self-rated performance and showed lower motivation to persevere when they received insincere praise following failure, relative to those observed when they failed and received no feedback. In addition, relative to children with less mature theory of mind, children with mature theory of mind responded more negatively to insincere praise following failure. The evidence indicated that the effects of insincere praise could differ depending on the maturity of children’s theory of mind. It highlights the importance of understanding individual differences in theory of mind in parenting and educational settings.

The Right Stuff: Preschoolers Generalize Reliability Across Communicative Domains When Informants Show Semantic (Not Episodic) Knowledge

ABSTRACTAlthough preschoolers have strong expectations about the pedagogical nature of pointing gestures (Csibra & Gergely, 2006), more recent work has shown that preschoolers prefer to use informants’ spoken language, not their pointing gestures, to make judgments about their reliability (Palmquist & Jaswal, 2015). Here, we explored children’s inferences about pointers using a standard selective trust paradigm. Specifically, we asked whether 4- and 5-year-olds generalize reliability across communicative domains (from pointing ability to speaking ability). We found that children preferred to make generalizations about pointers’ reliability when they had conveyed semantic, but not episodic, knowledge. Individual differences in theory of mind also predicted children’s willingness to make generalizations about pointers’ reliability. Both sets of results suggest that multiple factors (i.e., the type of knowledge an informant shares and individual differences in children’s cognitive development) affect whether preschoolers generalize others’ reliability across domains.

Measuring Individual Differences in Cognitive, Affective, and Spontaneous Theory of Mind Among School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The present study examined individual differences in theory of mind (ToM) among a group of 60 children (7-11years-old) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and average intelligence. Using open-ended and structured tasks to measure affective ToM, cognitive ToM, and spontaneous social attribution, we explored the nature of ToM and assessed whether ToM predicts the phenotypic heterogeneity in ASD through structural equation modeling. Affective ToM uniquely predicted social symptom severity, whereas no ToM types predicted parent reported social functioning. Our findings suggest that differentiating among theoretical components is crucial for future ToM research in ASD, and ToM challenges related to reasoning about others' emotions may be particularly useful in distinguishing children with worse social symptoms of ASD.

POISONED DEVELOPMENT: ASSESSING CHILDHOOD LEAD EXPOSURE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME IN A BIRTH COHORT FOLLOWED THROUGH ADOLESCENCE

AbstractThe consequences of lead exposure for later crime are theoretically compelling, but direct evidence from representative, longitudinal samples is sparse. By capitalizing on an original follow‐up of more than 200 infants from the birth cohort of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods matched to their blood lead levels from around age 3 years, we provide several tests. Through the use of four waves of longitudinal data that include measures of individual development, family background, and structural inequalities in how lead becomes embodied, we assess the hypothesized link between early childhood lead poisoning and both parent‐reported delinquent behavior and official arrest in late adolescence. We also test for mediating developmental processes of impulsivity and anxiety or depression. The results from multiple analytic strategies that make different assumptions reveal a plausibly causal effect of childhood lead exposure on adolescent delinquent behavior but no direct link to arrests. The results underscore lead exposure as a trigger for poisoned development in the early life course and call for greater integration of the environment into theories of individual differences in criminal behavior.

Contralateral Delay Activity Tracks Fluctuations in Working Memory Performance.

Neural measures of working memory storage, such as the contralateral delay activity (CDA), are powerful tools in working memory research. CDA amplitude is sensitive to working memory load, reaches an asymptote at known behavioral limits, and predicts individual differences in capacity. An open question, however, is whether neural measures of load also track trial-by-trial fluctuations in performance. Here, we used a whole-report working memory task to test the relationship between CDA amplitude and working memory performance. If working memory failures are due to decision-based errors and retrieval failures, CDA amplitude would not differentiate good and poor performance trials when load is held constant. If failures arise during storage, then CDA amplitude should track both working memory load and trial-by-trial performance. As expected, CDA amplitude tracked load (Experiment 1), reaching an asymptote at three items. In Experiment 2, we tracked fluctuations in trial-by-trial performance. CDA amplitude was larger (more negative) for high-performance trials compared with low-performance trials, suggesting that fluctuations in performance were related to the successful storage of items. During working memory failures, participants oriented their attention to the correct side of the screen (lateralized P1) and maintained covert attention to the correct side during the delay period (lateralized alpha power suppression). Despite the preservation of attentional orienting, we found impairments consistent with an executive attention theory of individual differences in working memory capacity; fluctuations in executive control (indexed by pretrial frontal theta power) may be to blame for storage failures.

