Scott A. Miller-Parenting and Theory of Mind-Oxford University Press (2016)

Parenting and Theory of
Mind
Parenting and Theory
of Mind
SCOTT A . M I LLER
University of Florida
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication Data

Names: Miller, Scott A., 1944– author.
Title: Parenting and theory of mind / Scott A. Miller.
Description: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015036632 | ISBN 9780190232689
Subjects: LCSH: Parent and child. | Child psychology. | Philosophy of mind in
children. | Parenting—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC BF723.P25 .M55 2016 | DDC 155.4/13—dc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015036632
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To Sylvia, Brielle, Tavio, and Ronan
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xiii
1. Introduction 1
ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK 2

LIMITATIONS OF THE COVERAGE 5
2. Theory of Mind 7
A LITTLE HISTORY 7
FALSE BELIEF 9
Task Modifications 10
Research with Infants 13
OTHER EPISTEMIC MEASURES 16
Origins of Knowledge 16
Appearance–Reality and Level 2 Perspective Taking 17
OTHER MENTAL STATES 18
Desire 19
Emotion 21
RELATIONS AMONG DEVELOPMENTS 23
LATER DEVELOPMENTS 25
Second-Order False Belief 25
Interpretive Diversity 26
Understanding of Nonliteral Utterances 29
AUTISM 31
ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES 32
Some Preliminary Points 32
Antecedents of Theory of Mind 33
Consequences of Theory of Mind 35
vii
viii Contents
THEORIES OF THEORY OF MIND 36

Theory Theory 36
Simulation Theory 37
Modularity 38
Sociocultural Approaches 39
Parenting 40
3. Parenting 41
METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES 42
Measuring What Parents Do 42
Measuring Child Outcomes 49
Determining Causality 49
HISTORICAL CHANGES IN RESEARCH ON PARENTING 53
Guiding Theories 53
Increased Cognitive Emphasis 54
Increased Emphasis on Socialization Agents Other
Than the Mother 56
Increased Emphasis on Children’s Effects on Parents 57
Increased Emphasis on Genetics 57
Increased Emphasis on Context 58
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT PARENTING 58
Parenting Styles 58
Variations Across Groups 61
Mothers and Fathers 63
Boys and Girls 65
Parents and Peers 67
Children’s Effects on Parents 69
Domains of Socialization 71
Return to Practices 73
4. General Aspects of Parenting and Theory of Mind 77
PARENTING STYLES AND DIMENSIONS 78

A Few Preliminary Points 78
Concurrent Relations 82
Longitudinal Relations 88
OTHER GENERAL APPROACHES 89
Cognitively Oriented Approaches 89
Socialization of Emotion Understanding 91
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS 98
Contents ix
DEVELOPMENT UNDER ADVERSE CONDITIONS 101

Maltreatment 101
Parental Mental Illness 103
Institutional Rearing 105
CONCLUSIONS 107
5. Attachment 109
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENT 109

Measurement 110
Individual Differences 113
Stability and Predictive Power 114
Determinants 115
AN OVERVIEW OF STUDIES 116
WHY MIGHT ATTACHMENT RELATE TO THEORY OF MIND? 116
CONCURRENT RELATIONS 123
ACROSS-T IME RELATIONS 127
OTHER PREDICTORS 129
CONCLUSIONS 130
6. Developments in Infancy 135
THEORY- OF-M IND DEVELOPMENTS 136

Early Social Interest and Responsiveness 136
Joint Attention 138
Social Referencing 139
Understanding of Intention 140
Rich Versus Lean 143
Relations to Later Development 144
PARENTS’ CONTRIBUTION 148
Early Social Interest and Responsiveness 148
Joint Attention: General Approaches 149
Joint Attention: Specific Experience 155
Social Referencing 157
Understanding of Intention 160
CONCLUSIONS 161
7. Parental Talk 165
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES 166

Measuring Parental Talk 166
Establishing Cause-and-Effect Relations 170
x Contents
MENTAL STATE TALK 171

MENTAL STATE TERMS IN GENERAL: CONCURRENT RELATIONS 173
MENTAL STATE TERMS IN GENERAL: LONGITUDINAL RELATIONS 178
Context 183
Speaker 184
Target 186
General Versus Specific 187
Quality 188
EMOTION TALK AND EMOTION UNDERSTANDING 190
ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENT 195
CONCLUSIONS 197
8. Parents’ Beliefs 201
THE GENERAL PARENTS’ BELIEFS LITERATURE 202

MIND-M INDEDNESS 205
Definition and Measurement 205
Relations to Theory of Mind 207
Sources of Mind-M indedness 212
Other Outcomes 214
OTHER APPROACHES TO PARENTS’ BELIEFS 215
EMOTION BELIEFS AND EMOTION UNDERSTANDING 219
CONCLUSIONS 224
9. Experimental Approaches 227
TRAINING STUDIES: THEORY OF MIND IN GENERAL 228

Some General Conclusions 234
Readiness 237
Trained Concept 238
Training Method 239
TRAINING STUDIES: EMOTION UNDERSTANDING 242
MICROGENETIC STUDIES 247
LEARNING FROM OTHERS 250
Methods and Findings 251
Theory of Mind 254
Parents 255
CONCLUSIONS 258
Contents xi
10. Conclusions 261
HOW IMPORTANT ARE PARENTS? 261

HOW ARE PARENTS IMPORTANT? 262
General Aspects of Parenting 262
Talk 264
Parents’ Beliefs 265
Indirect Contributors 266
Implications for Theories 267
Implications for Parenting 268
WHAT DO WE STILL NEED TO KNOW? 269
More About Fathers 269
More Longitudinal Study 270
More Cross-Cultural Study 271
More Study of Beliefs 273
More Study of Older Children 274
More Study of a Variety of Individual Differences 275
References 279
Author Index 325
Subject Index 337
ACK NOW L EDG M EN TS
I am grateful to many people for various kinds of help during the writing of this
book. General support was provided by the Department of Psychology, University
of Florida. Several colleagues to whom I wrote were kind enough to share unpub-
lished materials or to clarify aspects of their work: Nancy Eisenberg, Elizabeth
Meins, Veronica Ornaghi, and Manuel Sprung. The book benefitted greatly
from the advice offered by reviewers of the prepublication version: Janet Wilde
Astington (University of Toronto), Eric Charles (American University), Martin
Doherty (University of East Anglia), Derek Montgomery (Bradley University),
and one reviewer who wished to remain anonymous. Finally, I am grateful
for the excellent help and support provided by the editorial team at Oxford
University Press: Andrea Zekus (quite possibly the best of the many good editors
with whom I have been lucky enough to work), Emily Perry, Andrea Guinn, and
Susan E. Hannan.
xiii
Parenting and Theory of Mind
1
Introduction
This book represents the conjunction of two of the major research literatures in
developmental psychology. One is longstanding. The question of how best to rear
children has been a central topic for psychology ever since psychology began to
develop as a science in the last half of the nineteenth century. It was, of course, a
central topic for every parent and every society for centuries before the birth of
psychology.
The other research literature is a good deal younger. Theory of mind has to do
with understanding of the mental world—what people (children in particular)
know or believe about mental phenomena such as beliefs, desires, and emotions.
Although there were some precursors in the first century or so of psychology as
a science—most notably, some of Piaget’s early studies (Piaget, 1926, 1928)—it
is only in the last 30 years that theory of mind has emerged as a distinct area of
study. Not only has it emerged; for some time now it has arguably been the most
popular topic in the study of cognitive development.
As I discuss more fully in Chapter 2, research on theory of mind addresses three
general questions. The first and most basic question is the descriptive one: What
develops with respect to understanding of the mental world and when do the vari-
ous forms of understanding emerge? The first wave of theory-of-m ind studies,
stemming from the seminal work by Premack and Woodruff (1978) and Wimmer
and Perner (1983), were directed primarily to such descriptive questions. Thirty
years of subsequent research have not resolved all of the descriptive issues, espe-
cially the question of when certain key abilities emerge; thus such research is still
very much an ongoing enterprise. We will see some examples in Chapter 2.
The descriptive picture is one basic question in the study of any aspect of cog-
nitive development. A second question concerns the consequences of children’s
newfound cognitive achievements—what can they now do that they could not do
before? The initial theory-of-m ind studies were soon joined, therefore, by research
on a second question: How does theory-of-m ind understanding relate to other
aspects of children’s development? As we will see, it turns out that theory of mind
relates to a wide variety of other important developments in both the social and
cognitive domains. Furthermore, in at least some instances theory of mind plays
1
2 Pa r enting a n d th eory of m in d
a causal role with respect to these other achievements—t hat is, theory of mind
underlies and makes possible other developmental advances. There are, then,
two reasons for an interest in theory of mind: as an important aspect of cognitive
development in itself and as a contributor to other important developments.
The third general question is the topic of this book. It concerns theory of mind
not as a cause but as an outcome. Where do children’s theory-of-m ind abilities
come from? The general answer, of course, is the same answer that holds for every
aspect of development: They come from the interplay of the genes that children
are born with and the environments that they grow up in. Such a general answer
does not take us very far, however. A more specific answer requires delineat-
ing how these general contributors work—in particular (given our still limited
knowledge of genetics), how children’s experiences shape their development. This
is a question of theoretical importance; as we will see, a major contrast among
theories of theory of mind is in how they conceptualize the role of experience. It
is also a question of pragmatic importance; if we know the formative experiences
that underlie theory of mind, then we may be able to optimize this important
aspect of development for all children.
It is to the question of determinants of theory of mind that this book is directed.
As the title indicates, my focus is on one particular determinant: the contribution
of parents. It is, I will argue, a good time for a consideration of how parenting
relates to theory of mind. The last 15 or so years have seen a rapid expansion of
the literature on the social contributors to theory of mind, including hundreds
of studies directed to various aspects of parenting. On the one hand, these stud-
ies have made clear that parents can be important (although not, as we will see,
all-important) contributors to what their children understand about the mental
world, and one goal of this book is to summarize what we now know about parents’
contribution. On the other hand, few issues in psychology are ever completely
resolved, and this point applies with special force to questions of child rearing,
one of the most methodologically challenging topics in the field. A further goal,
therefore, is to identify areas in need of further study.
Although I hope to provide a fuller and more up-to-date treatment than previ-
ous attempts, I should note that this is not the first review of the parenting and
theory of mind literature. Among the helpful prior sources are Hughes (2011);
Hughes and Leekam (2004); Pavarini, de Holland Souza, and Hawk (2013);
Pillow (2012; and Symons (2004).
Organization of the Book
A consideration of how parenting relates to theory of mind requires some
prior consideration of the two components of this topic considered separately.
Chapter 2 therefore provides an overview of research on theory of mind. The
Introduction 3
overview is intended primarily as a reminder, as I assume that most readers will

be familiar with much that is said. It is also selective, in that my attempt is to focus
on those aspects of theory of mind that have appeared in the parenting literature
to date. I also preview some of the issues and challenges that arise in attempting
to draw relations between parenting and theory of mind.
Chapter 3 provides a complementary overview of the other body of research
that underlies the present effort: the general childrearing literature. Given the
breadth of this literature, the coverage here is even more selective than that for
theory of mind. My attempt is to identify general issues and general conclusions
that have emerged from studies of child rearing. I pay special attention to the
methodological challenges of such research.
The remainder of the book discusses the various ways in which these two top-
ics have been brought together. Chapter 4 considers relatively broad approaches
to parenting and their relation to theory of mind. Included is work on the well-
known typology of parenting styles identified by Diana Baumrind (1971), as well
as studies that examine individual dimensions or practices (e.g., warmth, control,
reasoning). The chapter also reviews the effects of various rearing conditions that
fall outside the scope of normal variations in parenting: abusive forms of parent-
ing, parenting by mothers with a mental illness, and early rearing in institutional
settings.
The remaining chapters examine more specific aspects of the parenting–t heory
of mind relation. Chapter 5 focuses on the attachment relationship between child
and parent that typically emerges in the first year of life. It has long been clear
both that parenting contributes to individual differences in the quality of attach-
ment and that differences in attachment, in turn, relate to a number of develop-
mental outcomes later in life. Among these outcomes are various forms of theory
of mind. Chapter 5 reviews research linking attachment and theory of mind.
Chapter 6 addresses a different aspect of development during infancy.
Although the bulk of theory-of-m ind research has concentrated on the preschool
period, research with infants makes clear that important aspects of theory of
mind emerge very early in life. They emerge, moreover, in the context of social
interactions and social relationships, the most important of which, in the typical
case, are with the parents. Chapter 6 discusses how parents contribute to early
emerging forms of theory of mind.
As Chapter 6 shows, parents may contribute to their children’s theory of mind
in nonverbal or minimally verbal ways. But they may also contribute through how
they talk to their children, and this is the subject of Chapter 7. The main topic of
the chapter is so-called mental state talk, that is, talk that includes terms indica-
tive of mental states (e.g., “think,” “want,” “feel”). Within this general topic, talk
about emotions has been of special interest, and this work is therefore accorded
a separate section. The chapter also considers possible relations between parent–
child “memory talk” about past events and children’s theory of mind.
Chapter 8 has to do with parents’ beliefs about their children. As we will see,
the main line of research under this heading overlaps with some of the work con-
sidered in earlier chapters—in particular, the topics of attachment and mental
state talk. It is, however, an important enough form of research to merit consider-
ation in its own right. Mind-mindedness refers to parents’ tendency to think about
and treat their children as psychological agents whose mental contents (beliefs,
desires, etc.) are important determinants of what they understand and what they
do. As we will see, relatively high levels of mind-m indedness relate positively to a
number of outcomes under the theory-of-m ind heading. Also considered are vari-
ous other approaches to parents’ beliefs and their effects.
All of the work considered in Chapters 4 through 8 is correlational; that is, it
measures and relates aspects of parenting and aspects of children’s development
but does not experimentally manipulate either component of the relation. Because
such research is correlational, it cannot establish cause-and-effect relations with
certainty. Experimental studies do not share this limitation, and such studies
therefore provide a valuable complement to the correlational approach. Such a
convergence of methods is a theme in the general parenting literature, in which
many topics (e.g., punishment, reasoning, modeling) have been examined both
correlationally and experimentally. To date, there have been only a handful of
studies that have experimentally manipulated parenting and examined children’s
theory of mind as the outcome. There are also, however, several indirect forms of
experimental evidence, and Chapter 9 reviews three such lines of research: train-
ing studies of theory of mind, microgenetic studies of theory of mind, and experi-
mental studies of children’s learning from adult conversational input.
The final chapter of the book is titled Conclusions. It has two general goals.
One is to bring together the major conclusions that emerge from the varied lines of
research reviewed in Chapters 4 through 9. The other is to identify gaps or uncer-
tainties in what this research shows and to suggest directions for future study.
As this overview indicates, my organization is in terms of approaches to par-
enting rather than individual studies. A complication that stems from this type of
organization is that many studies take more than one approach. A study might, for
example, examine both general parenting style and mental state talk, or it might
include measures of both attachment and mind-m indedness. For the most part,
I will discuss the components of such studies as they become relevant, which
means that some reports will make multiple appearances across different chap-
ters. An important question, however, will be how the different components fit
together and where the locus of causality lies when several aspects of parents’
behavior appear to affect children’s development. I will address this question in
various places as we go.
Introduction 5
Limitations of the Coverage

Although the scope of this book is broad and the literature review is extensive, the
coverage is limited in several respects. With a few exceptions, it is limited to works
published in English. With a few exceptions, it is also limited to published works,
and thus not conference reports or dissertations. Finally, in most instances I have
tried to be exhaustive in my coverage; that is, to include every relevant source
of which I am aware. In a few instances, however, the number of sources is too
great and their relevance too peripheral to merit exhaustive coverage, and in those
instances I have opted for a “for-example” summary. I have tried, of course, to
ensure that any conclusions drawn are an accurate reflection of the literature as
a whole.
2
Theory of Mind
I begin with a point about terminology. The term “theory of mind” is used in two
ways in the literature that I am about to discuss. One way is in reference to one of
the major theories of theory of mind: the so-called theory theory view. As I dis-
cuss more fully later in this chapter, the central premise of the theory theory view
is that understanding of the mind takes the form of an informal theory—a set of
interrelated constructs that possesses some although not all of the characteristics
of a formal scientific theory. Developmental change then consists of the progres-
sive modification of early, immature theories into more complex and more adap-
tive later ones. In this perspective, then, “theory of mind” is a substantive claim, a
claim about the nature of the underlying cognitive system.
Not all researchers of the topic subscribe to the theory theory view. Many,
however, do nevertheless use the term “theory of mind.” The second way in which
the term is used is simply as a general, theoretically neutral label for the content
area in question: that is, beliefs about the mental world. It is not the only such
label; among other terms that appear in the literature are “social understanding,”
“folk psychology,” “commonsense psychology,” and “mind reading.” “Theory of
mind,” however, is the most often used and familiar such label, and therefore the
one I use here. I use it in the second, purely descriptive sense.
A Little History
The study of theory of mind began with a chimpanzee. The chimpanzee was
named Sarah, a highly enculturated chimp who, at the time of the research, had
already been the subject of a number of language learning experiments. The tasks
that Premack and Woodruff (1978) set for Sarah were not language learning but
rather problem solving. She received a series of problems, conveyed via video-
tape, in which a human actor was struggling to solve a dilemma. In one case, for
example, he was shivering with cold; in another he was hungry, but the bananas he
desired were out of reach. The final step in the presentation was two photographs,
one of which showed a solution to the problem (for example, lighting a heater to
7
combat the cold, using a stick to reach the bananas) and the other of which pre-
sented the relevant objects but no solution. The question was whether Sarah could
select the tool that would solve the problem. The answer was yes; in fact, Sarah
was close to perfect across a range of different problems.
In interpreting their results, Premack and Woodruff argued that Sarah’s per-
formance was possible only if she took into account the relevant mental states
of the actor. To solve the bananas problem, for example, she would have to real-
ize that the actor desired the bananas and believed that the stick would allow him
to obtain them. She would have to possess what Premack and Woodruff called a
“theory of mind.” In their words,
In saying that an individual has a theory of mind, we mean that an indi-

vidual imputes mental states to himself and to others. . . . A system of
inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory, first, because such
states are not directly observable, and second, because the system can be
used to make predictions, specifically about the behavior of other organ-
isms. (p. 515)
The Premack and Woodruff report was followed by a number of commentar-