The influence of gender, and race/ethnicity on advancement in information technology (IT)

With increased attention paid to the lack of diversity in U.S. technology firms, little attention is paid to women already in the technology workforce who aspire to senior leadership roles. This research study focused on understanding the experiences of African American/black, Asian American, European American/white, and Hispanic American/Latina women who advanced from technical/operational IT roles to senior IT executive (SITE) roles in corporate America. Previous research solely focused on gender, race, or ethnicity provided an insufficient and limited description of women's advancement journey. Rather than treat gender and race/ethnicity as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis, this study approached the topic from a gender intersectionality perspective and used the individual differences theory of gender and IT as an analytical lens. Specifically, the study examined women's career progression in a more nuanced manner—observing gender within race or ethnic group—which provided greater insight into the participants' advancement journey.The intent of this study was to understand how individual and organizational factors influenced each participant's career progression and what role, if any, gender and race/ethnicity played in the journey.As a result of the analysis, six themes emerged: Pathways to the SITE Role; Informal Networks; Bias; Credibility and Legitimacy; Support; and Technical Skills. Issues of gender and race/ethnicity permeated most of the factors and influenced whether the factors helped or hindered.Although some findings support existing research on women's career barriers, the intent was not to generalize the findings to all women. Rather, the study's results demonstrate that racial and ethnic variations among the women in addition to a variety of other factors contribute to different career progression experiences.

ICTs and the Computerised Hijab: Women's Experiences of ICT in the UAE

AbstractThis paper discusses a grounded theory study of women's experience of ICTs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We were particularly interested in whether their gender, and the society in which they live, affected that experience. We identify three themes, ICT Use, Gender Perspective and UAE Society which together constitute an emergent theory of Women's ICT experience in the UAE. We conclude by engaging the emergent theory with individual differences theory. Our findings show that ICT use in the UAE is a profoundly gendered experience, shaped by the Islam based society in which the women live.

Black Men in IT

This paper considers issues related to the diversity of the information technology (IT) workforce, inclusive of IT education and the cultural phenomenon that currently exists about Black men's underrepresentation in IT and the degree to which they identify with the IT field within the United States of America. We use autoethnography to examine the insights from the first author's lived experiences and entrance into the IT workforce to identify individual and group themes that exist, relate them to existing literature, and provide evidence of those obstacles being overcome using the Individual Differences Theory of Gender and IT. The purpose of this research is to provide a perspective, through an autoethnographic account, and application of theory that highlight factors that support or undermine the achievement of Black men completing IT degrees and entering the workforce. Methodologically, autoethnography has not been widely adopted within the information systems (IS) discipline but we provide evidence that it is a viable approach for discussing lived experiences utilizing an exemplar and supporting research for evaluating autoethnography. As scholars, even those with no direct affiliation with the impacted group, we have a duty to ensure that we are being as inclusive as possible, understand and appreciate the value of diversity, and are taking an active role in cultivating and empowering our students to enter, and remain, in the IT workforce.

Prenatal maternal stress shapes children's theory of mind: the QF2011 Queensland Flood Study.

Research shows that stress in pregnancy has powerful and enduring effects on many facets of child development, including increases in behavior problems and neurodevelopmental disorders. Theory of mind is an important aspect of child development that is predictive of successful social functioning and is impaired in children with autism. A number of factors related to individual differences in theory of mind have been identified, but whether theory of mind development is shaped by prenatal events has not yet been examined. In this study we utilized a sudden onset flood that occurred in Queensland, Australia in 2011 to examine whether disaster-related prenatal maternal stress predicts child theory of mind and whether sex of the child or timing of the stressor in pregnancy moderates these effects. Higher levels of flood-related maternal subjective stress, but not objective hardship, predicted worse theory of mind at 30 months (n=130). Further, maternal cognitive appraisal of the flood moderated the effects of stress in pregnancy on girls' theory of mind performance but not boys'. These results illuminate how stress in pregnancy can shape child development and the findings are discussed in relation to biological mechanisms in pregnancy and stress theory.