ies, some by psychologists and some by philosophers. Although all of the respon-
dents agreed that Sarah’s performance was impressive, several suggested that
it fell short of demonstrating a clear understanding of the actor’s mental states.
Rather than taking the actor’s beliefs into account, Sarah could have solved the
problems simply by acting on her own beliefs—her knowledge, for example, of
how to obtain an out-of-reach banana. More impressive, and more clearly indica-
tive of a theory of mind, would be if Sarah could appreciate not only someone
else’s true beliefs but also that person’s false beliefs.
In 1983 Wimmer and Perner responded to this criticism by designing the first
false belief study—one designed not for a chimpanzee but for children. Their
young subjects (3-to 9-year-olds) heard a story in which a boy named Maxi placed
a chocolate bar in the green cupboard and went out to play. In Maxi’s absence
his mother broke off part of the chocolate for cooking and put the rest back in
the blue cupboard. Shortly after, Maxi returned to the house with the goal of eat-
ing the chocolate. The question presented to the child subjects involved where
Maxi would look for the chocolate. The correct answer, of course, is the green
cupboard, since Maxi has no way of knowing that the chocolate has been moved
in his absence. To give this response, however, the child must be able to attribute
a belief to Maxi that is different from his or her own belief and also different from
reality—must, in short, be able to attribute a false belief. And this turned out to
be something that the youngest subjects could not do—a ll of the 3-year-olds and
most of the 4-year-olds indicated that Maxi would look where the chocolate actu-
ally was, not where his false belief should lead him to look.
T h e o r y o f M i n d 9
False Belief
The study of false belief initiated the theory-of-m ind era, and false belief has been
by far the most popular topic under the theory-of-m ind heading. It is popular in
part because the findings are surprising. Just as it was surprising in the heyday of
Piagetian research that a young child could lack the basic knowledge assessed by
the conservation test, so it is surprising that a 4-year-old could fail to realize that a
belief can be false. Beyond simply its surprise value, however, the false belief task
is of interest because it tells us something basic about children’s understanding—
or, for a while, lack of understanding—of belief. Success on the task provides the
first clear evidence that children realize that beliefs are mental representations
and not direct reflections of reality.
False belief tasks come in two general forms. One is the unexpected location
or unexpected transfer procedure developed by Wimmer and Perner (1983). As
the label suggests, with this task the belief in question concerns the location of
an object, something that is known to the child participant but not to the story
character whose belief the child must judge.
The other commonly used procedure is labeled unexpected contents, a pro-
cedure introduced by Hogrefe, Wimmer, and Perner (1986). Again, the label
denotes the target for the belief in question, which in this case concerns the
contents of a container. A container that typically holds one sort of content
(e.g., a crayon box, a candy box) is revealed to contain something quite dif-
ferent (candles, ribbons, coins—a nything familiar will work). The child is
shown the unexpected contents, and the test question is then what someone
else, someone who has not seen inside the box, will think is in the box. So just
as on the location task, children must set aside their own knowledge of reality
to attribute a false belief to someone else who lacks their knowledge. And just
as on the location task, this is something that children younger than 4 typi-
cally cannot do.
The contents task lends itself to a second measure as well, a measure first
explored by Gopnik and Astington (1988). In addition to asking about someone
else’s belief, we can pose the question in terms of the child’s own initial belief—
thus “what did you think was in the box before we opened it?” The question now
is whether children can recapture their initial false belief—can realize that they
themselves can hold beliefs that are false. The answer, at least for most 3-year-olds
and many 4-year-olds, is that they cannot—t he question about their own belief is
just as difficult for children as the question about someone else’s belief (Wellman,
Cross, & Watson, 2001). Furthermore, just as there are no self–other differences
on the contents task, so also are there no general differences in difficulty between
the contents procedure and the location procedure (Wellman et al.). In both
instances most 3-year-olds fail, 4-year-olds show a mixture of successes and fail-
ures, and most 5-year-olds succeed.
Task Modifications
Like much of Piaget’s work, the studies of false belief reveal a surprising deficit
in children’s understanding of how the world works. A natural reaction to such
unexpected results is to wonder whether children’s understanding is really as lim-
ited as the research suggests. Perhaps if the assessment could somehow be made
simpler, more natural, more child-f riendly, children would do better. Dozens of
studies addressed this possibility with respect to object permanence, conserva-
tion, and other Piagetian concepts in the last half of the last century. The last 20 or
so years have seen the development of a comparable research literature directed
to false belief.
Much of the relevant research through the late 1990s was summarized in
an influential meta-analysis by Wellman et al. (2001). Box 2.1 lists and briefly
describes the factors addressed in their review. As can be seen, these included
a number of would-be facilitators, including the method of wording the test
question, the salience of the reality information, and the presence of a deceptive
context.
Many of these variations turned out to have no effect. A few of the would-
be facilitators, however, did result in better on-the-average performance. For
Box 2.1 Variations Examined in Wellman, Cross, and Watson’s (2001)

Meta-A nalysis of First-Order False Belief
Year of publication
Mean age and number of participants in a condition
Percentage of participants passing control questions and percentage dropped
from the research
Country of participants
Type of task: locations, contents, identity
Nature of the protagonist: puppet or doll, pictured character, real person
Nature of the target object: real object, toy, pictured object, videotaped
object
Real presence of the target object: object present or absent
Motive for the transformation: deceptive context or not
Participation in the transformation: child an active participant or not
Salience of the protagonist’s mental state: degree of emphasis on the
protagonist’s belief
Type of question: wording of question in terms of think, know, say, do
Temporal marker: whether the question included an explicit temporal marker
(e.g., “look first”)
example, Wellman and colleagues concluded that children do better when a

deceptive context is provided and when they are actively involved in the manipu-
lation of the stimuli. The differences are small, however, and also inconsistent,
appearing in some studies but not others. The results of the meta-analysis, there-
fore, did not seriously challenge the view that mastery of false belief is a preschool
achievement. In the authors’ words, “young children’s difficulties reflect difficul-
ties with the conceptual heart of the task, beyond any difficulties with particular
task requirements” (Wellman & Cross, 2001, p. 704).
The procedural variations explored in the meta-a nalysis were relatively minor
ones. They also primarily involved changes at the independent variable end,
in the sense that they altered the situation that the child must judge. It is also
possible to explore variations at the dependent variable end, that is, the sort of
response that the child must make. In the standard task the child must make an
explicit judgment about the protagonist’s belief, responding to a test question
that either asks directly about belief (e.g., “What does Elmo think is in the box?”)
or asks about an action that follows from a belief (e.g., “Where will Maxi look for
his chocolate?”). The studies to be considered now remove the need for such an
explicit judgment.
One variation was introduced by Clements and Perner (1994). The response
measure they explored was a simple and undemanding one: namely, looking
behavior. Their task was a version of the unexpected location paradigm: Children
heard a story, acted out with props, in which a mouse named Sam left his cheese in
a blue box and then went off to take a nap; while Sam was sleeping, his friend Katie
moved the cheese to a red box; Sam then awoke and announced his intention to
get the cheese. At this point the tester said “I wonder where he’s going to look” and
then paused to give the child a chance to look toward one of the locations at which
Sam could reappear.
Few children between the ages of 2–5 and 2–10 looked at the location where
Sam had left the cheese, an expectable finding in children well short of the
usual age for false belief success. Of those between the ages of 2–11 and 4–5 ,
however, 90% looked at the original location, the site at which a character with
a false belief would search. This success rate is considerably greater than that
usually found on the standard task, and in fact only 45% of the children were
able to answer correctly when asked an explicit question about false belief.
Subsequent looking-behavior studies (e.g., Garnham & Perner, 2001; Low,
2010; Wang, Low, Jing, & Qinghua, 2012) have confirmed the greater ease of
the looking criterion; the Wang et al. (2012) study, it is worth noting, dem-
onstrates that the effect holds for Chinese as well as Western samples. What
such studies seem to show is that young children have an implicit knowledge of
false belief that emerges prior to their ability to access that knowledge to make
explicit judgments about what someone else thinks. This is an argument I will
return to shortly.
A second modification of the standard task was introduced by Bartsch and

Wellman (1989). In the standard task the child must predict the protagonist’s
false belief. Bartsch and Wellman wondered whether children might find it easier
to explain a false belief than to predict one. They therefore constructed scenarios
in which a character was depicted as acting on a false belief—for example, search-
ing under the piano for a missing kitten when the kitten was actually under a chair.
The child’s task was then to explain this seemingly odd behavior. The interest was
in whether children would be able to make an after-t he-fact attribution of a false
belief prior to being able to make a prediction of one. Many children in fact could.
Half of the 3-and 4-year-old participants either succeeded or failed on both mea-
sures. Of the remaining half, however, 11 were successful on explanation only,
whereas only 1 was successful on prediction only.
Subsequent studies of the prediction–explanation contrast have produced
a mixed picture. Some studies (e.g., Bartsch, Campbell, & Troseth, 2007;
Robinson & Mitchell, 1995) have confirmed Bartsch and Wellman’s finding of
better performance with an explanation measure, but others have failed to do so
(e.g., Foote & Holmes-Lonergan, 2003; Hughes, 1998); indeed, in some studies
performance has been better with prediction than with explanation (e.g., Flynn,
2006; Perner, Lang, & Kloo, 2002). It has become clear that a variety of factors can
influence the prediction–explanation comparison, including how explanations
are elicited and what sorts of explanations are credited as adequate (Wimmer &
Mayringer, 1998). On my reading of this literature, some young children are
indeed able to explain false beliefs before they can predict them, thus demonstrat-
ing some understanding of belief that is not elicited by the standard task. The dif-
ference, however, is neither large nor universal.
Bartsch and Wellman (1995) were also the primary contributors to a third line
of research that departs from the typical assessment procedures. The departure
in this case is a radical one: namely, not to use an experimental task at all. All of
us, including children, talk frequently about mental states—what we (or others)
want, think, feel, and so forth. Perhaps some evidence of mentalistic understand-
ing can be gleaned simply from listening to young children talk.
To address this question, Bartsch and Wellman (1995) made use of the Child
Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES), a shared database that brings
together transcripts of child speech from hundreds of studies of early child language
for use by interested researchers (MacWhinney, 2000a, 2000b). As of this writing,
the CHILDES database has been the basis for more than 3,100 publications.
Most uses of CHILDES have focused, understandably, on language acquisi-
tion. Bartsch and Wellman’s interest was not in language per se but rather in ref-
erences to mental states. Their analysis focused on two states: desire (and thus
the child’s use of words like want, hope, and wish) and belief (and thus words like
think, know, and believe). Of special interest in the latter case were utterances that
appeared to reflect an appreciation of a false belief.
Table 2.1 Examples of Spontaneous References to False Belief from Bartsch

and Wellman’s (1995) Analysis of the Child Language Data
Exchange System (CHILDES) Data Set
Child Age Statement

Adam 3 years 3 months It’s a bus. I thought a taxi.
Ross 3 years 4 months I thought you were at your home.
Abe 3 years 6 months The people thought that Dracula was mean. But he
was nice.
Adam 3 years 7 months (after tasting glue) I don’t like it. I thought that was
good.
Abe 3 years 8 months I think . . . I thought I could rip the paper off, ’cept it
doesn’t have any paper.
Mark 3 years 8 months When we were going on our walk I thought we
were lost. I thinked we were lost.
Abe 4 years 8 months Did you see the clouds? (Adult explains that he
saw smoke from fireworks.) But I thought they was
clouds.
Sarah 5 years 1 month Where’s Paul? . . . I thought he was gonna leave him
here.
Note. From Children Talk About the Mind (pp. 46, 52, 53, 115), by K. Bartsch and H. M. Wellman,
1995, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press. Reprinted
with permission of Oxford University Press, USA.
Although not frequent, such utterances did occur. Table 2.1 presents some
examples of utterances that were coded as expressions of false belief. It can be
seen that none were produced by children younger than 3, a finding in keeping
with conclusions from experimental studies of false belief. But it can be also seen
that many were produced by 3-year-olds, an age group that typically shows little
success on standard false belief tasks. These findings thus suggest that young chil-
dren may have some knowledge of false belief that does not come through in their
response to the typical experimental assessments. And this, of course, was also
the conclusion that emerged from the studies reviewed earlier in this section.
Research with Infants
That at least some 3-year-olds show an appreciation of false belief under some
circumstances is an interesting conclusion, one that forces some revision of
what had been the accepted descriptive picture of false belief development
(“3s can’t, 4s can”). The revision, however, is not a major one, and it does not pose
a serious challenge to any of the theories that have been proposed to account for
false belief and other early theory-of-mind developments.
A finding that understanding of false belief is present in infancy would be
another matter. It is perhaps an indication of how unlikely such an outcome seems
that no one even attempted to study infants in the first 20-plus years of false belief
research. The situation changed dramatically, however, with the publication in
2005 of a study by Onishi and Baillargeon, a study that reported that 15-month-
olds have some understanding of false belief.
Clearly, a first question for such research is that of measurement: How can we
measure understanding of false belief in the nonverbal infant? Like Clements and
Perner (1994), Onishi and Baillargeon (2005) made use of looking behavior, a
response that is available to infants from birth. More specifically, they made use
of looking time—t he tendency of infants to look longer at some events than at
others. In so doing, they grounded their research in a large literature, much of it by
Baillargeon and colleagues (e.g., Baillargeon, 2004), that had used looking-time
measures to draw conclusions about infants’ understanding of the physical world,
especially (although not only) Piagetian concepts such as object permanence.
How can measures of looking time be informative? One of the determinants
of looking time is surprise: Infants—and indeed any of us—tend to look longer
at events that surprise us. An event is surprising if it violates an expectation—if
it is different from what we thought was going to occur. By seeing what surprises
babies, we can therefore gain evidence about what they expect, which in turn
gives us evidence about what they believe.
It was the violation-of-expectation approach that Onishi and Baillargeon
(2005) used in the initial study of false belief in infancy. The infants in the study
saw scenarios in which an actor placed a toy in a green box and the toy subse-
quently moved to a yellow box, in some cases in the actor’s presence and in some
cases when she was absent. Thus in some cases the actor formed a true belief about
the toy’s location and in some cases she formed a false belief. In the final phase
the actor was shown searching for the toy, either in the location that was com-
patible with her belief or in the alternative location. Infants looked significantly
longer when the search did not match what would be expected from the belief,
suggesting that they were surprised by the discrepancy between belief and action.
This could occur, however, only if they had accurately judged what the belief was,
including the instances in which the actor’s belief was false.
Not surprisingly, the Onishi and Baillargeon (2005) study led to a flurry of
follow-up research and critical commentary. Among the sources for reviews of
this work are Caron (2009), Carruthers (2013), Wellman (2014), and a special
issue of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology (Low & Perner, 2012a). The
articles in the last of these sources make clear that there is no consensus with
respect to exactly what infants know and exactly how this early knowledge relates
to the knowledge measured by the standard false belief tasks. It does seem fair
to conclude, however, that the validity of the empirical findings is now generally
accepted, something that was not the case when the Onishi and Baillargeon (2005)
article first appeared (though see Heyes, 2014, for a cautionary view). Research on
infant cognition is difficult to do and difficult to interpret, and it was therefore
important, especially with such an unexpected result, to ensure that there was no
artifactual basis for infants’ apparent success. By now, however, the basic finding
has been confirmed in close to two dozen studies, studies, moreover, that come
from different laboratories and that have used other dependent variables in addi-
tion to looking time (e.g., Buttelmann, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009; Southgate;
Chevallier, & Csibra, 2010). The emphasis, therefore, has shifted from whether
infants are successful to why they are successful. Two general positions exist.
One is that success reflects a genuine understanding of false belief that is
equivalent to the understanding that is measured by the standard location and
contents tasks. This is Baillargeon’s view (e.g., Baillargeon, Scott, & He, 2010),
and it is also the view of those who subscribe to an innate, modular account of
theory-of-m ind development (e.g., Leslie, 2005). Adherents of this position do
not deny that further developments occur beyond infancy; it is not until about
age 4, after all, that children typically succeed on the standard false belief tasks.
These further developments, however, do not involve the concept of belief, which
is in place from early on; rather they concern peripheral factors that make success
on the standard tasks possible—in particular, advances in executive function and
language. And indeed, as I will discuss shortly, it has long been clear that both
executive function and language relate to success on the false belief task.
The alternative position, which is held in varied form by a number of research-
ers of theory of mind (e.g., Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Perner & Roessler, 2012;
San Juan & Astington, 2012; Wellman 2014), is that infants’ knowledge is in
some respect different from and less than that of 4-year-olds. According to this
view, development involves “the operation of two distinct systems of under-
standing: an early-developing implicit system that is piecemeal and uncon-
scious and a later-developing explicit system that is abstract and conscious”
(Low & Perner, 2012b, p. 2). The early system, although certainly intelligent
and adaptive, does not depend on a concept of belief; rather, infants are seen as
relying on learned associations or behavioral rules or desire-awareness under-
standing or belief-l ike states (the exact conception varies across theorists) that
allow them to track and predict others’ behavior. The emergence of success
on the standard measures at age 4 is then not simply a result of quantitative
improvement in ancillary factors; rather, it reflects a qualitative change in the
cognitive system, a change that for the first time makes possible an explicit
understanding of belief and of differences in belief among different people.
At present, the attempt to identify forms of evidence that might distinguish
among these various positions is very much an ongoing research enterprise.
Potentially, studies of parenting might contribute to this effort, assuming that the
different positions led to different predictions about how parents might contribute.
As we will see in subsequent chapters, however, the parenting literature to date
provides at best only suggestive evidence. False belief is a frequently studied out-
come in that literature (indeed, easily the most frequently studied outcome); no
researcher to date, however, has spoken explicitly to the question of when aware-
ness of false belief occurs: infancy versus preschool.
Other Epistemic Measures

Important though it is, the construct of false belief does not exhaust the things
that children must come to understand about epistemic states—t hat is, mental
states (thoughts, beliefs, percepts, memories) that are meant to represent the world
accurately. In the section that follows I consider three other such developments.
Origins of Knowledge
The false belief task taps the understanding of how misleading or incomplete evi-
dence can lead to a false belief. Children also must develop the complementary
form of knowledge: how adequate evidence can lead to a true belief or knowl-
edge. In simple situations, children can make such judgments by about age 4, and
thus at about the same time that false belief is typically mastered. By this age, for
example, they realize that if A looks in a box and B does not look, then A will know
what is in the box and B will not know (Pratt & Bryant, 1990).
In the look- in-
t he-
box example perception is the source of knowledge.
Perception, however, is not the only way in which we acquire knowledge. Children
must also come to understand that we can learn things by being told them—t hus
communication as a source of knowledge—or by figuring them out—t hus infer-
ence as a source of knowledge. These sources typically pose a greater challenge
than does perception. Preschoolers understand simple forms of communication
or inference; full mastery of these forms, however, extends through the grade-
school years (Miller, Hardin, & Montgomery, 2003).
In addition to judging whether something is known, children must come to
understand how it is known. Here, young children show some striking deficits
in understanding prior to eventual mastery. Four-year-olds may claim that they
have always known a fact that the experimenter taught them just moments before
(Taylor, Esbensen, & Bennett, 1994). Three-year-olds may be unable, seconds
after learning something, to say whether sight, touch, or hearing was the source
of the information (O’Neill & Chong, 2001). Even 5-year-olds may be uncertain
whether to use sight or touch to discover specific properties of a hidden object
(Waters & Beck, 2012). We can see here a point to which I will return: Theory-of-
mind development is by no means complete by age 5.
Before leaving this section, I will make one more point about communication
as a source of knowledge. Recent years have seen the rapid growth of a research
literature directed to children’s ability to weigh different communication sources
when deciding what to believe in what they hear (e.g., P. L. Harris, 2012; Koenig
& Sabbagh, 2013). Two aspects of these studies make them relevant to the current
effort. First, the ability to choose sensibly among informants requires knowledge
of the informants’ mental states (what they know, believe, intend, etc.) and thus
is itself a form of theory of mind. Second, such studies identify conditions under
which others can be effective in instilling beliefs in children, which makes them
relevant to the question of how parents might nurture the development of theory
of mind in their children. I discuss the learning-f rom-others studies in Chapter 9.
Appearance–Reality and Level 2 Perspective Taking