Towards a theory of individual differences in statistical learning.

In recent years, statistical learning (SL) research has seen a growing interest in tracking individual performance in SL tasks, mainly as a predictor of linguistic abilities. We review studies from this line of research and outline three presuppositions underlying the experimental approach they employ: (i) that SL is a unified theoretical construct; (ii) that current SL tasks are interchangeable, and equally valid for assessing SL ability; and (iii) that performance in the standard forced-choice test in the task is a good proxy of SL ability. We argue that these three critical presuppositions are subject to a number of theoretical and empirical issues. First, SL shows patterns of modality- and informational-specificity, suggesting that SL cannot be treated as a unified construct. Second, different SL tasks may tap into separate sub-components of SL that are not necessarily interchangeable. Third, the commonly used forced-choice tests in most SL tasks are subject to inherent limitations and confounds. As a first step, we offer a methodological approach that explicitly spells out a potential set of different SL dimensions, allowing for better transparency in choosing a specific SL task as a predictor of a given linguistic outcome. We then offer possible methodological solutions for better tracking and measuring SL ability. Taken together, these discussions provide a novel theoretical and methodological approach for assessing individual differences in SL, with clear testable predictions.This article is part of the themed issue 'New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences'.

Psychometric evaluation and validation of the Serbian version of “Reading the mind in the eyes” test

?Reading the Mind in the Eyes? test (RMET) is one of the most popular and widely used measures of individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM) capabilities. Despite demonstrating good validity in differentiating various clinical groups exhibiting ToM deficits from unimpaired controls, previous studies raised the question of the RMET?s homogeneity, latent structure, and reliability. The aim of this study is to provide evidence on psychometric properties, latent structure, and validity of the newly adapted Serbian version of the RMET. In total, 260 participants (61.9% females) took part in the study. The sample consisted of both unimpaired controls (76.5%), and a clinical group of participants that are believed to demonstrate ToM deficits (23.5%), namely, persons diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (54.1% females). RMET has demonstrated fair psychometric properties (KMO = .723; ? = .747; H1 = .076; H5 = .465), successfully differentiating between clinical group and control [F (1,254) = 26.175, p <.001, ?2 p = .093], while typical gender differences in performance were found only in control group. Tests of several models based on the previous literature revealed that the affect-specific factors underlying performance on RMET demonstrate poor fit. The best fitting model obtained included reduced scale with a single-factor underlying the test?s performance (TLI = .953, CFI = .958, RMSEA = .020). Based on the fit parameters we propose 18-item short-form of the Serbian version of RMET (KMO = .797; ? = .728; H1 = .129; H5 = .677) for economic, reliable and valid measurement of ToM abilities.

Hans Eysenck: Personality theorist

Hans Eysenck was the leading personality and individual differences theorist of the 20th century. His goal was to combine the best theories and practices of experimental psychology with the best measurement techniques of individual differences. From his earliest analyses of the dimensions of individual differences, through multiple iterations at theory building to his lasting achievements in building a paradigm for personality research he left a legacy of broad and rigorous research. He strove to integrate behaviour genetics, psychophysiology, cognitive psychology, aesthetics, and psychometrics into a unified theory of personality and individual differences. Although best known for his biological theory of extraversion, his impact upon the field was much more than that and cannot be summarized in a brief article. I review his major theoretical contributions and relate them to modern personality theory and show how his many contributions continue to shape current personality research.