The two developments to be considered next can both be credited to the same
researcher: John Flavell (e.g., Flavell, Everett, Croft, & Flavell, 1981; Flavell,
Flavell, & Green, 1983). As the dates of publication show, the initial examinations
of these topics predated the advent of theory of mind as a distinct area of study.
Both topics, however, clearly have to do with understanding of the mental world,
and both were therefore easily incorporated under the theory-of-m ind heading.
As the name suggests, an appearance–reality task tests children’s ability to dis-
tinguish between the appearance of something and its true nature. Of greatest
interest, of course, is the ability to do so when appearance and true nature diverge.
Suppose, for example, that we show the child a picture of a white butterfly and
then place a colored red filter over the picture. We can ask two questions: “When
you look at the butterfly, does it look red or does it look white?” “For real, is the
butterfly really and truly red or really and truly white?” Most 3-year-olds and some
4-year-olds respond “red” to both questions, thus showing an inability to distin-
guish appearance and reality. They get the appearance right, but misjudge the true
nature.
Another form of the task makes use of objects that have been deliberately
contrived to look like something else. A commonly used stimulus is the sponge/
rock: a foam rubber sponge that looks for all the world like a gray rock. Once chil-
dren have had a chance to touch the sponge and to learn its true nature, they are
asked the usual two questions: What does it look like, and what is it really and
truly? Here, young children tend to get the reality right; they can report that the
object really is a sponge. Remarkably, however, they get the appearance wrong,
claiming that the rock-l ike object also looks like a sponge. The pattern of errors is
thus opposite of what is found with the colored filters task.
Like false belief, the appearance/reality task is typically mastered by about
age 4. And like false belief, the task tells us something basic about the child’s under-
standing (and, for a while, lack of understanding) of representation: namely, that
the immediate perceptual appearance of something is simply a representation, a

representation that may differ from the true nature of the object.
Perspective taking deals with the ability to figure out other people’s mental
contents (what they see, think, feel, etc.), and thus falls clearly under the heading
of theory of mind. The study of perspective taking, however, predates the emer-
gence of theory of mind as a distinct topic by more than half a century, for such
research dates back to some of Piaget’s earliest studies. Piaget first addressed the
topic in his first book (Piaget, 1926) and later returned to it in his book on spa-
tial understanding (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956). Piaget’s studies focused on fairly
complex forms of perspective taking, however (e.g., the famous Three Mountain
problem), that typically are beyond the capacity of young children. The Flavell
research identifies two earlier forms of perspective taking that are mastered dur-
ing the preschool years.
The simpler of these is Level 1 perspective taking. Level 1 perspective taking
refers to the realization that one person may see an object while a second per-
son does not. If, for example, you hold a picture book upright between you and
me with the picture oriented toward you, then you see the picture and I do not.
Children as young as 2½ demonstrate some understanding of Level 1 perspec-
tive taking. Level 2 perspective taking is more advanced. It is the realization that
two people may have different perceptual experiences of the same object. Thus
if you lay the picture book flat between us, then you see the picture right side
up and I see it upside down. In short, Level 1 perspective taking has to do with
whether something is seen, whereas Level 2 has to do with how it is seen (Flavell,
Miller, & Miller, 2002). Mastery of Level 2 perspective taking typically comes at
about age 4.
Other Mental States
With the exception of the research on infant false belief, the work discussed to
this point epitomizes the first decade or so of research on theory of mind: a focus
on belief as the mental state of greatest interest and on the preschool years as the
developmental time period of greatest interest. Given this initial concentration,
a reasonable question—one that many researchers in the 1990s faced—is where
do we go next?
Figure 2.1, taken from Flavell (2000), shows one way to think about the
where-to-go-next question. One direction for expansion is chronological: start
earlier, go later. Doing so will allow us to identify additional developmental
achievements beyond those that emerge in the preschool years—simpler,
more basic developments in the case of younger children, more advanced
developments in the case of older children. The chronological expansion is
also necessary to address two of the basic questions in theory of mind: what
Theories: domain-specific theory development,

innate or early-maturing modules, simulation,
information-processing, etc.
Earlier developments Later developments
Consequents
Tasks: FB, AR, PT
Antecedents Ages: 3–5 years
Intracultural
Differences Intercultural
Interspecies
Other mental states: desires, intentions,

emotions, percepts, fictional representations,
attention, thinking, consciousness, etc.
Figure 2.1 Research directions in the study of theory of mind. Note. From “Development
of Children’s Knowledge about the Mental World,” by J. H. Flavell, 2000, International Journal of
Behavioral Development, 24, p. 18. Copyright 2000 by Sage Publications. Reprinted by permission
of Sage.
are the antecedents that make possible developments such as false belief and
appearance–reality, and what in turn do these developments make possible in
later childhood?
A second direction for expansion is topical. Important though beliefs and other
epistemic states may be, they are not the only mental states that humans experi-
ence, and thus are not the only mental states that children must come to under-
stand. Figure 2.1 lists some of the other targets for developmental acquisition
(desires, intentions . . . ), and as the “etc.” indicates, the list is not complete. In what
follows I discuss two states that have been frequent targets for research: desire and
emotion.
Desire
Like beliefs, desires are “intentional” in the philosopher’s sense, in that they are
about something in the world. Just as we can form a belief about an apple, a book,
or a friend, so may we desire an apple, a book, or a friend. The mind–world rela-
tion differs in the two cases, however. A belief is meant to reflect the world accu-
rately and therefore is either true or false. A desire, however, does not have a truth
status—it makes no sense to talk of true or false desires. Rather a desire is either
fulfilled or not.
We saw that one way to figure out what young children understand about belief
is to listen to their spontaneous speech. The same approach can be applied to
understanding of desire. Table 2.2 shows some of the utterances that Bartsch and
Table 2.2 Examples of Spontaneous References to Desire from Bartsch and

Wellman’s (1995) Analysis of the Child Language Data Exchange
System (CHILDES) Data Set
Child Age Statement

Abe 2 years 5 months I wanna cranberry muffin. I like them.
Adam 2 years 6 months No, I don’t want to sit seat.
Abe 2 years 8 months I want you put hot chocolate on it.
Adam 2 years 8 months Don’t want book.
Naomi 2 years 11 months I want push on this one.
Adam 3 years 5 months I wish I could play with this.
Sarah 3 years 10 months I want a turtle, but I can’t have one.
Abe 4 years 2 months I wish we had gotted some mail today.
Note. From Children Talk About the Mind (pp. 70, 71, 78), by K. Bartsch and H. M. Wellman, 1995,
New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press. Reprinted with
permission of Oxford University Press, USA.
Wellman (1995) identified as early instances of understanding of desire. Most of

the examples use the word want, and this is no accident—in Bartsch and Wellman’s
tally, 97% of the desire references involved want (rather than wish, hope, care, afraid).
It is also no accident that the examples come primarily from 2-year-olds, an age
group not yet producing verbalizations about belief. One of Bartsch and Wellman’s
major conclusions was that children begin to talk about desires earlier in develop-
ment than they talk about beliefs.
Although the comparison is not always straightforward (Rakoczy, Warneken,
& Tomasello, 2007), experimental studies also suggest an earlier understanding
of desire than of belief. Here are a few examples. By age 3 (and in some children
even earlier) children realize that people act on their desires—for example, that
a boy who wants his pet rabbit will search for the rabbit. They also appreciate the
consequences of either fulfilled or unfulfilled desires. They realize, for example,
that if the boy finds his rabbit he will stop searching but if the initial search is
unsuccessful he will continue to look. They appreciate as well the relation between
desire fulfillment and emotion, judging that the boy will be happy if he finds the
rabbit and sad if he does not (Wellman & Woolley, 1990).
We saw that a critical development with respect to belief is the realization
that different people can have different beliefs. Children also come to realize
that different people can have different desires, and this realization emerges
considerably earlier than does the comparable realization for belief. In so
doing, they make impressive use of relevant evidence. Recent research has
shown that toddlers and even infants can use statistical information to draw
inferences in the physical realm—to parse the speech stream, for example, or
to segment visual shapes (e.g., Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). Ma and Xu
(2011) showed that young 2-year-olds (mean age 2 years 2 months) demon-
strate a similar competence with respect to people’s desires. Having watched
an experimenter consistently pick Object X from a container holding a few Xs
and many Ys, they conclude that she prefers X, and they do so even though
their own preference is for Y. On the other hand, inferences about a preference
for X are much less likely when the container holds mostly Xs and selections of
X are therefore less informative.
Impressive as the performance of Ma and Xu’s (2011) participants seems,
age 2 is not the youngest age at which appreciation of diverse desires has been
demonstrated. When the cues are sufficiently clear, even 18-month-olds under-
stand that other people may have desires different from their own. Repacholi and
Gopnik (1997) first gave their 14-and 18-month-old participants a choice of two
snacks: Goldfish crackers or broccoli. Not surprisingly, almost all preferred the
crackers. Next, the children watched an adult experimenter sample both snacks
and express a clear preference for the broccoli. The two snacks were then placed in
front of the child, and the experimenter stretched out her hand, asking the child to
give her one. Most of the 14-month-olds gave her the crackers, the snack that they
themselves preferred. Most of the 18-month-olds, however, gave her the broccoli,
thus demonstrating an understanding that her desire, strange as it seemed, was
different from their own.
Emotion
As with desires, children begin to talk about emotions from quite early in life.
Here are several examples, all taken from children who were just 2 years 4 months
of age (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982). “Santa will be happy if I pee in the potty.”
“Don’t feel bad, Bob.” “Bees everywhere. Scared me!” “Don’t be mad, Mommy!”
Not only do children talk about emotions from early in life; they hear much
talk about emotions from those around them. Work by Judy Dunn and colleagues
(e.g., Dunn, Bretherton, & Munn, 1987; Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991) sug-
gests that such “family talk” about emotions contributes to children’s under-
standing of emotion. This is work that I will return to at various points throughout
the book.
Although some understanding of emotion is evident quite early in life, experi-
mental studies make clear that full mastery of emotion is spread across several
years. Particularly challenging are instances in which the relation between avail-
able cues (such as facial expression) and underlying emotion is not straightfor-
ward. Such is the case with so-called display rules, in which a person may attempt
to hide how he or she actually feels (e.g., smile after receiving a disappointing
gift). Such is also often the case with mixed emotions, in which a person may
experience both positive and negative emotions about the same event. Although
preschoolers show some success at judging simple versions of such scenarios, full
understanding of concealed and mixed emotions develops gradually across child-
hood (Flavell et al., 2002).
Like desires, emotions cannot be true or false. They can, however, be at least
temporarily inappropriate, in that we may sometimes feel one way because we are
unaware of something that will soon make us feel very different. Such is the case
with certain kinds of surprise. A child may go happily to the cupboard to retrieve
his favorite treat, only to learn that someone else has eaten the last one. In such
situations there is a contrast between the immediate emotion (happy) and the
eventual emotion (sad).
A number of studies (e.g., de Rosnay, Pons, Harris, & Morrell, 2004; P. L.
Harris, Johnson, Hutton, Andrews, & Cooke, 1989) have explored children’s abil-
ity to reason about such situations. The procedure is similar to the unexpected
contents task: a container that apparently holds one sort of content (e.g., some
desired candies) turns out to hold something quite different (e.g., a collection of
pebbles). The question is how the protagonist feels before opening the container.
This question turns out to be difficult for preschoolers. Although exceptions exist,
in most studies judging the temporarily “false” emotion has proved more diffi-
cult than judging the protagonist’s false belief. Logically, this discrepancy makes
sense, given that an accurate attribution of emotion would seem to depend on an
at least implicit understanding of the protagonist’s belief—in this case, a belief
that he or she is about to get something good. What more is needed to make accu-
rate attributions of emotion is not yet resolved (Bradmetz & Schneider, 2004;
P. L. Harris, 2009).
A study by Dunn and Hughes (1998) adds an interesting further point about
understanding of emotions. In most such studies—not just of emotion but of
belief and other mental states—t he target is a generic one, such as Maxi in the
chocolate story presented earlier in this chapter. Dunn and Hughes probed 4-
year-olds’ understanding of emotion with respect to three familiar targets: their
mother, a friend, and themselves. When anger was the emotion of interest, chil-
dren showed more awareness of the causes of anger when thinking about the
mother than when thinking about a friend; when sadness was the emotion, the
pattern reversed and understanding was greater for the friend than for the mother.
What these findings suggest is that understanding of emotions may be in part
relationship-specific, that is, more advanced for some familiar targets than for
others. Some support for this notion of relationship-specific reasoning—based
on a different age group and different outcome measure—comes in a study by
O’Connor and Hirsch (1999). They reported that 13-year-olds’ reasoning about
the causes of their teacher’s behavior was more advanced when they were think-
ing about their favorite teacher than when they were thinking about their least
favorite one.
Relations Among Developments

The discussion to this point has considered a number of theory-of-m ind develop-
ments that typically emerge in the first five years of life. A separate focus on indi-
vidual developments, however, leaves an important question unanswered: How
do these various abilities fit together as the child develops? Two kinds of possible
patterning are of theoretical interest in the study of cognitive development, and
there is evidence that both occur in the domain of theory of mind.
One pattern is that of an invariant sequence: Some abilities always emerge
before other abilities. The research that we have considered certainly suggests
that this is the case—we have seen that some developments are evident in tod-
dlers, whereas others typically take another year or two to appear. A strict test
of a sequence model, however, requires a within-s ubject approach in which
the same children respond to all the tasks of interest. Wellman and Liu (2004)
were the first to carry out such a study. They presented seven tasks, summa-
rized in Table 2.3, to a sample of 2-to 6-year-old American children. As Table
2.3 shows, the tasks varied considerably in difficulty, with almost all of the
children passing diverse desires but only a minority able to understand the dis-
tinction between real and apparent emotion. The three false belief tasks proved
to be of essentially equal difficulty; the pattern of response to the remaining
tasks, however, suggested an invariant sequence of mastery from easiest to
hardest.
Similar studies since that by Wellman and Liu (2004) have confirmed their
general conclusion. The same sequence of development found for American chil-
dren has been shown in both Australian and German samples (Kristen, Thoermer,
Hofer, Aschersleben, & Sodian, 2006; Peterson, Wellman, & Liu, 2005), it has
been shown in longitudinal as well as cross-sectional comparisons (Wellman,
Fang, & Peterson, 2011), and it has been found for deaf children as well as for
hearing children (Peterson et al., 2005). Work in other cultures has revealed one
interesting difference, however. In both China and Iran, children perform bet-
ter on the knowledge/ignorance task than they do on diverse beliefs, a reversal
of the sequence found with Western samples (Shahaeian, Peterson, Slaughter, &
Wellman, 2011; Wellman, Fang, Liu, Zhu, & Liu, 2006). Wellman and colleagues
suggest that this difference may stem from differences in parenting that in turn
reflect differences in culture: that collectivist societies such as those in China and
Iran emphasize the importance of respect for others and the recognition of cultur-
ally provided forms of knowledge (hence children’s good performance on knowl-
edge/ignorance), whereas individualist societies like the United States are more
likely to encourage independent thinking and recognition of different points of
view (hence children’s good performance on diverse beliefs). As Wellman et al.
acknowledge, however, these hypothesized effects of parental practice remain to
be demonstrated.
Table 2.3 Tasks Presented in the Wellman and Liu Study of Sequential

Development (proportion of correct responses is given
in parentheses)
Task Description
Diverse desires (95%) Child judges that two persons (the child vs.
someone else) have different desires about the
same objects.
Diverse beliefs (84%) Child judges that two persons (the child vs.
someone else) have different beliefs about the
same object, when the child does not know
which belief is true or false.
Knowledge access (73%) Child sees what is in a box and judges (yes–no)
the knowledge of another person who does not
see what is in a box.
Contents false belief (59%) Child judges another person’s false belief about
what is in a distinctive container when child
knows what is in the container.
Explicit false belief (57%) Child judges how someone will search, given
that person’s mistaken belief.
Belief emotion (52%) Child judges how a person will feel, given a
belief that is mistaken.
Real-apparent emotion (32%) Child judges that a person can feel one thing
but display a different emotion
Note. From “Scaling of Theory-of-M ind Tasks,” by H. M. Wellman and D. Liu, 2004, Child
Development, 75, p. 531. Copyright 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
The other pattern of interest is that of concurrence: Some abilities emerge

simultaneously in development. The main research focus in this case has been
on the epistemic developments discussed earlier in this chapter: the various
forms of the false belief task, appearance–reality, Level 2 perspective taking.
Performance on these tasks turns out to be positively (although certainly not
perfectly) correlated; that is, children tend either to succeed or to fail on all of
the tasks (Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Moore, Pure, & Furrow, 1990). Such a
pattern suggests that the various achievements have a common underlying core,
a conclusion that is compatible with all the theories of theory of mind but that
is probably most clearly predicted by the theory theory position. The finding of
concurrence has also been argued to be relevant to the debate about false belief
performance in infancy. Advocates of the qualitative change position argue that
the simultaneous emergence of related abilities suggests that false belief success
at age 4 is not simply a continuation of infant competence but rather reflects a

general reworking of the underlying cognitive system (Perner, 2010). As we have
seen, this issue remains unresolved.
Later Developments
As Figure 2.1 shows, an expansion of research beyond the preschool period
reveals theory-of-m ind developments in both directions: earlier, simpler forms
that emerge in infancy, more advanced forms that are the province of later child-
hood. In this chapter I limit the coverage to the more advanced forms, reserv-
ing the discussion of infancy for Chapter 6. As we will see there, theory-of-m ind
developments in infancy, more so than during any other age period, are inher-
ently social in nature—developed, expressed, and measured only in observations
of or interactions with others. Moreover, for most babies most of the time, the oth-
ers are their parents. It makes sense, therefore, to consider infant developments
in conjunction with the parents’ contribution to these developments, and this is
what I do in Chapter 6.
What, then, about later childhood? Despite the heavy concentration of
research on infancy and early childhood, no researcher of theory of mind
believes that the development of mentalistic understanding is complete
by age 5. Here I consider some of the developments in theory of mind that
become evident once we move beyond the early childhood years. As we will
see in subsequent chapters, few of these developments have served as targets
for parenting research; rather, the parenting literature has focused almost
exclusively on the developments discussed to this point in this chapter, that
is, what happens in the first five years of life. My coverage of the later years
will therefore be brief. Miller (2012b) provides a more extended treatment of
post-preschool advances in theory of mind.
Second-Order False Belief
The unexpected location and unexpected transfer tasks measure understand-
ing of first-order false belief: the realization that it is possible—either for oth-
ers or for oneself—to be mistaken about something in the world. The tasks are
first order because there is just a single, mind-to-world mental state at issue: X
believes that A is true. A second-order false belief task measures the under-
standing that it is possible to be mistaken about someone else’s belief about
something in the world: thus X believes that Y believes that A is true. The task
is second-order because two mental states are in play, not just that of X but also
that of Y.
Second-order reasoning poses several challenges not present at the first-order

level. As just noted, children must now be able to reason about the mental states
of not just one protagonist but two. They must realize that beliefs may take as
their target not only empirical facts but also other beliefs, and that such beliefs
about beliefs, like beliefs in general, may sometimes be false. And they must be
capable of recursive thinking, in which one proposition is embedded within
another: A thinks that B thinks that. …
In 1985 Perner and Wimmer reported the first study of second-order false
belief. Box 2.2 shows one version of one of the two scenarios used in the research
(the report included six experiments, and the scenarios varied somewhat across
experiments). Because of the challenges just noted, Perner and Wimmer pre-
dicted that the second-order task would be more difficult than first-order false
belief, and their results confirmed their prediction. Five-and 6-year-olds, groups
that are typically close to perfect on the first-order task, showed little success. It
was only at about the age of 7 or 8 that most children were able to judge John’s
belief about Mary’s belief.
Research since Perner and Wimmer’s has modified this conclusion some-
what. As Box 2.2 shows, the Perner and Wimmer scenarios were on the long
and complex side, factors that may have prevented some children from showing
their true competence. When simpler stories are used, children often do better
than Perner and Wimmer reported. In particular, a simplified procedure intro-
duced by Sullivan, Zaitchik, and Tager-F lusberg (1994) and since used by many
researchers typically results in success a year or so earlier than the Perner and
Wimmer approach (Miller, 2009). Nevertheless, subsequent research has con-
firmed Perner and Wimmer’s basic conclusion: Second-order false belief is a post-
preschool achievement, an achievement that requires competencies beyond those
available at the first-order level.
Interpretive Diversity
Of the major theorists of theory of mind, Michael Chandler is probably the
one who has devoted the most attention to developments beyond the preschool
period. One such development that is especially stressed in Chandler’s writings
is understanding of interpretive diversity. Interpretive diversity refers to “the appre-
ciation that one and the same thing can be assigned different meanings by differ-
ent persons” (Carpendale & Chandler, 1996, p. 1703). This appreciation is seen
as part of a more general understanding that the mind is active and constructive
in its encounters with the world and not merely a passive recipient of whatever
information comes along.
That the mind actively construes reality must be a central component in any-
body’s theory of theory of mind. But does such a realization really emerge only
sometime after the preschool period? Understanding of false belief could be
Box 2.2 One of the Perner and Wimmer (1985) Scenarios Used
to Assess Children’s Understanding of Second-Order False Belief
This is a story about John and Mary who live in this village. This morning
John and Mary are together in the park. In the park there is also an ice-cream
man in his van.
Mary would like to buy an ice cream but she has left her money at home.
So she is very sad. “Don’t be sad,” says the ice-cream man, “you can fetch
your money and buy some ice cream later. I’ll be here in the park all after-
noon.” “Oh good,” says Mary, “I’ll be back in the afternoon to buy some ice
cream. I’ll make sure I won’t forget my money then.”
So Mary goes home.… She lives in this house. She goes inside the house.
Now John is on his own in the park. To his surprise he sees the ice-cream
man leaving the park in his van. “Where are you going?” asks John. The ice-
cream man says “I’m going to drive my van to the church. There is no one in
the park to buy ice cream; so perhaps I can sell some outside the church.”
The ice-cream man drives over to the church. On his way he passes Mary’s
house. Mary is looking out of the window and spots the van. “Where are you
going?” she asks. “I’m going to the church. I’ll be able to sell more ice cream
there,” answers the man. “It’s a good thing I saw you,” says Mary. Now John
doesn’t know that Mary talked to the ice-cream man. He doesn’t know that!
Now John has to go home. After lunch he is doing his homework. He can’t
do one of the tasks. So he goes over to Mary’s house to ask for help. Mary’s
mother answers the door. “Is Mary in?” asks John. “Oh,” says Mary’s mother.
“She’s just left. She said she was going to get an ice cream.”
Test question: So John runs to look for Mary. Where does he think she
has gone?
Justification question: Why does he think she has gone to the ____?
Note. From “‘John Thinks That Mary Thinks That…’ Attribution of Second-Order Beliefs
by 5-to 10-Year-Old Children,” by J. Perner and H. Wimmer, 1985, Journal of Experimental
Child Psychology, 39, p. 441. Copyright 1985 by Elsevier. Reprinted with permission.
argued to demonstrate a form of interpretive diversity. The child who can solve
the Maxi task, for example, realizes that Maxi believes one thing about the loca-
tion of his chocolate while the mother believes something different—t hus differ-
ent meanings for the same aspect of reality. In the false belief case, however, the
two thinkers are not dealing with “one and the same thing”; rather the mother
has information that Maxi does not have. False belief, therefore, demonstrates
only a limited, albeit important, appreciation of diversity: the understanding that
different information can lead to different beliefs. It does not demonstrate the
understanding that the same information can lead to different beliefs.
What is needed, then, is a situation in which different perceivers respond dif-
ferently to the same stimulus or event and the child’s task is either to predict or
to explain these different responses. Figure 2.2 shows two of the stimuli used
in one of the Chandler group studies to address this question (Carpendale &
Chandler, 1996). The stimuli in the figure are what are known as reversible figures,
in that each lends itself to two interpretations: a rabbit and a duck in the first
case and a rat and an old man in the second. The experimenters first determined
that the participants (5-to 8-year-olds) could themselves perceive both versions
of the figures (something which, it turns out, is a developmental achievement,
for most preschoolers show little success at the task—Gopnik & Rosati, 2001).
Two character puppets were then presented, one of which provided one of the
possible interpretations of each picture while the other provided the alternate
interpretation. The task for the children was to explain why these responses were
different, as well as to predict what a future perceiver would say. The interest was
in whether the children could recognize the legitimacy of different interpreta-
tions of the same stimulus, and the finding was that few of the youngest children
could. It was only at about age 7 or 8 that children demonstrated a realization
that different people could legitimately believe different things even when they
had the same information to work with.
Figure 2.2 Examples of ambiguous stimuli.

Other research by Chandler and colleagues demonstrates that this conclu-

sion is a general one (Chandler & Sokol, 1999; Lalonde & Chandler, 2002). It
applies, for example, to different forms of ambiguity—t hus not just visual ambi-
guity but also lexical ambiguity (i.e., homonyms) and ambiguous sentences. It
applies as well to restricted-v iew tasks, in which perceivers see only a small por-
tion of a larger picture, a portion that lends itself to multiple interpretations of the
larger work. In none of these situations, it should be noted, is children’s success
instantaneous; rather mastery emerges gradually across the grade-school years.
In each case, however, preschoolers show little success; thus understanding of
diversity, like understanding of second-order false belief, is an achievement of
later childhood.
Understanding of Nonliteral Utterances

The point about gradual rather than immediate mastery applies even more
strongly to the development I consider next. Consider the brief vignettes pre-
sented in Box 2.3. In each instance you realize that the intended meaning of the
utterance is something different from what a literal interpretation of the sentence
would convey. You realize this because you take into account the speaker’s intent
in producing the utterance—in particular, what mental state he or she is attempt-
ing to create in the listener. It is in this respect that understanding of such utter-
ances requires second-order reasoning: The participant must realize that the
speaker intends to implant a particular belief in the listener—t hus A intends that
B thinks that. . . .
The items in Box 2.3 are from a measure called Strange Stories, which was
developed by Francesca Happe (1994). In addition to the examples in the box,
the other speech forms included in the measure are white lie, misunderstanding,
appearance-reality, sarcasm, forgetting, contrary emotions, persuasion, and dou-
ble bluff. In each case, the issue in scoring is whether response to the Why ques-
tion demonstrates understanding of the intention behind the speaker’s utterance.
For the Lie story, for example, an indication that Anna did not break the vase (a
factual error) or that she is joking (an incorrect mental state) would be scored as
incorrect; in contrast, an indication that she is trying to deceive her mother would
clearly be considered correct.
In Happe’s (1994) original use of the measure, a sample of 8-year-olds
earned 88% of the possible point total—thus good but not perfect perfor-
mance. Subsequent research has produced similar results. Children younger
than 6 (in the rare instances in which they have been included in such studies)
show little ability to discern the meaning of nonliteral utterances. Success
begins to emerge by the early grade-school years, and performance improves
(although not necessarily to ceiling level) across adolescence and early
adulthood.
Box 2.3 Examples of Scenarios from the Strange Stories Measure
Story Type: Pretend
Katie and Emma are playing in the house. Emma picks up a banana from the
fruit bowl and holds it up to her ear. She says to Katie, “Look! This banana
is a telephone!”
Is it true, what Emma says?
Why does Emma say this?
Story Type: Joke
Today, James is going to Claire’s house for the first time. He is going over for tea,
and he is looking forward to seeing Claire’s dog, which she talks about all
the time. James likes dogs very much. When James arrives at Claire’s house
Claire runs to open the door, and her dog jumps up to greet James. Claire’s
dog is huge, it’s almost as big as James! When James sees Claire’s huge dog he
says, “Claire you haven’t got a dog at all. You’ve got an elephant!”
Is it true what James says?
Why does James say that?
Story Type: Lie
One day, while she is playing in the house, Anna accidentally knocks over and
breaks her mother’s favorite crystal vase. Oh dear, when mother finds out
she will be very cross! So when Anna’s mother comes home and sees the
broken vase and asks Anna what happened, Anna says, “The dog knocked
it over, it wasn’t my fault!”
Was it true what Anna told her mother?
Why did Anna say that?
Story Type: Irony
Ann’s mother has spent a long time cooking Ann’s favorite meal: fish and
chips. But when she brings it to Ann, she is watching TV, and she doesn’t
even look up, or say thank you. Ann’s mother is cross and says, “Well that’s
very nice, isn’t it? That’s what I call politeness!”
Is it true, what Ann’s mother says?
Why does Ann’s mother say this?
Note. From “An Advanced Test of Theory of Mind: Understanding of Story Characters’

Thoughts and Feelings by Able Autistic, Mentally Handicapped and Normal Children and
Adults,” by F. Happe, 1994, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24, pp. 147–151.
Copyright 1994 by Plenum Publishing Corporation. With kind permission from Springer
Science + Business Media.
Although it may be the most often used of such tests, Strange Stories is just one
of a number of measures designed to study higher-order theory of mind. Other
examples include the Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen, Wheelright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb,
2001), Faux Pas (Baron-Cohen, O’Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999),
Preadolescent Theory of Mind (Bosacki & Astington, 1999), and Silent Films
(Devine & Hughes, 2013). The general conclusion from such measures is the same
as that for Strange Stories: little or no success prior to age 5 or 6, gradual improve-
ment across middle childhood and the adolescent years, and good although not
always perfect performance in adulthood (Miller, 2012b).
Autism
Although the Happe (1994) Strange Stories study included a group of typically
developing children, that group was not the primary focus of the study. The main
focus, rather, was on the performance of children with autism. The study was an
early entry in what has now become a large and still rapidly growing literature on
autism and theory of mind.
The conjunction of the two topics stems from what is arguably the defining
characteristic of autism: namely, problems in social understanding and social
interaction. An approach known as the cognitive theory of autism posits that deficits
in theory of mind account for some of the features of autism. The claim is not that
such deficits account for all of the features of autism; nor is the claim that theory-
of-m ind deficits are limited to the syndrome of autism. The claim is simply that
theory of mind contributes to what we see in autism.
The first test of this hypothesis was reported by Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and
Frith (1985). They compared the performance of three groups of participants
on the unexpected location false belief task: children with autism (mean
age = 11 years 11 months), children with Down syndrome (mean age = 10 years,
11 months), and typically developing children (mean age = 4 years 5 months).
The typically developing and Down syndrome children did well (85% and 86%
correct, respectively); the children with autism, however, were correct only 20%
of the time.
Research since the Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) study has provided clear support
for their general conclusion (for reviews, see Rajendran & Mitchell, 2007, and
Yirmaya, Erel, Shaked, & Solomonica, 1998). Many children with autism never
master first-order false belief. When mastery does occur it typically comes sev-
eral years later than the norm for typical development, and also later than what
is found for groups (e.g., developmentally delayed individuals) who have been
matched with the autism sample for chronological or mental age. Furthermore,
the difficulties shown by people with autism are not limited to the false belief
task but apply to theory-of-m ind abilities more generally. They are evident, for
example, on the appearance–reality task and on measures of pretend play. They

are also evident on measures of theory of mind in infancy.
Nevertheless, for some people with autism the deficits are not absolute, because
success on many first-order measures does eventually emerge. For these individ-
uals, therefore, theory of mind appears to be delayed rather than permanently
absent. The Baron-Cohen et al. study (1985) and its follow-ups, however, were
limited to first-order abilities, and therefore to developments that are typically
complete by about age 5. Perhaps if our focus is on more advanced forms of theory
of mind we will find instances not simply of delay but of total absence.
It was to explore this possibility that Happe (1994) developed the Strange
Stories measure. More generally, the majority of measures of advanced theory of
mind—including those I listed earlier and a number of others—were originally
devised for the study of autism. We therefore have quite a bit of data.
The title of the Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) article was “Does the Autistic Child
Have a ‘Theory of Mind?’ ” It has become clear that the answer to this question
must be of the “it depends” sort. The answer depends on both the sample being
studied and the theory-of-m ind abilities that are at issue. Many people with
autism are not even testable with theory-of-m ind tasks. Of those who are, some
fail first-order tasks and thus show no evidence of theory-of-m ind ability. Some
have mastered first-order false belief but fail the second-order false belief task.
Finally, some can pass the second-order task but still have difficulty with more
challenging measures such as Strange Stories. Theory of mind, then, is not neces-
sarily absent in autism; it may, however, always be to some extent delayed and less
than complete.
Although autism has been by far the most often studied syndrome, it is only
one of a dozen or so clinical conditions that have been the targets of theory-of-
mind research. Good sources for work on other clinical conditions are Sharp,
Fonagy, and Goodyer (2008) and Sprung (2010).
Antecedents and Consequences

The discussion to this point has concerned what develops in theory-of-m ind
development. I turn now to the two other questions that research seeks to
answer: Where do these developments come from, and what effects do they have
on other aspects of children’s development?
Some Preliminary Points
Theory of mind has both a normative aspect—developments that are universal
across all typically developing children—and an idiographic aspect—ways in
which children differ in their development. False belief, for example, is eventually
mastered by all typically developing children; the speed with which it is mastered,
however, varies across children.
Conceptually, the normative aspect of development is an important question
with respect to both antecedents and consequences. We want to know, for exam-
ple, why all typically developing children master false belief, and we also want to
know how this mastery subsequently affects other aspects of their behavior and
development. Empirically, however, we are dependent on individual differences
among children to explore both antecedents and consequences. If a sample shows
no variation in false belief success, then there is no way to determine where suc-
cess comes from or what effects success has. This, of course, is just a general point
about research: Both independent variables and dependent variables must show
some variation (hence the term “variable”).
The research to be considered now, therefore, is individual-d ifferences
research, the question being where variations in theory of mind come from and
what effects these variations have on other aspects of development. Conceivably,
individual differences of a variety of sorts could be explored (e.g., the certainty
with which the knowledge is held, the ease with which it can be applied, the
breadth of application). In fact, in the great majority of studies the only indi-
vidual differences that appear are differences in rate of development: Some chil-
dren master the knowledge in question more quickly than do others. There are
occasional exceptions; we saw one example earlier in this chapter in the work
on sequences of development, and I will note others as we go along. The excep-
tions, however, are rare. In the concluding chapter I return to the issue of indi-
vidual differences in theory of mind and possible alternatives to an exclusive
focus on rate of development.
Antecedents of Theory of Mind

This entire book, of course, is devoted to one approach to the question of ante-
cedents: the role of parents. In this section I consider other possible contributors.
A 1994 article by Perner, Ruffman, and Leekam was the first to identify one
potential contributor: namely, siblings. They reported a positive relation between
number of siblings and false belief performance: the more siblings, the better the
performance. The effect, moreover, was a fairly substantial one. The performance
gap between children with no siblings and children with two siblings was equiva-
lent to the gap between young 3-year-olds and old 4-year-olds.
Research since that reported by Perner et al. (1994) has provided a mixed
picture. Some studies (e.g., McAlister & Peterson, 2013) have confirmed the
sibling effect; others (e.g., Cole & Mitchell, 2000; Tompkins, Farrar, & Guo
2013) have failed to do so. In some studies (e.g., Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin,
& Clements, 1998) only older siblings have proved helpful; in other studies (e.g.,
McAlister & Peterson, 2007) siblings of any age have been shown to confer a
benefit. A reasonable conclusion is that siblings are neither necessary nor always
helpful for theory-of-m ind development; in some cases, however, experience
with siblings may accelerate the developmental process. Presumably, such
experience does so because growing up with siblings provides experiences (e.g.,
pretend play, being teased, being tricked) that help children learn about the
thoughts and feelings of others. Studies that have looked directly at how sib-
lings interact (e.g., Dunn, 1999; Randell & Peterson, 2009) provide support for
this conjecture. It has also been suggested that the effects of siblings may be in
part indirect, in that the presence of multiple children in the family may affect
both parenting and children’s experiences of parenting. This is a possibility that
I return to in Chapter 7.
Siblings and parents are not the only possible sources for development-
enhancing experiences. Family size in general has been shown to relate to
theory-of-m ind development (Lewis, Freeman, Kriakidou, Maridaki-K assotaki,
& Berridge, 1996). Experience with peers can also contribute (e.g., Jenkins
& Astington, 1996; Wang & Sue, 2009), as can experience in school (Pillow,
2012) and exposure to storybooks and children’s movies (Mar, Tackett, &
Moore, 2010).
The discussion thus far has concerned various social agents and social experi-
ences that can affect theory-of-m ind development. Another approach to the ante-
cedents question attempts to identify prerequisite abilities—that is, skills that
must be in place for theory-of-m ind understanding to emerge or to be expressed.
Two presumed prerequisites have proved to be important.
One is language. A large research literature is quite consistent in demon-
strating positive relations between language and theory of mind: On the aver-
age, children with advanced language skills are also more advanced in theory
of mind (Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007). Although most of the evidence
concerns first-order abilities, similar relations have been shown for higher-
order developments, such as second-order false belief (e.g., Hasselhorn,
Mahler, & Grube, 2005). No single aspect of language has emerged as criti-
cal; rather a variety of measures have proved predictive. The Milligan et al.
(2007) meta-a nalysis surveyed five general categories of measures, all of
which related significantly to theory of mind: syntax, semantics, recep-
tive vocabulary, memory for sentential complements, and overall language
ability.
The second presumed prerequisite is executive function. Executive function is
an umbrella term for general problem-solving resources (e.g., inhibition, plan-
ning, working memory) that contribute to performance in a variety of cognitive
domains. Among the cognitive domains for which executive function has been
shown to be predictive is theory of mind, especially performance on false belief
tasks: Children who are relatively advanced in executive function tend to do bet-
ter on false belief (Devine & Hughes, 2014). The ability to inhibit a dominant
response appears to be especially important in this regard (Moses, Carlson, &

Sabbagh, 2005). This finding makes sense: To attribute a false belief, the child
must inhibit the tendency to respond on the basis of what he or she knows to be
the true state of affairs.
Although I have divided the discussion of antecedents into social agents and
prerequisite skills, these two kinds of contributors are of course not independent
of each other. Clearly, children’s language skills depend on the social agents with
whom they have interacted, and in the typical case the most important of these
agents are the child’s own parents. One way, therefore, that parents contribute to
theory of mind is by nurturing the language skills that underlie the emergence
and expression of theory-of-m ind competence. Beyond such general parental sup-
port, research suggests that particular forms of verbal input from parents may be
especially helpful in teaching children about the mental world. This research is
discussed in Chapter 7.
What about executive function? Behavior genetics studies indicate that
there is a substantial genetic contribution to individual differences in execu-
tive function (Friedman et al., 2008), which, of course, is an effect of par-
ents but not of parenting. Differences among children are not solely genetic
in origin, however, and recent research indicates that parental practices can
make a definite contribution (Fay-Stammbach, Hawes, & Meredith, 2014). In
Chapter 3 we will see that a particularly effective form of parental teaching
is an approach called scaffolding: a f lexible, contingent mode of instruction
that adapts continually to the child’s level of understanding. A relatively high
use of maternal scaffolding is positively associated with the development of
executive function skills (Bibok, Carpendale, & Muller, 2009). In the other
direction, various indices of family adversity relate negatively to executive
function (Hughes & Ensor, 2009). Thus another way in which parents con-
tribute to their children’s theory of mind is through their inf luence on the
development of executive function.
Consequences of Theory of Mind