Representations of moral violations: Category members and associated features

AbstractI present a novel way to conceptualize Turiel and colleagues’ Social Domain Theory (SDT), and Haidt and colleagues’ Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), as theories of how concepts of moral violations are mentally represented. I argue that SDT is best viewed as a theory of the features that are associated with concepts of moral violations, including wrongness, generalizability across cultures, and intrinsic harmfulness, and that MFT, in contrast, is best viewed as a theory of individual differences in what kinds of acts are categorized as moral violations (i.e., of category membership). This perspective generates a novel prediction: the same individual difference variables that predict variation in moral values according to MFT should predict ascription of the features predicted by SDT. That is, judgments of wrongness, generalizability, and intrinsic harmfulness should covary with the same predictors as do endorsed moral values, specifically, political orientation and analytic thinking. Three studies supported this hypothesis.

Translating child development research into practice: Can teachers foster children's theory of mind in primary school?

Translating research findings into practice should be one of the objectives of developmental psychology. Recently, research demonstrated the existence of individual differences in theory of mind (ToM) during middle childhood that are crucial for children's academic and social adjustment. This study aims to transfer the results of recent experimental studies on ToM interventions into primary-school teachers' practices. It examines whether a ToM training programme, based on conversations about mental states, can be effective under real-world school conditions and if it can be translated in such a way that it becomes suitable for primary-school teachers. Seventy-two 8- to 9-year-old children took part in the study. A total of four classes were recruited and randomly assigned to the experimental (34 children, 18 boys) or to the control condition (38 children, 18 boys). The ToM group and the control group were matched at pre-test for age, ToM, socio-economic background, verbal ability, working memory, and planning. Teachers were trained in four teacher-training sessions; the classroom-training programme was delivered by teachers in four sessions (each 50min long). Children were assessed before the intervention, after the end of the programme, and 2months later. The ToM group improved ToM skills significantly more than the control group both in the short and in the long term. Teachers can successfully promote their pupils' ToM development during their regular teaching hours. Results are discussed in the light of the importance of ToM promotion for children's school adjustment.

The Influence of Gender-Ethnic Intersectionality on Gender Stereotypes about IT Skills and Knowledge

One line of investigation in attempting to better understand the gender imbalance in the information technology (IT) field is to examine gender stereotypes about the skills and knowledge in the IT profession. A survey of 4046 university students in the United States was conducted to examine gender stereotypes held by contemporary university students (White, Black and Latino men and women) about the skills and knowledge in the IT profession. The Individual Differences Theory of Gender and IT was used as the motivating theory for this study because it enabled the incorporation of gender-ethnic intersectionality in the research design. The results revealed that while gender stereotypes about the skills and knowledge involved in the IT profession do exist, they are not uniform across all members of a gender group. The men tended to rate all of the skills as more masculine than did the women respondents. Technical skills were more consistently stereotyped by both men and women in each of the gender-ethnic groups than were nontechnical skills. However, gender stereotypes about nontechnical skills were more contested and revealed both within-gender and within-ethnicity variation. The women students' rating of nontechnical skills as less masculine than the men suggests that these nontechnical skills are being incorporated into the women's sense of gender identity. These results show that gender-ethnic intersectionality provides one important explanation for within-gender variation in gender stereotypes that are held by contemporary university students. These findings suggest promising avenues for interventions to address not only the masculine gender stereotyping of skills in the IT profession, but also differential gender stereotyping of technical vs. nontechnical skills and variation in gender stereotyping by the intersectionality of gender-ethnic groups.

Socio-Cognitive Phenotypes Differentially Modulate Large-Scale Structural Covariance Networks.

Functional neuroimaging studies have suggested the existence of 2 largely distinct social cognition networks, one for theory of mind (taking others' cognitive perspective) and another for empathy (sharing others' affective states). To address whether these networks can also be dissociated at the level of brain structure, we combined behavioral phenotyping across multiple socio-cognitive tasks with 3-Tesla MRI cortical thickness and structural covariance analysis in 270 healthy adults, recruited across 2 sites. Regional thickness mapping only provided partial support for divergent substrates, highlighting that individual differences in empathy relate to left insular-opercular thickness while no correlation between thickness and mentalizing scores was found. Conversely, structural covariance analysis showed clearly divergent network modulations by socio-cognitive and -affective phenotypes. Specifically, individual differences in theory of mind related to structural integration between temporo-parietal and dorsomedial prefrontal regions while empathy modulated the strength of dorsal anterior insula networks. Findings were robust across both recruitment sites, suggesting generalizability. At the level of structural network embedding, our study provides a double dissociation between empathy and mentalizing. Moreover, our findings suggest that structural substrates of higher-order social cognition are reflected rather in interregional networks than in the the local anatomical markup of specific regions per se.