What about consequences? As I said in the opening chapter, performance on
theory-of-m ind measures has been shown to relate to a wide range of other devel-
opmental outcomes. A review by Astington (2003) is a good source of informa-
tion on this issue. The author summarizes her conclusions as follows:
There is clear evidence that false-belief understanding is related to some

aspects of social functioning . . . communicative abilities, as seen in more
connected and more informative conversation; imaginative abilities, as
seen in more frequent and more sophisticated pretend play . . . ; ability to
resolve conflicts and to maintain harmony and intimacy in friendships;
teacher ratings of global social competence . . . ; contentedness in school;

and peer-related empathy and popularity. (p. 32)
Research since Astington’s review has added other outcomes to her list.
Links have been shown, for example, between theory of mind and moral rea-
soning (e.g., Smetana, Jambon, Conry-Murray, & Sturge-A pple, 2012) and
between theory of mind and success in school (e.g., Astington & Pelletier,
2005). Relations have also been shown not only for first-order theory-of-m ind
abilities (the main subject of Astington’s 2003 review) but also for the vari-
ous measures of higher-order theory of mind discussed earlier in this chapter
(Miller, 2012b). It is true that all of the available data are correlational in nature
and hence do not directly establish a causal role for theory of mind. Various
kinds of evidence, however, add credence to a causal interpretation. Thus, rela-
tions typically remain significant when possible third-factor contributors (e.g.,
age, language) are statistically controlled. In addition, longitudinal studies
often show the pattern that would be expected if theory of mind is playing a
causal role; that is, theory-of-m ind performance early in development relates to
predicted outcomes later in development. In no case, as the title of Astington’s
review (“Sometimes Necessary, Never Sufficient”) indicates, is theory of mind
the sole contributor to outcomes of interest. But research suggests that it is one
contributor.
Theories of Theory of Mind

Theory Theory
I have already briefly described one of the major theoretical positions with respect
to theory of mind: the theory theory view. The label for this position does not
reflect the fact (to quote a book review by James Russell, 1992) that the theory
was “so good they named it twice.” The label, rather, reflects the central tenet of
the approach: namely, that children’s knowledge about the mind takes the form
of an informal theory and that developmental change therefore takes the form of
theory change.
In what ways are children’s beliefs theory-like? Clearly, not in all the ways
that scientific theories are theory-like. Children’s beliefs are not embodied in
formal language, they are not (at least usually) objects of conscious reflection,
and they do not undergo testing by a larger scientific community. But they do
have some theory-l ike qualities. They have a specific domain to which they are
directed, and they identify specific entities within that domain—in this case,
the mental world and various mental entities. These entities, as the Premack
and Woodruff (1978) passage quoted earlier in this chapter indicates, are not
observable; rather they are themselves theoretical postulates. Thus to think

about the mental world, the child must make a basic, ontological distinction
between physical objects (external, perceptible, tangible) and mental represen-
tations (internal, invisible). Furthermore, theories not only identify entities;
they also specify cause-a nd-effect relations among the entities—relations, for
example, between desire satisfaction and emotion or between perceptual expe-
rience and belief. Because they identify such cause-a nd-effect relations, theo-
ries can be used for predictive and explanatory purposes—i n the present case,
to make sense of people’s behavior. And because they are modifiable by experi-
ence, theories change as experience provides evidence that an existing theory
is not satisfactory.
Different theorists have proposed somewhat different versions of the theory
approach. The most fully developed and influential versions are those by Josef
Perner (e.g., Perner, 1991, 1995) and Henry Wellman and Alison Gopnik (e.g.,
Gopnik & Wellman, 2012; Wellman, 2014).
Simulation Theory
Of the various theories of theory of mind, simulation theory is in a sense the
oldest, because it has roots in philosophy that date back several centuries. The
basic idea in the simulation approach is that we have privileged access to our
own mental contents—t hus our own immediate thoughts, feelings, percepts,
and so forth. Our ability to make sense of others then depends on our ability
to place ourselves, via an imaginative simulation process, in their position. For
example, we may predict how someone else will respond to an emotion-a rousing
stimulus by imagining how we ourselves would respond. Or we may make sense
of someone else’s behavior by imagining what would lead us to behave in such
a way. An often used example in the latter case is a hiker who sees a companion
running toward him with a look of terror on her face. Conceivably, the hiker
might interpret this behavior by activating a theoretical system that identifies
the necessary links between experience, emotion, and behavior. More plausibly,
however (at least according to the simulation theorist), the hiker could simply
imagine what would make him behave like that—for example, a grizzly bear in
hot pursuit.
Clearly, the ability to carry out simulations depends on a capacity for imag-
inative pretense. Fortunately for simulation theory, such a capacity is evident
from early in development—even 2-and 3-year-olds are remarkably skilled at
pretense (P. L. Harris, 1992). These abilities do improve with development, how-
ever, and such improvements are one basis for developmental changes in theory
of mind. In addition, the difficulty of carrying out simulations varies across dif-
ferent mental states and as a function of how many “default settings” must be
adjusted. It is for this reason that development takes time and that some devel-
opments (e.g., reasoning about beliefs) are slower to emerge in childhood than
others (e.g., reasoning about desires). Paul Harris is the psychologist who has
developed the simulation approach to theory of mind most fully (P. L. Harris,
1992, 2009).
Modularity
The modularity approach does not deny some role for simulation. Nor, for
that matter, do the theory theory or sociocultural approaches. More gener-
ally, each of the four general approaches to theory of mind accepts elements of
the other approaches. Each, for example, agrees that there must be a biologi-
cal underpinning to development (the emphasis in the modularity approach).
Each also agrees that there must be a contribution of social experience to
development (the emphasis in the sociocultural approach). The differences
come not in the elements of a full theory but in the importance ascribed to
each element.
In the modularity approach the emphasis is on the biological bases for
theory of mind. In this view theory-of mind reasoning is made possible by
an innately specified portion of the brain dedicated solely to the task of
theory of mind and thus “encapsulated,” that is, separate from other brain
regions and cognitive functions. The theory-of-m ind module is seen as hav-
ing been selected for in evolution, just as other modules that underlie essen-
tial human characteristics (e.g., aspects of perception and language) were
selected for. Developmental change in this perspective results primarily from
biological maturation that brings more advanced modules online, although
certain peripheral abilities, in particular a capacity for inhibition, may
be necessary as well. Development, to be sure, is not wholly maturational.
Certain environmental “triggers” may be necessary for particular changes to
occur. Environmental factors can also contribute to individual differences
in the speed of development or in how theory-of-m ind skills are deployed.
Underlying such differences, however, is a common theory-of-m ind architec-
ture that is largely biological in origin.
As with the theory theory position, somewhat different versions of modular-
ity theory have been proposed. The most influential models are those developed
by Alan Leslie (e.g., Leslie, 1994; Scholl & Leslie, 1999) and Simon Baron-
Cohen (e.g., 1994, 1995). As we saw earlier in this chapter, Leslie and Baron-
Cohen were coauthors of the first study of autism and theory of mind. This is not
a coincidence. The autism literature has long been a major source of support for
two claims that are central to theorizing about modularity: that theory of mind
has a strong biological basis and that theory of mind is largely independent of
other cognitive abilities.
Sociocultural Approaches
Although the sociocultural approach is a relative latecomer to theoretical debates
about theory of mind, it certainly does not lack for advocates. Among the theorists
who have proposed some version of a sociocultural approach to theory of mind
are Astington (1999), Bruner (1990), Carpendale and Lewis (2004), Fernyhough
(2008), Hutto (2008), Lucariello (2004), Nelson (Nelson et al., 2003), and
Tomasello (1999). The general theoretical position under which such efforts fall
is that of Vygotsky (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978).
As the label for the approach indicates, the central claim of the sociocultural
approach is that the development of theory of mind—and indeed, of any aspect
of children’s cognitive functioning—is always embedded within and made pos-
sible by the social-cultural environment that surrounds the child. In itself, this
claim may not sound novel; any theory, as I have noted, must acknowledge a role
for social experience. In other, so-called individualistic approaches, however, the
emphasis is on the individual child and on developments occurring within the
child (the theories the child forms, the simulations the child creates, or what-
ever). Social experience contributes to these developments, but there remains a
clear divide between child and social world. In contrast, within the sociocultural
approach there is no such divide; development is inherently social from the start.
In the words of two proponents of the approach, the question is “whether the
true starting point is to be located in the single, isolated, free mind of the indi-
vidual or in a social, communal world of shared experience or language” (Raver
& Leadbeater, 1993, p. 355). For sociocultural theorists, the answer is the latter.
Other, related emphases characterize most versions of a sociocultural approach.
One is an emphasis on language. It is, after all, mainly through language that parents
and others socialize children and that a culture’s accumulated knowledge is passed
from one generation to the next. A related, and distinctly Vygotskian, concept is that
of internalization: the idea that forms of knowledge and modes of adaptation exist
first in the culture around the child and that development occurs as the child inter-
nalizes these cultural tools to make them his or her own. An often quoted passage
from Vygotsky (1978) expresses this idea: “Every function in the child’s cultural
development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual
level” (p. 57). As some theorists (e.g., Carpendale & Lewis, 2004) emphasize, this
notion of internalization does not negate the possibility of an active, constructivist
child; what the child primarily acts on, however, is input from the social world.
A final emphasis is not found in all versions of a sociocultural approach, but it
is a central element in some conceptions (e.g., Carpendale & Lewis, 2004). It is an
emphasis not just on social experience but on social relationships—t he idea that
learning about the minds of others occurs best in the context of long-term, affec-
tively charged social relationships. And, of course, for most children the most
important such relationships are those with the parents.
Parenting
What are the implications of the different theories for research on parenting? In
particular, can results from parenting research provide a basis for deciding among
theories?
One of the sociocultural sources drawn from earlier was an article by
Carpendale and Lewis (2004) that appeared in the journal Behavioral and Brain
Sciences. In addition to proposing a version of sociocultural theory, Carpendale
and Lewis marshaled a considerable amount of evidence in support of their
position, evidence indicating that social experience, including experience
with parents, makes an important contribution to the development of theory
of mind.
As is often the case with Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the Carpendale and
Lewis article was followed by a number of commentaries by interested research-
ers, including representatives of each of the other theories of theory of mind: the-
ory theory, simulation, and modularity. Basically, none of these theorists was at
all discomfited by the evidence amassed in support of the importance of social
factors; rather each argued that the evidence could easily be assimilated by his or
her favorite position.
The mere fact that parents are important, therefore, is not enough to distin-
guish among theories of theory of mind. In their present form the various formu-
lations are not sufficiently specific about how parents are important to provide
a clear test among theories or a clear disconfirmation of any specific theory.
Nevertheless, if not predictions that can be disconfirmed, the theories do at least
generate expectations with respect to the “how much” and “how” questions,
expectations that may fit more or less easily with the available evidence about par-
enting. Once we have seen what this evidence shows, I return to the question of
theories in Chapter 10.
3
Parenting
In 1998 Judith Harris published a book called The Nurture Assumption. The book
was an elaboration of an article that Harris had published earlier in Psychological
Review (J. R. Harris, 1995). The opening paragraph of the journal article set forth
the main theme of both the article and the book: “Do parents have any impor-
tant long-term effects on the development of their child’s personality? This article
examines the relevant evidence and concludes that the answer is no” (J. R. Harris,
1995, p. 458).
Most child psychologists disagreed with Harris’s conclusion then, and most
disagree with it now. In the course of this chapter I draw from several of the
responses elicited by her writings. My point in quoting Harris now is to empha-
size the difficulty of doing childrearing research. At the time of her writing we had
had close to a century of childrearing studies and hundreds of reported effects of
parental practices on children’s development. Yet it was still possible to argue that
no clear effects of parenting had been demonstrated—and to have this argument
published in a leading psychology journal.
In this chapter I divide the coverage into three general sections. I begin with the
methodological challenges that made the central claim of The Nurture Assumption
possible: the difficulties of doing and interpreting research on parenting. Many of
the points discussed are ones that I will return to in Chapter 4. The second section
discusses historical changes in how parenting and its effects have been studied
across the span of psychology as a science. There have been major changes, and
a consideration of the changes is a good way to appreciate the contemporary sta-
tus of the field. Finally, the third section offers the general conclusions that have
emerged from the study of parenting to date. These points, too, are ones that we
will return to in subsequent chapters.
As I noted in Chapter 1, my coverage of parenting is even more selective than
my coverage of theory of mind. Among the helpful further sources are Bugental
and Grusec (2006); Grusec (2011); Holden (2010); Morris, Cui, and Steinberg
(2013); and Parke and Buriel (2006). The points about methodology in the next
section of this chapter are discussed somewhat more fully in Miller (2012a).
41
Methodological Challenges
Most parenting studies face three challenges. The first is accurately measuring
what parents do with their children. The second is accurately measuring the child
outcomes that are hypothesized to follow from the parental practices. The third is
determining the cause-and-effect relation between what the parent does and how
the child develops.
Not all studies of parenting include the second and third steps. In some studies
parental behavior is a dependent variable rather than an independent variable, in
that the interest is in the causes rather than the effects of the behavior. We might
look, for example, for variations in parenting across groups of different socioeco-
nomic status (SES) (Hoff, Laursen, & Tardif, 2002), or for possible effects of par-
ents’ personalities on how they treat their children (Belsky & Barends, 2002), or
for evidence that genes contribute to how parents behave (Klahr & Burt, 2014).
To point ahead a bit, we might also compare mental state talk (the subject of
Chapter 7) across different eliciting conditions (Ziv, Smadja, & Aram, 2013),
or explore whether mind-m indedness (one subject of Chapter 8) is impaired in
mothers with mental illness (Pawlby et al., 2010).
Despite the exceptions just noted, most studies of parenting have the goal of
determining not just what parents do but also the results of what they do—t hat is,
effects on child outcomes. And, of course, this is the case for the work on parent-
ing and theory of mind that is the subject of this book.
In what follows I do not attempt to discuss, except briefly, the child-outcome
component of the three-step process. In Chapter 2 I talked about how various
aspects of theory of mind are measured, and in later chapters I will often do so for
specific studies. I concentrate on the other two steps: measuring parental behav-
ior and determining the cause-and-effect nature of any parent–child relations
that are found.
Measuring What Parents Do

It is a useful exercise to think for a moment about the challenges in measuring
parental behavior. Although some child rearing occurs in public settings, most
takes place in the privacy of the home, often with parent and child as the only wit-
nesses. It does so on multiple occasions with multiple different kinds of content
every day, and in the typical case it extends from birth through at least the teenage
years. How can an interested researcher dip into this complexity to find out what
parents typically do?
The answer is that three general measurement options exist. Table 3.1 lists
these options and summarizes the strengths and limitations of each.
Naturalistic observation. One possibility is naturalistic observation—
going into the natural environment (i.e., the home) and recording the naturally
Pa r e n t i n g 43
Table 3.1 Measurement Options in the Study of Parental Behavior
Approach Strengths and limitations

Naturalistic The only approach that provides a direct measure of naturally
observation occurring behavior in the natural setting. The presence of
observers, however, may alter the setting and thus the behavior.
Observers may have difficulty recording and interpreting
behaviors accurately.
Laboratory The controlled laboratory environment ensures that the
study behaviors of interest will occur, and it maximizes both accuracy
of measurements and comparability across participants. To
the extent that the lab environment differs from the real-l ife
settings of interest, however, behaviors measured in the lab may
not be reflective of those in the natural environment.
Verbal report The scope of information provided is greater with verbal
reports than with any other method of study. Verbal reports
are not direct measures of behavior, however, and for various
reasons they may sometimes be inaccurate.
occurring behaviors of interest. An early example is provided by the influential

work of Diana Baumrind (1967, 1971) on general styles of child rearing.
The sample for the original Baumrind research was 4-year-old children and
their parents. Each parent was interviewed about various childrearing situa-
tions, and the interviews formed part of the basis for the identification of parental
styles. The core of the measurement, however, came from direct observation of
parent–child interactions. Trained observers visited the homes of the partici-
pants on two occasions for several hours at a time, during which time they made
extensive observations of the interactions between the parents and the child. The
visits extended from about an hour before dinner until the child’s bedtime. The
researchers’ reason for picking this time period is one that is likely to resonate
with anyone who has been a parent of a preschooler—namely, that it is a time
“commonly known to produce instances of parent–child divergence” (Baumrind
& Black, 1967, p. 304). Instances of divergence were in fact frequent and permit-
ted a special focus on what the researchers labeled “control sequences”—that
is, instances in which one family member was attempting to alter or control the
behavior of another.
Collecting extensive samples of parental behavior is only the first step in the
measurement of what parents do. The next step is to make sense of this mass of
information. Baumrind used a combination of theoretical analysis and statisti-
cal procedures to reduce the raw data first to a series of 15 “clusters” of parental
behavior (e.g., directive vs. nondirective, firm vs. lax enforcement) and then, via
further combination and reduction, to the general styles of parenting that I dis-
cuss shortly.
For a second example of the naturalistic approach I turn to the topic of
Chapter 5: attachment. One of the central issues in the study of attachment con-
cerns the origins of individual differences—why are some infants more securely
attached than others? The most common approach to this issue, dating from the
original research by Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters,
& Wall, 1978), has been to attempt to identify the childrearing antecedents of
attachment. In many studies, including the Ainsworth et al. research, this attempt
has taken the form of observation of mother–infant interactions in the home. The
observations by Ainsworth and colleagues were unusually extensive in terms of
both the time allotted (4-hour visits every 3 weeks throughout the baby’s first
year) and the breadth of the information recorded. Among the contexts that pro-
vided detailed records of maternal behavior were feeding, responsiveness to cry-
ing, face-to-face interaction, separation and reunion episodes, and close bodily
contact. In addition to the behavioral specifics, Ainsworth and colleagues devised
overall ratings of general maternal characteristics, and it was one of these gen-
eral characteristics that proved most predictive of security of attachment. In the
words of Ainsworth and colleagues, “The most important aspect of maternal
behavior … is manifested in different specific ways in different situations, but in
each it emerges as sensitive responsiveness to infant signals and communications”
(p. 152). The importance of sensitive responsiveness has been confirmed by sub-
sequent studies of the origins of attachment (De Wolff & van IJzendoorn, 1997).
I turn now to strengths and limitations of the naturalistic observation
approach. The summary in Table 3.1 lists several limitations and only one
strength. The strength, however, is a fundamental one. This approach is the only
one that measures exactly what we are interested in: namely, the parent’s natu-
rally occurring behavior in the natural setting. Laboratory studies (to which we
turn next) do not tell us what happens in the natural setting, and verbal reports
(the third category) measure what people say about their behavior rather than
the behavior itself. Naturalistic observation is thus always the measurement of
choice—assuming that we can obtain a sampling of parental behavior that is both
accurate and representative.
It is, of course, the “accurate” and “representative” criteria that reflect the possi-
ble limitations of the approach. There are various reasons that observations might
yield a nonrepresentative sampling of parental behavior. To begin with, the sam-
ple of parents may be nonrepresentative, in that only some parents are likely to let
observers into the home to record their childrearing behaviors. For those who do
allow such access, the sampling of behavior may be nonrepresentative—at least
some parents may alter their behavior when they know that a researcher is record-
ing what they do. The sampling is, in any case, a limited one—only a few settings
and a few hours out of the multitude of interchanges between parent and child.
Pa r e n t i n g 45
Because all homes are somewhat different, issues of comparability may arise; dif-
ferent parents may face different challenges during the periods of observation.
Finally, there is the question of the accuracy of the observations. Recording and
interpreting ongoing behavior is always a challenge, and such difficulties may be
especially marked in the uncontrolled setting of the home.
Laboratory study. The points just made about naturalistic observation can
serve as transition to a second general approach: laboratory study. A laboratory
study brings parent and child together in some specially designed setting where
the parenting behaviors of interest can be observed. Such studies share some
of the limitations of naturalistic study. Once again, the range of situations and
behaviors that can be sampled is limited, and once again the awareness of being
studied may alter how the parent behaves. Furthermore, the laboratory is not the
natural environment, and the behaviors that are elicited in such a setting, on both
the parent’s and the child’s part, may differ from those in the more familiar home
environment.
On the positive side, laboratory studies also have some strengths relative to in-
the-home efforts. Comparability across parents should not be an issue, since we
can set up the identical situation for all parents. Such experimental control makes
the laboratory approach a very efficient way to elicit the behaviors of interest. If we
are interested in maternal teaching, for example, we need not wait for a teaching
opportunity to arise; we can present a task in which the mother’s goal is to teach
something to her child. The controlled environment of the laboratory also allows
for systematic manipulation of potentially important factors. In a study of teach-
ing, for example, we might vary the nature or the difficulty of the task, or we might
compare the parent’s approach with that of another adult, such as a teacher or
experimenter. Finally, measurement is generally easiest in the controlled setting
of the laboratory; participants can more easily be kept within range, and various
technological devices can aid the human eye.
The studies of maternal teaching can serve as one example of the laboratory
approach. There is, in fact, a substantial literature directed to how mothers (and
in some studies fathers) teach various tasks to their children. An early and typi-
cal example is provided by a study by Pratt and colleagues (Pratt, Kerig, Cowan,
& Cowan, 1988). The 3-year-old child participants in the study visited the labo-
ratory on two occasions, once with their mother and once with their father. On
both occasions the child attempted to complete three tasks with the parent’s
help: creating a structure with blocks that matched a model, placement of pieces
in a matrix to produce a particular array, and telling a story that the experimenter
had told to the child in the parent’s absence. As in most such studies, both paren-
tal teaching and child success showed marked individual differences. The most
adaptive form of teaching was one that was adjusted to the child’s level of suc-
cess, providing additional help when the child was struggling but pulling back
and encouraging independent performance when the child was doing well. The
value of such a “scaffolding” approach is a general conclusion from the teaching

literature (Gauvain, Perez, & Beebe, 2013).
Parents’ disciplinary practices are also a common focus of laboratory study.
A study by Kochanska and colleagues (Kochanska, Coy, & Murray, 2001) can
serve as an example. The mothers and children in the study visited the laboratory
on four occasions: when the child was 14, 22, 33, and 45 months old. On each visit
the mother’s control practices were observed in what the researchers labeled “Do”
and “Don’t” contexts. The Do context required the mother to solicit the child’s
help in picking up the numerous toys that had been scattered around the room.
The Don’t context required the mother to prevent the child from playing with a set
of attractive toys that had been left within easy reach. In both contexts the mother’s
disciplinary strategies were coded into various categories, with a special emphasis
on an approach labeled power assertion: control of the child through the greater
power of the parent. Examples of power assertion include physically restraining
the child, taking a toy from the child, making threatening gestures toward the
child, and shaking or spanking the child. One finding from the research was that a
relatively high use of power assertion was associated with relatively poor compli-
ance by the child. This conclusion is a general one: Whatever the method used to
measure parental behavior, a high use of power assertion does not work out very
well as a technique of discipline.
Verbal report. The final measurement operation is the one that is most often
employed. Both observational and laboratory studies contribute to this literature,
as the examples just considered illustrate. In the majority of childrearing studies,
however, researchers learn what parents do by asking what parents do. Because
there are at least two parties to any socialization effort, there are two possible
classes of informants for such reports: We can ask parents how they treat their
children, or we can ask the children themselves. The former, as you might expect,
is a good deal more common than the latter. Still, by late childhood or adoles-
cence children become possible sources with respect to what their parents do, and
I will present an example shortly.
In addition to variations in informant, verbal reports can differ along a number
of dimensions. They may be elicited through a face-to-face interview or via a ques-
tionnaire that the informant completes. They may focus narrowly on one aspect
of socialization or attempt to capture parental practices more broadly. They may
ask only about current practices, about practices when the child was younger, or
about both. They may employ a closed-choice format in which the respondent
chooses among alternatives, or they may elicit open-ended responses that must
then be categorized. And, of course, they may vary in the particular childrearing
situations and parental practices that are the focus of study.
As a first example, I draw from a study to which we will return in Chapter 4.
Ruffman, Perner, and Parkin (1999) were interested in possible effects of paren-
tal childrearing style on preschool children’s understanding of false belief. To
Pa r e n t i n g 47
measure style, they presented the five common disciplinary situations shown in
Box 3.1. The response format was open-ended; the parent indicated how she either
had responded or would respond to the misbehavior, and these responses were
later coded into various categories (e.g., discussion of how the child would feel,
reprimand, or punishment). As we will see in Chapter 4, it was the focus on feel-
ings that appeared most conducive to the development of belief understanding.
As noted, the open-ended response format is not the only measurement
option. In some studies various possible response alternatives are presented, and
subjects then choose among those possibilities. Our second example of a verbal-
report study will illustrate this approach, as well as provide an example in which
children rather than parents serve as the informants.
The example is drawn from a study by Lamborn and colleagues (Lamborn,
Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991). The starting point for the research was
the Baumrind work on child rearing discussed earlier. As we saw, Baumrind used
Box 3.1 Disciplinary Situations Used in the Ruffman, Perner,

and Parkin (1999) Study
1. Can you remember a time recently when you thought your child was
lying to you?—Yes or No
What did you (would you) say or do?
2. Can you remember a time recently when your child teased or hit another
child?—Yes or No
3. Can you remember a time recently when your child took something that
wasn’t his from somebody else?—Yes or No
4. Can you remember a time recently when your child shouted at you or
your husband, made fun of either of you, or referred to you or your hus-
band in some unflattering way?—Yes or No
5. Can you remember a time recently when your child purposely dam-
aged something that wasn’t hers/h is (e.g., a friend’s toy, a neighbour’s
garden)?—Yes or No
Note. From “How Parenting Style Affects False Belief Understanding,” by T. Ruffman,
J. Perner, and L. Parkin, 1999, Social Development, 8, pp. 410–411. Copyright 1999 by John
Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
a combination of naturalistic observation and parental report to identify several

general childrearing styles, styles that varied (as I discuss more fully shortly)
along the dimensions of warmth, control, and parental involvement. One question
underlying the Lamborn et al. study was whether the same styles would emerge
in adolescents’ reports of their parents’ rearing practices. Their participants were
high school students ranging in age from 14 to 18, each of whom completed a
questionnaire during group testing sessions at school. Some of the items on the
questionnaire were directed to parental warmth and involvement. Examples in
this category (in cases in which the father was the target) included “I can count
on him to help me out, if I have some kind of problem,” and “When he wants me
to do something, he explains why.” The response options were “usually true” or
“usually false.” Other items were directed to parental supervision and strictness.
An example in this category was “My parents know exactly where I am most after-
noons after school.” The response options in this case were “yes” or “no.”
The most general finding from the research was that the same parental styles
identified in families with preschoolers did in fact emerge in adolescents’ reports
of their parents’ practices. A further finding was that the authoritative style was
again most beneficial for various developmental outcomes.
Table 3.1 summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the verbal-report
approach. It is the breadth of scope that constitutes the most obvious strength.
With verbal reports we are able, within a relatively short time, to gather evidence
regarding a wide range of socialization practices, a far wider range—in terms of
time periods, environmental settings, and specific behaviors—t han could ever be
captured in naturalistic observation or laboratory study. This evidence, moreover,
concerns the parent’s naturally occurring behavior in the natural setting, behav-
ior unaffected by the presence of observers or by the artifices of the laboratory.
Although the direct evidence consists of verbal reports rather than behavior, such
reports are provided by the people with by far the most knowledge—and in some
cases unique knowledge—about parental behavior: either parents themselves or
the child targets of the parent’s socialization efforts.
The strengths of the verbal-report approach must be set against one obvious
and all-i mportant question: Are such reports accurate? The answer is “sometimes
yes and sometimes no.” Various kinds of evidence indicate that verbal reports of
socialization are not always accurate. Correlations between parents’ reports of
their socialization practices and direct observations of parental behavior are often
modest at best (e.g., Kochanska, Kuczynski, & Radke-Yarrow, 1989). Studies that
solicit information about the same socialization agent from different informants
(e.g., ask mother, father, and child about the mother’s behavior) also typically
report modest correlations (e.g., Sessa, Avenevoli, Steinberg, & Morris, 2001).
Reports may be inaccurate for a number of reasons. Parents may distort their
answers, either consciously or unconsciously, to make themselves look better.
Parents or children may misinterpret questions or use terms in their answers
Pa r e n t i n g 49
in ways different from the way that the researcher uses the terms. Or parents
may simply forget what it is that they do or used to do with their child. As we
would expect, memory problems are especially likely when the measures are
retrospective—t hat is, when they concern socialization practices from some ear-
lier period in the child’s life (Yarrow, Campbell, & Burton, 1970). Reports that
date back several years may tell us something of interest about parents’ mem-
ory of their parenting; they are dubious sources, however, for actual parental
practices.
Measuring Child Outcomes

I confine the discussion here to a few general points. First, the same three mea-
surement options described for parent behavior apply to the measurement of
child outcomes, and the same strengths and limitations apply as well. Clearly, a
study of the effects of parental practices can be no better than its measurement of
the child outcomes of interest.
A second point is that conclusions about parenting may vary to some degree
across different ways of measuring child outcomes. In particular, there is evi-
dence that apparent effects of the environment, including effects of parenting, are
greater when the child measurements take the form of observations than when
they consist of verbal reports (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, &
Bornstein, 2000). What we conclude about parenting, therefore, may depend on
how we have assessed the target of interest.
A third point is that problems can arise when the same measurement option is
the source for both the parent and the child measures. Such is especially the case
in verbal-report studies when the same respondent, typically the parent, is the
source for both the child and the parent data. In such cases we may be interested
in the relation between parent behavior A and child outcome B; all we know for
certain, however, is the relation between how the parent talks about A and how
she talks about B.
Determining Causality
Correlation and causality. One of the truisms that psychology students learn early
in their studies—and then often relearn and relearn—is that correlation does not
imply causality. There is probably no topic for which it is more important to keep this
principle in mind than the topic of parenting. The great majority of parenting studies
are correlational. They are correlational because the independent variable of interest,
namely parental behavior, is not experimentally manipulated or controlled; rather it
is simply measured. The outcome of interest, child behavior, is also measured, and
the analyses then look for a correlation between the two sets of scores. A positive cor-
relation is compatible with the hypothesis that the parental behavior contributes to
the child outcome. The problem, however—and the reason that such a causal conclu-
sion cannot be drawn with certainty—is that a positive correlation is also compatible
with three other explanations.
One is that the causal direction is the reverse—t hus not from parent to child
but from child to parent. Suppose we find, for example (as research in fact does
find), that relatively high use of physical punishment by parents correlates with
relatively high levels of aggression in children. It may be that physical punishment
promotes aggression (perhaps, for example, by providing a model of aggressive
behavior). But it may also be that aggressive children elicit physical punishment
from their parents. Such children may in general be difficult to control, and the
parent may have tried and abandoned milder disciplinary strategies before resort-
ing to the use of physical punishment.
The parent-to-child and child-to-parent models each posit a single causal
direction. A third possibility is that the causality runs in both directions—t hat
over time the parent’s behavior affects the child and the child’s behavior affects
the parent in a back-and-forth, reciprocal fashion. Thus physical punishment may
indeed promote aggression; the high level of aggression, however, then provokes
still more punishment, which in turn leads to still more aggression, and so on.
Many researchers believe that such a “transactional” model (Sameroff, 2009) may
apply to the majority of parent–child correlations.
The three possibilities considered to this point address what is known as the
“directionality issue”: We assume that there is a causal relation between parent
and child; the question is in what direction the causality runs. A final possibil-
ity, generally labeled the “third factor issue,” is that there is no causal relation
at all between parental practice and child outcome; both are caused by some
third factor or set of factors. In the case of physical punishment and aggression,
for example, it may be that parents who are high in the use of punishment are
also high in whatever the genes are that underlie aggression; they pass these
genes on to their children, and this is the reason that the children are high in
aggression.
Although shared genes are not the only possible third-factor explanation
for parent–child correlations, they may be the most generally applicable one.
Parents contribute only some of the child’s environment, but they contribute all
of the child’s genes. A major argument in J. R. Harris’s book (1998) The Nurture
Assumption is that most parent–child correlations from childrearing research are
better interpreted as genetic than as environmental in origin.
Ways to make causal inferences more certain. Researchers have, of course,
always been aware of the provisional nature of any causal conclusions from child-
rearing correlations. It seems to fair to say, however, that recent years have seen
an increased sensitivity to the issue, spurred not only by The Nurture Assumption
Pa r e n t i n g 51
but also by the strong claims of genetic effects that have emerged from some
work in behavior genetics (e.g., Rowe, 1994). In themselves, correlational data
cannot establish causality; the challenge, therefore, is to identify related forms
of research that can make the causal inferences from such data more certain.
Table 3.2 summarizes the main possibilities. The table is adapted from a similar
Table 3.2 Possible Forms of Evidence for a Causal Role for Parental Factors

in Childrearing Research
Type of evidence Rationale

Parent–child correlations in adoptive The adoption design removes the
families genetic basis for parent–child relations,
making the childrearing interpretation
more plausible.
Use of statistical controls to rule out The greater the number of third-factor
alternative explanations for parent– explanations that can be ruled out,
child correlations the more plausible the childrearing
interpretation becomes.
Short-term across-t ime contingencies Charting the across-t ime relations
between parental behavior and child permits inferences about the causal
behavior in situations of dyadic direction between parental behavior
interaction (sequential analysis) and child behavior.
Long-term across-t ime relations As in the short-term case, charting the
between parent behaviors and child across-t ime relations between parent
characteristics assessed during at measures and child measures permits
least two points in development inferences about causal direction.
(longitudinal study)
Experimental manipulation The experimental manipulation, which
of rearing conditions in is more feasible with nonhuman species,
nonhuman species allows clear conclusions about both the
nature and the direction of causality.
Interventions with human parents As with animal research, the
experimental control (which is
necessarily more limited and
unidirectional than in animal studies)
permits clear conclusions about causality.
Experimental manipulation The experimental control permits the
of aspects of socialization (e.g., conclusion that practices employed
reasoning, punishment) in controlled by parents can causally affect child
laboratory situations (analog studies) behavior.
table in Miller (2012a), which in turn was based in large part on an article by
Collins et al. (2000).
The approaches in Table 3.2 fall into three categories. The first two entries
are directed to the issue of third-factor explanations. The adoption design rules
out one major third factor: the genes that parents and children typically share.
Statistical controls (which in modern research extend to elaborate, conceptually
based models) can rule out a variety of third-factor possibilities more generally.
The next two entries speak to the directionality issue. Both make use of the fact
that causes must precede their effects; thus if we can trace the relations between
A and B over time, we can derive evidence as to which is acting as the cause and
which is the effect. Sequential analysis looks at immediate, moment-by-moment
contingencies, whereas longitudinal study traces more macro, across- time
relations.
The possibilities discussed so far represent various ways to overcome the lack
of experimental control that defines correlational research. The three remaining
entries in Table 3.2 go further, in that they replace the correlational approach with
an experimental one—and thus manipulate rather than simply measure parental
behavior. Doing so is not easy (if it were easy, we would know much more about
parenting than we do), and each of the approaches suffers from various limita-
tions. Thus animal research offers the broadest possibilities with respect to experi-
mental control, but with the risk that findings may be species-specific and may not
generalize to humans. In addition, there are many outcomes of interest in human
development for which there is simply no analog in animal behavior (including
most aspects of theory of mind). Interventions with human parents address the
target group of interest; such interventions, however, are limited in scope and also
are necessarily in one direction only (no researcher deliberately makes parenting
worse). Finally, analog studies can demonstrate that some socialization practices
(modeling, reasoning, punishment, etc.) can have particular effects; the lab dem-
onstration, however, does not tell us whether the practice does have the effect in
the natural environment of the home.
The points just made provide a context for one of the basic principles in
research methodology: the principle of converging operations. The term converg-
ing operations refers to the use, either within or across studies, of a variety of dif-
ferent methods of studying a particular topic. The basic idea is that the strengths
of one method can, to at least some extent, compensate for the weaknesses of
another method, and that conclusions based on a convergence of evidence from
different methods can be held with greater certainty than can conclusions based
on one method alone. In the present case, both correlational and experimental
approaches to the study of parenting have their limitations. To the extent that
conclusions from the two approaches converge, however—and, as we will see, in
many instances they do converge—we can be more certain that parenting really
does have an effect.
Pa r e n t i n g 53
Historical Changes in Research on Parenting

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, a consideration of historical changes
in parenting research is a helpful way to make some substantive points about
the current state of the field. Table 3.3 summarizes the changes to be discussed.
Fuller discussions of the history of the field are available in a variety of sources
(e.g., Maccoby, 2015; Sears, 1975).
Guiding Theories
A first change concerns dominant theories. Through at least the midpoint of the
twentieth century, two theories directed most research on childrearing: Freudian
theory and various versions of learning theory. The result was a concentration
on a fairly narrow range of parental practices—method of feeding in infancy, for
Table 3.3 Changes over Time in Research on Parenting
Change Description
In dominant theories The initial preeminence of psychoanalytic and
learning theory has given way to an eclectic mixture
of more domain-specific approaches.
Increased cognitive In contrast to earlier work, both parental and child
emphasis cognitions are seen as important contributors to
parental practices and their effects.
Wider range of social An initial emphasis on the mother has been
agents broadened by a fuller consideration of other social
agents, including fathers and peers.
Increased emphasis on An initial unidirectional model of parent-to-child
child-to-parent effects effects has been replaced by a more reciprocal
conception that acknowledges two-way causal
influences.
Increased emphasis on The strongly environmentalist approach that
genes directed earlier research has been replaced by a
more balanced model of the interplay of genes and
environment.
Increased emphasis on Contemporary work recognizes that any given
context parental practice cannot be studied in isolation
but rather must be placed in the context of other
practices, other agents, the specific situation, and the
general ecological setting.
example, or method of toilet training in toddlerhood. The result was also a con-
centration on the first 4 or 5 years of life as the most important time for parental
influence and the child’s eventual developmental course.
Freudian and learning theory positions retain some influence today, per-
haps especially in work with clinical populations. For general research on
child rearing, however, they have long since receded in importance. In their
place have come more domain-specific approaches, that is, models that are
less sweeping in scope but rather concentrate on particular aspects of develop-
ment. For work on attachment, for example, Bowlby’s ethological theory (e.g.,
Bowlby, 1969) is easily the most influential position. For work with a cogni-
tive focus, such as the studies of parental teaching discussed earlier, Vygotsky’s
sociocultural theory (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978) is the most likely theoretical basis.
Work that examines the family as a system is often grounded, not surprisingly,
in developmental systems theory (Lerner, Rothbaum, Boulos, & Castellino,
2002). The general result of this change in theoretical grounding has been
an expansion of parenting research along several dimensions: in the range of
parental practices that are considered to affect development, in the range of
child outcomes that are addressed, and in the settings and time periods that
are seen as being important.
Increased Cognitive Emphasis