Theory of Mind and social relationships in older adults: the role of social motivation

Objectives: Previous research has shown that individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM) are crucial for people's social relationships. However, very few studies have investigated this issue in ageing. The present study was designed to fill this gap and examine the associations between ToM and social relationships in elderly adults. In doing so, this study considered people's relationships with their relatives and friends, and examined the possible moderating role of social motivation.Method: The study involved 53 healthy older adults (age: M = 67.91; SD = 6.93; range: 60--85 years). All participants were tested collectively during a 2-hr session and completed a demographic questionnaire as well as a battery of tests assessing verbal ability (vocabulary and word fluency), ToM and social relationships. They also answered a social motivation question.Results: Results showed that individual differences in older people's ToM were overall significantly associated with those in relationships with friends, but not relatives. In addition, the Hayes moderating procedure showed that individual differences in ToM were related to those in friendships only for those people who had a high or medium level of social motivation.Conclusion: These findings underline the importance of motivation in guiding the use of ToM in everyday social interactions.

A psychometric analysis of the reading the mind in the eyes test: toward a brief form for research and applied settings.

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test is a popular measure of individual differences in Theory of Mind that is often applied in the assessment of particular clinical populations (primarily, individuals on the autism spectrum). However, little is known about the test's psychometric properties, including factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent validity evidence. We present a psychometric analysis of the test followed by an evaluation of other empirically proposed and statistically identified structures. We identified, and cross-validated in a second sample, an adequate short-form solution that is homogeneous with adequate internal consistency, and is moderately related to Cognitive Empathy, Emotion Perception, and strongly related to Vocabulary. We recommend the use of this short-form solution in normal adults as a more precise measure over the original version. Future revisions of the test should seek to reduce the test's reliance on one's vocabulary and evaluate the short-form structure in clinical populations.

Measuring theory of mind across middle childhood: Reliability and validity of the Silent Films and Strange Stories tasks

Recent years have seen a growth of research on the development of children’s ability to reason about others’ mental states (or “theory of mind”) beyond the narrow confines of the preschool period. The overall aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of a task battery composed of items from Happé’s Strange Stories task and Devine and Hughes’ Silent Film task. A sample of 460 ethnically and socially diverse children (211 boys) between 7 and 13years of age completed the task battery at two time points separated by 1month. The Strange Stories and Silent Film tasks were strongly correlated even when verbal ability and narrative comprehension were taken into account, and all items loaded onto a single theory-of-mind latent factor. The theory-of-mind latent factor provided reliable estimates of performance across a wide range of theory-of-mind ability and showed no evidence of differential item functioning across gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. The theory-of-mind latent factor also exhibited strong 1-month test–retest reliability, and this stability did not vary as a function of child characteristics. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the Strange Stories and Silent Film task battery as a measure of individual differences in theory of mind suitable for use across middle childhood. We consider the methodological and conceptual implications of these findings for research on theory of mind beyond the preschool years.

Individual Differences in Theory of Mind From Preschool to Adolescence: Achievements and Directions

AbstractIn this article, we provide a state‐of‐the‐science overview of research on normative individual differences in theory of mind. We begin by examining achievements in research on individual differences in theory of mind in the preschool years and more recent work on middle childhood and adolescence. In doing so, we outline several converging lines of evidence for social influences on individual differences in theory of mind, and assess the claim that individual differences in theory of mind matter for children's social lives. We then evaluate two conceptualizations of individual differences in theory of mind: the developmental lag and genuine differences accounts. By placing the study of individual differences in theory of mind center stage, we aim to highlight fruitful avenues for research on normative variation in theory of mind both within and beyond the preschool years.