A second change is related. Contemporary approaches to the study of parenting
are a good deal more cognitive in orientation than was true of their Freudian
and learning theory predecessors. These traditional approaches, it is true, have
themselves grown more cognitive over the years. Within the psychoanalytic
realm, so-called ego psychology places a heavier emphasis on rational, cognitive
processes than was true in Freud’s original formulation of the theory. Bandura’s
social-cognitive theory (e.g., Bandura, 1986) adds various cognitive emphases
not found in earlier versions of learning theory. Nevertheless, the cognitive
nature of contemporary work goes well beyond these changes in traditional
approaches.
This greater cognitive orientation holds true in several senses. One concerns
the conceptualization of parents and parenting. The first 50 or so years of par-
enting research placed a heavy emphasis on parental practices with correspond-
ingly little concern with the parental thinking that underlay those practices. Such
research proceeded, in Ross Parke’s (1978) words, as though “the cognitive capac-
ities of the infant and parent could functionally be treated as similar” (p. 76). Such
is no longer the case. A large literature has grown up directed to the various cogni-
tions (beliefs, attitudes, attributions, expectations) that parents form about chil-
dren and about parenting (Goodnow, 2002). Although relations are not always
consistent or strong, in general such parental cognitions show the associations
Pa r e n t i n g 55
that we would expect with both parental behavior and child outcome—t hat is,
relatively advanced cognitions are associated with more effective parental prac-
tices and better developmental outcomes.
Just as conceptions of the parent have grown more cognitive, so have concep-
tions of the child. Early work on parenting was remarkably nondevelopmental,
in that there was little concern with how parenting an adolescent might differ
from parenting a preschooler. This, too, is no longer the case. Contemporary
approaches recognize that the effects of any given parental behavior depend on
how the child interprets the behavior and that older children will bring different
cognitive resources to this task than will younger children (Grusec & Goodnow,
1994). Just as there are developmental differences in response to parental prac-
tices so are there individual differences, and the same practice may be interpreted
in different ways and have different effects for different children. This point speaks
to one of the surprising findings from work in behavior genetics, the phenomenon
known as nonshared environment. Nonshared environment refers to the fact that
experiences within the family seem to operate primarily to make siblings differ-
ent rather than similar. Part of the explanation for this finding is that siblings in
fact experience different environments, including different parental practices.
Part of the explanation, however, is that siblings may interpret the same parental
practice differently.
A final sense in which contemporary research on parenting has grown more
cognitive concerns the child outcomes of interest. Earlier work on parenting was
skewed heavily toward social outcomes—aggression, moral behavior, sex typing,
and so forth. Two factors probably account for this emphasis. First, these were the
outcomes that were stressed in the dominant theories of the time that inspired
most studies of parenting. Neither Freudian theory nor learning theory had much
to say about children’s cognitive development, and the research they inspired also
had little to say.
The second reason that social outcomes outstripped cognitive ones stemmed
from the focus of childrearing research on individual differences. Such a focus is
inherent in the correlational approach: If we wish to determine whether differ-
ences in parental practices are important, we must have differences in children’s
development to which we can relate the differences among parents. The literatures
on children’s social development (attachment, aggression, sex differences, etc.)
are natural objects for such study, for these literatures are awash in individual dif-
ferences. In contrast, the dominant cognitive approach for much of the twentieth
century, that of Piaget, stressed commonalities among children rather than differ-
ences. To a significant extent, the information-processing approach that eventu-
ally challenged Piaget also concentrated on basic developments that are common
to all children. Furthermore, neither approach had much to say about how parents
might contribute to the relatively minor differences (mainly in rate of develop-
ment) that research revealed.
As noted in Chapter 2, the point about individual differences is one to which

we will return. The theory-of-m ind literature, like the Piagetian literature, has
been much more normative than idiographic—t hat is, more concerned with basic
developments that are essentially universal (e.g., understanding of false belief)
than with differences among children. This normative focus poses a challenge to
attempts to determine how parents contribute to their children’s development.
Increased Emphasis on Socialization Agents

Other Than the Mother
A third historical change in the study of parenting is an expansion in the range
of social agents that are targets for study. For a number of years the study of
parents—and to some extent the study of socialization more broadly—really
meant the study of mothers. This emphasis had a basis in both guiding theory and
societal reality. Mothers were the social object most heavily stressed in Freudian
theory. And mothers were in fact the primary and most important caregivers
in the majority of Western (mostly American) families to whom research was
directed.
Mothers, of course, remain important objects of study in contemporary
research. But various expansions in the scope of study have altered the traditional
view of the mother as all-important. I will note two such changes here, both of
which I will return to later in this chapter.
One change is an increased emphasis on fathers. In part, this change reflects
changes in society—on the average, fathers, at least in Western societies, have
more involvement in child care than was true through most of the twentieth
century. The change also reflects another, more general change in parenting
research: namely, an increased concern with context. As we will see, this concern
with context takes several forms. For present purposes, the implication of a focus
on context is that the effects of the mother’s practices cannot really be assessed
without knowing what the father is doing. Nor can they be assessed without
knowing the quality of the relationship between the parents.
The second change is an increased emphasis on peers. Psychologists have
always realized of course, that socialization is not limited to the family; children
can be affected by various nonfamilial social agents as they develop, including
not only peers but also a variety of adults (teachers, clergy, coaches, entertain-
ment or sports figures). Nevertheless, as long as the most influential theories
stressed the family and the early years, research directed to other social agents
was limited. Such is no longer the case. The importance of peers, in particular,
is clearly recognized in contemporary accounts of socialization, although there
are disagreements about exactly how important peers are. One of the controver-
sial conclusions from J. R. Harris’s (1998) The Nurture Assumption was that peers
Pa r e n t i n g 57
are a good deal more important than parents with respect to children’s long-term
development. This is a point to which we will return.
Increased Emphasis on Children’s Effects on Parents

Any researcher has always been aware of a basic point about correlations dis-
cussed earlier: In itself, a correlation does not specify the direction of any causal
relation between the variables in question—in the present case, the causal direc-
tion between parental practice and child outcome. Nevertheless, the dominant
assumption underlying the first several decades of parenting research—an
assumption supported by both theory and common sense—was that the causal
direction flowed from parent to child. Parents are already formed; children are
not. Parents shape their children’s development; children do not shape their
parents.
Such a unidirectional view is no longer tenable. An important impetus to the
change in orientation was an influential article on “A Reinterpretation of the
Direction of Effects in Studies of Socialization” published by Richard Bell in
1968. In that article Bell was able to identify a number of childrearing findings
that could plausibly—and in some cases definitely—be interpreted at least in part
as child effects on parents (including the physical punishment and aggression
example that I discussed earlier). Further examples have multiplied since then. As
we will see, children’s characteristics make two contributions to the childrearing
picture: They affect the practices that parents employ, and they affect the results
of the practices—t hat is, some approaches work better with some children than
with others. The latter point may not come as a surprise to any parent of two or
more children; it is one, however, that the field was slow to come to appreciate.
Increased Emphasis on Genetics

The next point is related. The child characteristics that affect parenting are in part
a function of the child’s previous socialization history. But they are also in part a
function of the child’s genes. The last 20 years or so of research in behavior genet-
ics have indicated clearly that genes make a substantial contribution to individual
differences on a wide range of developmental outcomes—certainly a stronger
contribution across a wider range of outcomes than had previously been sus-
pected. It was for this reason that J. R. Harris (1998) could argue that correlations
between parents and children were primarily genetic rather than environmental
in origin. Even if this strong view is not accepted, it is clear that parent–child rela-
tions cannot automatically be assumed to have an environmental basis. It is also
clear that genetic differences among children are one contributor to differences in
how parents treat children.
Increased Emphasis on Context

The final change that I identify is in a sense the broadest in scope. It is the realiza-
tion that any particular parental practice cannot be studied in isolation; rather it
can be understood only once contextual factors of a variety of sorts are taken into
account.
As an example, let us consider an instance of physical punishment—say, a
mother who spanks her child for a misbehavior. What factors might be impor-
tant in determining the effects of the spanking? Here is a partial list of con-
siderations. How old is the child? Spanking may well have different effects at
age 4 than at age 1, and different effects still at age 14. What is the misbehavior
that led to the spanking? Is it something whose wrongness the child is likely
to admit (e.g., running into the street) or is it something for which the serious-
ness of the transgression is more in dispute (e.g., failure to clean one’s room)?
Is spanking a rare or frequent action on the mother’s part? Does it occur in
isolation or is it accompanied by reasoning that explains why such a severe
punishment is being administered? Is the quality of the overall relationship
between mother and child generally warm and supportive or is it more cold
and distant? Do the father or other disciplinary agents respond similarly to
such a transgression, or does the child receive different messages from dif-
ferent adults? And is spanking a generally accepted, expectable consequence
within the cultural or subcultural group to which the family belongs, or is the
mother’s response a departure from the cultural norm?
Conclusions About Parenting
I opened this chapter by citing Judith Harris’s (1998) claim that parenting has
not been shown to have any long-term effects on children’s development. The first
conclusion I offer is that contemporary research makes clear that this claim is not
correct. It is true that effects of parenting are often weaker or less certain or more
qualified than had long been assumed. But a convergence of evidence, including
all the forms discussed in Table 3.3, tells us that parenting does make a difference.
The rest of this chapter addresses exactly how it does.
Parenting Styles
The previous section ended with a discussion of the importance of context. Such
a discussion provides a good lead-in to the topic of parenting styles. The central
notion of the concept of style is that any particular parental practice or charac-
teristic can be interpreted only in the context of all the ways in which that parent
interacts with the child. It is the overall patterning of parenting, and not just the
Pa r e n t i n g 59
individual elements, that is important. In the words of Morris et al. (2013, p. 49),
“the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
It was the research by Diana Baumrind (1967, 1971) discussed earlier that
introduced the concept of parenting styles. Four general styles emerged from the
original Baumrind studies and subsequent follow-ups and analyses (e.g., Maccoby
& Martin, 1983). The styles vary along the dimensions of warmth/responsiveness
and control/involvement. The authoritative style is relatively high on both dimen-
sions, and the uninvolved style is relatively low on both. The remaining two styles
present an opposite pattern of highs and lows. The authoritarian style is high on
control but low on warmth. The permissive style is high on warmth but low on
control. Figure 3.1 provides a pictorial summary of the four styles.
This summary does not capture all of the aspects of the different styles. Both
authoritative and authoritarian are high in control; the method of exerting
control, however, shows important differences between the two styles. In the
authoritative style the firm control occurs in the context of a generally warm and
supportive relationship, with an emphasis on reasoning and discussion rather
than rigid imposition of parental power. In the authoritarian style, discussion and
negotiation are less likely; rather, the strong control is exerted primarily through
the greater power of the parent.
The goal of the Baumrind research was not simply to identify differences
among parents but also to relate the differences to variations in children’s devel-
opment. There turned out to be clear relations. In general, the authoritative style
was associated with the most positive outcomes on a number of measures of
social and cognitive competence; each of the other styles worked out less suc-
cessfully, although the specific ways in which they did so varied across the styles.
Table 3.4, which is adapted from Parke and Clarke-Stewart (2011), summarizes
some of the differences that research has shown (which, of course, should be
Warmth/Responsiveness
High Low
High
Authoritative Authoritarian
Control
Low
Permissive Uninvolved
Figure 3.1 Baumrind parenting styles.

Table 3.4 Relations Between Parenting Style and Child Outcomes
Parenting style Child characteristics

Authoritative Is cheerful
Is self-controlled and reliant
Is interested and curious in new situations
Has high energy level
Maintains friendly relations with peers
Cooperates with adults
Copes well with stress
Authoritarian Is moody, unhappy, aimless
Is fearful, apprehensive, easily annoyed
Is passively hostile and deceitful
Alternates between aggressive behavior and sulky
withdrawal
Is vulnerable to stress
Permissive Is aggressive, domineering, resistant, noncompliant
Is quick to anger but fast to recover cheerful mood
Lacks self-control and displays little self-reliance
Is impulsive
Is aimless; has few goal-d irected activities
Uninvolved Is moody, insecurely attached, impulsive, aggressive,
noncompliant, irresponsible
Has low self-esteem and is immature, alienated from
family
Lacks skills for social pursuits
Is truant, associates with troubled peers, may be
delinquent, is sexually promiscuous
Note. Adapted from Social Development (pp. 217–218), by R. D. Parke and A. Clarke-Stewart, 2011,
New York, NY: Wiley. Copyright 2011 by John Wiley & Sons. Adapted with permission.
recognized as on-t he-average effects that do not apply in every case). These find-
ings have emerged across a range of samples, a range of ages, and a variety of ways
of measuring parenting style.
As Table 3.4 suggests, research on parenting styles, like most parenting
research, has been skewed toward aspects of children’s social development. Effects
are not limited to the social domain, however. The original Baumrind research
Pa r e n t i n g 61
revealed several differences among the groups in attributes relevant to cognitive

development, including greater curiosity and self-reliance in children of authori-
tative parents. More generally, a review by Gauvain and colleagues (2013) identi-
fies a number of cognitive benefits of authoritative rearing, including advances in
planning and decision-making skills and improved performance in school. The
Pratt et al. (1988) study of parental teaching discussed earlier suggests one way
in which authoritative parenting promotes cognitive development. These authors
used extensive observational data to assign each parent in the study to one of the
four Baumrind styles. They reported that it was the group of authoritative parents
who were most likely to adopt the scaffolding approach to teaching that has been
shown to be optimal for children’s learning.
Variations Across Groups
The sample for the original Baumrind research was upper-m iddle-class White
families. Middle-class Whites have constituted the samples for a substantial pro-
portion of childrearing studies. An important question, therefore, is whether the
same conclusions emerge when other demographic groups are the focus of study.
The answer turns out to be mostly but not totally (Sorkhabi & Mandara, 2013).
A variety of different groups have now been studied, including those from
other cultures (especially Asian cultures) and those from subgroups within the
United States (e.g., African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans).
In general, the authoritative style has been shown to be beneficial across all of
these various populations, again with respect to a variety of developmental out-
comes. On the other hand, the benefits of authoritative rearing, as well as the
superiority of this style to other forms of parenting, are less consistently found
and are sometimes less marked in populations other than the middle-income
Whites with whom this research began. In addition, conclusions about another
of the styles, authoritarian rearing, change in two ways when a broader range of
populations is taken into account.
A first change concerns frequency. The authoritarian pattern is more com-
mon in many groups than is the case for White samples. This is true for African
American and Asian American samples in the United States, as well as for samples
of Chinese parents (Parke & Buriel, 2006). Two factors, either alone or in combi-
nation, appear to account for this difference. One is cultural beliefs and values. In
China, for example, family unity and respect for older adults are central goals of
socialization, and parental concern for children may be expressed more through
close supervision and frequent teaching than through displays of overt affection.
Many African American families in the United States place a similar emphasis on
communal values, respect for parents, and close control of children’s activities.
The second factor is economic and personal necessity. For families living in
dangerous neighborhoods and under conditions of poverty, reasoning with the
child and encouraging independence may be risky luxuries. Firm and immediate
control may be a higher priority and may in fact make more sense for the welfare
of the child (Furstenberg, 1993).
This last point suggests that in some circumstances the authoritarian style might
actually be beneficial for children’s development. And this leads to the second way
in which conclusions about authoritarian rearing have been found to vary across
groups. Although an extreme standing on this dimension is probably not optimal
in any context, the authoritarian style has been shown to be beneficial—or at least
not detrimental—in several contexts: for African American and Asian American
samples in the United States (Chao & Tseng, 2002; Lamborn, Dornbusch, &
Steinberg, 1996), for Chinese families in Hong Kong (Chao & Tseng, 2002), and
for families living in poverty (Baldwin, Baldwin, & Cole, 1990).
The work just discussed illustrates the importance of context in another
sense: namely, the ecological context within which the family is nested. The
leading theory in this regard has long been Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecologi-
cal systems theory. As Figure 3.2 shows, Bronfenbrenner’s model envisions a
MACROSYSTEM
Attitudes and ideologies of the culture
EXOSYSTEM
Extended family
MESOSYSTEM
MICROSYSTEM
Friends of
Neighbors
family Family School
CHILD
Sex
Health
Age Peers
services
Health
etc.
Church Neighborhood
Mass group play area Legal
media services
Social welfare
services
Figure 3.2 Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. Note. From: Kopp, Claire B. and
Krakow, Joanne B., The Child: Development in Social Context, 1st Ed. Copyright 1982. Printed and
electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, New York.
Pa r e n t i n g 63
number of intertwined ecological levels, varying from immediate and proximal

to maximally broad and distal. A basic tenet of the approach is that the effects
of any given ecological level cannot be fully understood without taking into
account other levels—i n the present case, that effects of parenting (an aspect of
the microsystem) cannot be understood without taking into account the cultural
context (an aspect of the macrosystem). The work on parenting demonstrates
that there is in fact an interaction of the microsystem and the macrosystem: The
effects of a particular parental style vary depending on the cultural setting in
which parent and child are embedded.
Before leaving this discussion, I should say something about a particular mac-
rosystem construct that has been the focus of considerable research: the vari-
able of SES. Although its specific operationalization may vary across studies,
SES is defined by some combination of education, occupation, and income. It is
an example of what Bronfenbrenner (1979) labeled a “social address” variable—
that is, a variable whose levels are defined by naturally occurring social groups.
As such, SES is not a directly causal factor; rather it is a marker for whatever the
causal factors may be that are associated with its different levels. For this reason,
SES can be argued to be of limited interest in itself, for it is at best a starting point
for research. As we will see, however, numerous examinations of SES appear in
the theory-of-m ind literature; thus it is worth taking a moment to summarize
what the general literature on parenting and SES shows.
It shows two things (Hoff et al., 2002; Parke & Buriel, 2006). First, on
the average, parenting differs across SES levels. In comparison to higher SES
parents, parents of lower SES talk to their children less, they restrict them
and punish them more, and they are more likely to be authoritarian in their
overall parenting style. Second—a nd again on the average—t hese forms of
less than optimal parenting are associated with relatively poor developmental
outcomes.
Mothers and Fathers

As noted earlier, fathers have been given a more prominent role in recent research
than was once the case. Among the sources for fuller coverage than I provide are
Lamb (2010), Marsiglio and Roy (2012), and Parke (2002).
A natural first question is how fathers compare to mothers. Although fathers’
involvement in child care has increased across recent decades, it still falls short,
on the average, in comparison to the time devoted by mothers. Surveys from the
late 1990s suggest that fathers in the United States spend approximately 70% as
much time in interaction with their children as do mothers (Pleck & Masciadrelli,
2004). Although this figure may not seem impressive, it is approximately twice
the value yielded by similar mother–father comparisons in the 1970s (see also
Pleck, 2010).
There are also on-t he-average differences between spouses in how the time
with children is used, with fathers spending proportionally more of their time
in play, especially physical forms of play, than do mothers. Although this pat-
tern has been found across a number of different cultures, it is important to note
that it is not universal, for there are some settings in which no such differences
are evident. It is also important to note that fathers’ relatively low engagement
in traditional caregiving activities (feeding, changing, dressing) does not imply
an inability to perform these functions; the evidence indicates that in most
instances fathers are just as skilled as mothers (Parke, 2002). Thus fathers can be
all-purpose caregivers for their children; most, however, perform this role less
often than do mothers.
Most of the work on parenting styles has focused on mothers. Baumrind’s
studies, however, included fathers, and she reported that mothers and fathers
matched in style in 76% of the cases (Baumrind, 1991). More generally, research
with fathers reveals that the same contrasts among parenting styles and the
same effects of the different styles are evident as is true for mothers (Marsiglio,
Amato, Day, & Lamb, 2000). In particular, authoritative parenting by fathers has
been shown to be beneficial for a range of developmental outcomes, again both
social (e.g., fewer behavioral problems, increased self-esteem) and cognitive (e.g.,
enhanced performance in school). More generally, involvement of the father in
the child’s development is clearly beneficial; children with resident fathers fare
better on the average than those without a father in the home, and within the for-
mer group those whose fathers are actively engaged in the child’s socialization
fare better than those who lack such active involvement.
The contemporary interest in the family as a system suggests that mothers and
fathers need to be studied not just separately but also in combination. One finding
that emerges from a joint consideration of both parents was touched on earlier.
The quality of the relationship between the parents relates to the quality of chil-
dren’s development: the more positive the relationship, the better the develop-
ment (Cummings & Merrilees, 2010). Various factors probably contribute to this
finding, including the fact that parents in a conflicted relationship are less likely
to adopt an optimal childrearing style.
The quality of the parental relationship overlaps with another construct: that
of coparenting. As the term suggests, coparenting refers to how parents work
together—or perhaps fail to work together—as they rear their children. Three
general patterns have been identified (McHale, 2010). The cooperative pattern
is characterized by a cohesive, harmonious, child-centered approach to parent-
ing; the hostile pattern reflects a more competitive, adult-centered approach in
which the parents compete for the child’s loyalty; and the unbalanced pattern is
characterized by an imbalance in the division of labor, with one parent devoting
considerably more time and energy to the task of parenting than the other. Not
surprisingly, it is the cooperative pattern that is associated with the most positive
Pa r e n t i n g 65
developmental outcomes; children exposed to the hostile pattern of coparenting

tend to be high in aggression, and those exposed to the unbalanced pattern often
rank high in anxiety (McHale, 2010).
Boys and Girls
In what ways does parenting of boys differ from parenting of girls? In fewer
ways than many people believe, at least according to some early reviews of the
topic. One conclusion from Maccoby and Jacklin’s (1974) The Psychology of Sex
Differences was of a “surprising degree of similarity in the rearing of boys and girls”
(p. 362). A subsequent meta-analysis by Lytton and Romney (1991) reached a
similar conclusion. Of the eight domains of socialization addressed in the review
(e.g., amount of interaction, encouragement of dependency, disciplinary strict-
ness), only one showed a significant difference in how the sexes were treated: the
category of encouragement of sex-t yped activities. It is important also to remem-
ber that differential treatment of boys and girls does not in itself establish the
causal direction for the relation. It may be that parents are responding to rather
than creating differences in their children.
Contemporary views of gender socialization attribute a stronger role to par-
ents than these earlier summaries, while acknowledging that parental behavior
is hardly the only explanation for gender differences in development. A variety
of kinds of evidence, however, indicate that parental behavior is almost certainly
one of the explanations (Eagly & Wood, 2013; Leaper, 2002). Here I single
out three of the most general ways in which parents can contribute to gender
differences.
One is the form of differential treatment identified by Lytton and Romney
(1991): encouragement of sex-typed activities. Included in this category was
encouragement of different kinds of toys and play (e.g., dolls vs. blocks), as well
as allocation of different chores or responsibilities around the house. As numer-
ous commentators have pointed out, seemingly trivial distinctions between the
sexes in such matters may have a much broader impact on children’s development.
It is possible, for example, that boys’ average superiority in spatial skills has its
origin in their extensive experience playing with blocks and other construction
materials.
A second area in which parents may contribute to gender differences is aca-
demic expectations and aspirations. Lytton and Romney (1991) concluded
that parents did not socialize boys and girls differently either for achievement
in general or for mathematics achievement in particular. More recent research
has reached a different conclusion. In particular, research by Jacquelynne
Eccles and colleagues (Eccles, Freedman-Doan, Frome, Jacobs, & Yoon,
2000) has shown that parents tend to hold lower expectations for girls’ ability
in math than for boys’ ability, even though there are no gender differences in
math performance in the early school years. Over time, these expectations
are transmitted to their daughters, the girls’ own expectations for and inter-
est in math decline, and their performance in math begins to lag behind that
of boys. Evidence exists for a similar phenomenon in the domain of science
(Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003).
A third way in which parents may promote differences between the sexes is
through the way they talk to children. A meta-a nalysis by Leaper, Anderson,
and Sanders (1998) identified a number of on-the-average differences in
mothers’ speech with daughters compared to their speech with sons (studies
with fathers were too infrequent to include in the analysis). The differences,
I should note, varied some across age levels and across settings. In general,
however, mothers talked more to daughters than to sons, they used more sup-
portive statements with daughters than with sons, and they were more direc-
tive (more imperatives, more direct suggestions) with daughters than with
sons. These differences, the researchers suggested, seemed to have the goal—
and might well have the effect—of socializing different outcomes in the two
sexes: interpersonal closeness for daughters, autonomy and independence
for sons.
One specific finding under the parental-talk heading is worth singling out.
Parents tend to talk more about emotions to daughters than to sons, especially the
negative emotion of sadness (Fivush & Buckner, 2000). Girls’ greater willingness
to talk about and share emotions may stem at least in part from these early conver-
sational experiences. In any case, the emotion-talk findings make the point that
some ways in which parents treat boys and girls differently may be both subtle and
quite unconscious on the parents’ part.
I conclude this discussion of differential socialization with two general points.
The first is that this literature sometimes, although by no means always, shows
gender differences at both the adult and the child level. When gender differences
occur at the adult level, it is usually fathers who are more likely to treat boys and
girls differently. When differences occur at the child level, it is usually boys who
receive more pressure to adhere to the gender-t ypical role.
The second point is that boys and girls may differ in two ways in their
socialization experiences. One way—which has been the focus of the present
section—is that they may receive different socialization experiences. The other
way is that they may be affected differently by the same experience. Work on
parenting styles provides an example of this latter point. Although authoritar-
ian rearing is clearly not optimal for either boys or girls, the negative effects
of such rearing are in general greater for boys than they are for girls (Parke &
Buriel, 2006). This finding is one of a number of instances in which boys seem
to be more vulnerable to adverse experiences than are girls. Boys, for exam-
ple, are more affected by single parenthood, poverty, and divorce than are girls
(Bugental & Grusec, 2006).
Pa r e n t i n g 67
Parents and Peers
That peers can be important socialization agents is, as I said, not in dispute. Here
I concentrate on what we know about the interplay of the peer and parent social
worlds.
One issue under this heading concerns the relative importance of peers and
parents. As we saw, this is an issue on which J. R. Harris (1995, 1998) made a
strong claim. In her words, “the home environment has no lasting effects on
psychological characteristics. The shared environment that leaves permanent
marks on children’s personalities is the environment they share with their
peers” (J. R. Harris, 1995, p. 483).
While admitting the importance of peers, most developmental psychologists
would offer several amendments to this conclusion. One is that the importance
of peers—as well as the relative importance of peers and parents—varies across
different aspects of development. There is no doubt that that peers can be impor-
tant for immediate life-style choices (e.g., what clothes to wear, what music to
listen to). There is also no doubt that in some instances peers can influence more
important decisions, including decisions in a negative direction. Indeed, all
of the potential behavioral problems of adolescence (smoking, drinking, drug
use, violence, premarital sex) have been shown to be subject to peer influence
(Dishion & Tipsord, 2011). Nevertheless, for the broadest and most important
developmental outcomes (educational orientation, occupational aspirations,
religious commitment) research supports two general conclusions (Berndt,
Miller, & Park, 1989; Sebald, 1989; Steinberg & Morris, 2001). First, for most
children the views of peers and the views of parents are more in accord than they
are in conflict. Second, when conflicts do occur, it is usually the views of the
parents that win out.
A second amendment to Harris’s conclusion is related. It is that effects of peers
cannot be evaluated without also taking into account the parents, for the two
social worlds are far from independent. It is not a coincidence, for example, that
the values of peers and the values of parents tend to be in accord; parents are one
determinant of the peers with whom the child associates. Children vary in how
susceptible they are to peer influence, and parents are one determinant of how
susceptible the child is. Finally and more generally, parents are one determinant
of the child’s success in the peer group—how popular the child is, the number and
quality of the child’s friendships.
Parents can affect their children’s peer relationships in various ways. One
way begins very early in development, before most children have even begun
to interact with peers. The quality of attachment to the parents in infancy is
a predictor of later peer relations (Booth-L aForce & Kerns, 2009; Schneider,
Atkinson, & Tardif, 2001). Children with a secure attachment show more
social competence in their interactions with peers, they are more likely to form
satisfactory friendships, and they tend to rank high on measures of general

acceptance by the peer group. One possible explanation for these effects—a
theoretical position that I return to in Chapter 5—i s that children form inter-
nal working models in their relationships with parents, working models that
then guide their subsequent social interactions (Bowlby, 1980). Children with
secure attachments have formed primarily positive models of both the self and
others, and these models serve them well when they interact with new social
partners.
Once children begin to interact with other children, parents can play a more
direct role in how successfully they fare. Gary Ladd (Ladd, 1992; Ladd & Pettit,
2002) has identified four ways in which parents may influence their children’s
peer interactions: (a) As designers of the child’s environment, parents make deci-
sions that affect the availability of peers and the settings (e.g., a safe vs. hazard-
ous neighborhood) in which peer interactions can occur; as mediators, parents
arrange peer contacts for their children and guide their choice of play partners; as
supervisors, parents monitor their children’s peer interactions and offer guidance
and support as needed; and as consultants, parents provide more general advice
and emotional support with regard to their children’s relationships with peers.
Research indicates that parents vary in how often and how skillfully they perform
these roles and that these variations among parents in turn relate to variations in
children’s success with peers.
A third way in which parents contribute to success with peers is through their
general childrearing style. Peer relationships turn out to be yet another topic
for which the authoritative style of child rearing has proved to be best (Rubin,
Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). As with the other contributors discussed in this sec-
tion, this conclusion holds across a number of measures of peer success. Children
of authoritative parents rank high in the social skills relevant to interaction with
peers. They are more likely than are children in general to have high-quality
friendships. And they typically rank near the top on measures of sociometric
standing (i.e., general evaluations by the peer group).
A final amendment to Judith Harris’s conclusion has already been implied.
Parents and peers are not an either/or question; both can be important. Laurence
Steinberg— a long-
time researcher of both parenting and adolescence—
summarizes the argument as follows:
How could it be that adolescents’ development is influenced by the

people with whom they interact—as Harris admits, by pointing to
the importance of peer influence—but not affected by the people who
have lived with them, raised them, and tried to influence them since the
moment they were born? Is it conceivable that evolution would have led
to the development of human organisms that are influenced by everyone
other than their parents? (Steinberg, 2001, p. 11)
Pa r e n t i n g 69
Children’s Effects on Parents

As we saw, the emphasis on peers as socialization agents was one component
in Judith Harris’s (1995, 1998) argument for the unimportance of parents.
Another component was a reinterpretation of the causal basis for parent–child
correlations—a reinterpretation in which the causality runs from child to parent
rather than from parent to child. As with the emphasis on peers, this idea was
hardly new to the field when Harris proposed it; recall that Bell’s (1968) influ-
ential paper had appeared almost 30 years earlier. With both topics, however,
Harris’s writings brought a new sensitivity to possibilities that up until then had
not received the attention they deserved.
Children can affect their parents’ socialization efforts in two ways. One way is
that different children may elicit different socialization practices. The other way is
that different children may respond differently to the same socialization practice.
This is the same distinction that we saw with respect to possible gender differ-
ences in socialization—boys and girls may receive different treatment, and boys
and girls may respond differently to the same treatment.
Work on temperament provides examples of both sorts of effect (Bates & Pettit,
2015). One construct that emerged from the seminal research on temperament by
Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1968) was that of difficult temperament. Difficult tem-
perament is characterized by irritability, unpredictability, high levels of arousal,
and difficulty adapting to new situations. In contrast, the child with an easy
temperament shows the opposite constellation of characteristics—thus gener-
ally positive affect, predictable schedules, and so forth. Perhaps not surprisingly,
parents tend to respond differently to the two kinds of temperament (Putnam,
Sanson, & Rothbart, 2002). Probably the most common pattern is what would
be expected: higher levels of parental warmth and responsiveness with the easy
child and more negative affect and withdrawal with the difficult child. In some
instances, however, parents may make a special effort to cope with the challenges
of a difficult temperament, and in these instances it may be the difficult child who
receives heightened levels of parental involvement and responsiveness. In either
case, the effects of the child’s temperament show a clear child-to-parent causal
direction.
The temperament literature also provides examples of the second point: that
different children may respond differently to the same parental treatment. Perhaps
the most often cited example comes from research by Kochanska (1995). This
research focused on toddlers with two distinct patterns of temperament: either
relatively fearful or relatively fearless. The measures of parenting were those
described early in this chapter in the Methodological Challenges section; that
is, various techniques to elicit the child’s compliance either in putting away play
materials or in not touching a set of forbidden toys. As we saw, power-assertive
techniques of control in general did not work out very well. Power assertion,
however, was especially ineffective for children with fearful temperaments,

presumably because it created too high a level of anxiety. For those children an
approach labeled guidance and gentle discipline (e.g., reasoning, polite requests,
positive incentives) was most effective. Power assertion, although not optimal,
was less detrimental for children with fearless temperaments. For those children
security of attachment was the best predictor of compliance with the mother’s
directions. Results such as these (and there are numerous other examples in the
temperament literature) “suggest different developmental pathways for tempera-
mentally dissimilar children” (Putnam et al., 2002, p. 266).
Although differences in temperament are one basis for children’s effects on
their parents, they are hardly the only source. Another example concerns the
Baumrind parenting styles. Individual differences in adjustment during adoles-
cence predict changes over time in parents’ general style of child rearing (Kerr,
Stattin, & Ozdemir, 2012). Specifically, relatively poor adjustment early in adoles-
cence (i.e., high levels of both internalizing and externalizing problems) predicts
an increase in neglectful parenting and a decrease in authoritative parenting later
in adolescence.
Just as with the issue of parents and peers, the direction-of-effects question
need not have a single answer. The existence of child-to-parent effects does not
preclude the simultaneous possibility of parent-to-child effects. The Kochanska
research program, in fact, consistently demonstrates effects of parents’ child
rearing on their children’s moral development. And the domain of temperament
clearly shows effects in both directions. Children’s temperaments do affect their
parents’ behaviors toward them. But parents’ behaviors also affect their children’s
temperaments. Temperament is only partially genetic in origin, and what parents
do is one of the environmental contributors both to the temperament the child
eventually develops and the effects of temperament on other aspects of develop-
ment (Bates & Rothbart, 2006).
As I noted earlier, most contemporary models assume that parent–child effects
are not only bidirectional but also transactional—t hat is, that each partner influ-
ences the other in a continual back-and-forth process over time. Figure 3.3 pro-
vides an illustration of the transactional model. The illustration is taken from a
book titled The Transactional Model of Development (Sameroff, 2009), which, as
E1 E2 E3 E4
C1 C2 C3 C4
Figure 3.3 The transactional model of development. C refers to child, and E refers to

environment.
Pa r e n t i n g 71
the title suggests, is a rich source of examples of the transactional approach. As

Figure 3.3 indicates, any aspect of the environment might enter into a back-and-
forth relation with the child, a relation in which each element both affects and is
affected by the other over time. The parent–child dyad is simply one of the most
important examples of this principle.
Parke and Buriel (2006) make a further point about child effects on parents,
a point that they draw from writings in evolutionary psychology (e.g., Geary &
Bjorklund, 2000). The discussion so far has been about how differences among
children elicit different responses from parents. But children also present impor-
tant commonalities that affect how parents and others respond to them. All young
babies, for example, are small and helpless and (at least to most adults) appeal-
ing, and all emit the same sorts of signals when happy or hungry or in distress.
The question of the interplay between universal characteristics of childhood and
parental behaviors is one we will return to, especially when discussing early forms
of theory of mind.
Domains of Socialization
The term domain refers to distinct areas of development or (in adulthood) distinct
areas of psychological functioning. Depending on the theorist’s interests, there
are various ways to divide the psychological realm into domains, and a number of
different domain models have been proposed. In this section I consider the most
general domain model in the parenting literature, a conceptualization first offered
by Bugental and Goodnow (1998) and subsequently elaborated in a number of
publications (Bugental, 2000; Bugental & Grusec, 2006; Grusec, 2011; Grusec &
Davidov, 2010, 2015). For another interesting, although more narrowly focused,
approach to domains of parenting, see Smetana (1997).
The particular domains that are discussed vary somewhat across the sources
listed in the preceding paragraph, in part simply with respect to terminology but
also in part substantively. My discussion is based on the classification of domains
in Grusec (2011) and Grusec and Davidov (2010, 2015). Table 3.5 provides an
overview of the five domains that these articles discuss. The following passage
from Grusec summarizes some of the essential elements of the domain approach:
This approach assumes that parent–child interactions or relationships

can be partitioned into several domains and that the mechanisms that
govern socialization in these domains as well as the child outcomes
occurring in each domain are different. Each type of relationship has an
evolutionary underpinning, its own developmental course, and its own
set of regulatory mechanisms. And, importantly, parenting cannot be
successful unless it is matched to the domain in which the child is oper-
ating. (p. 249)
Table 3.5 Domains of Socialization
Domain Nature of parent– Parental behavior Mechanism of

child relationship that is required socialization
Protection Provider-recipient Alleviate child’s Confidence in
of protection distress protection
Reciprocity Exchange/equality Comply with child’s Innate
reasonable requests tendency to
and influence reciprocate
attempts
Control Hierarchical Use discipline Acquired
method best suited self-control
for achieving
parental goal
Guided Teacher–student Match teaching Internalization
learning to child’s of language
changing level and approach
of understanding used by the
teacher
Group Joint members Enable child to Firm sense of
participation of the same social observe and take social identity
group part in appropriate
cultural practices
Note. From “Integrating Different Perspectives on Socialization Theory and Research:

A Domain-Specific Approach,” by J. Grusec and M. Davidov, 2012, Child Development, 81, p. 694.
Copyright 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
As this passage indicates, the domain approach identifies yet another way in
which context is important in the study of parenting. The particular parental prac-
tices that are optimal vary across domains, and a practice that works well in one
context (e.g., soothing distress in the protection domain) may be less effective
in another context (e.g., eliciting compliance in the control domain). Similarly,
a parent who is relatively successful at the tasks of one domain (e.g., achieving
disciplinary goals in the control domain) may be less successful at other aspects of
parenting (e.g., teaching effectively in the guided learning domain). Researchers,
therefore, should not expect to find across-the-board relations that identify
“good” parents or “good” practices, for what is good may vary from one context
to another.
The preceding does not mean that parenting consists solely of a number of iso-
lated areas with no interconnections. Many socialization encounters may involve
more than one domain. A mother, for example, might both comfort her upset child
Pa r e n t i n g 73
(an aspect of the protection domain) and simultaneously teach the child how to
self-regulate her emotions (an aspect of the guided learning domain). A parent
might prohibit some behavior that a child wishes to engage in (thus operating
in the control domain) and at the same time shield the child from harm if the
behavior is a potentially dangerous one (thus activating the protection domain).
In some instances interaction in one domain may lead immediately to a need
to deal with another domain. For example, an episode of mutually agreed upon
mother–child play (the reciprocity domain) might lead to a temper tantrum when
the mother says that the play must end, thus requiring both behaviors to termi-
nate the tantrum (the control domain) and behaviors to comfort the upset child
(the protection domain).
A further qualifier is that the notion of domains does not mean that everything
is context-specific and therefore that there are no overall differences in quality
either among parents or among parental practices. We have already seen that
research confirms what everyday observation suggests: that some parents are in
general more skilled at the task of parenting than are others. One contributor to
such variations in parenting success is that some parents are better at reading their
children’s needs and at matching their behaviors to the domain in question than
are others, and it is those parents whose children generally have the most satisfac-
tory developmental outcomes. Similarly, while some parental practices may be
domain-specific, others, if appropriately applied, can be valuable techniques of
socialization across a number of different domains. We consider one such prac-
tice, the use of reasoning, in the next section.
Return to Practices
In a recent review, Morris et al. (2013) identify three trends in parenting research.
Two of the trends I have already discussed: understanding child effects on parent-
ing and placing parenting in a broader social context. The third trend they refer to
as the “unpacking of parenting styles.” As we saw, the core notion of the construct
of parenting style is that parental practices need to be considered in context and
not simply in isolation. Nevertheless, many researchers believe that some prac-
tices are important enough and pervasive enough to deserve attention in their
own right—hence the “unpacking.” Here I consider three practices that have been
the focus of a good deal of study.
Reasoning. One is reasoning. The general conclusion here is clear: Reasoning
is an effective technique of discipline. As with any general statement about
parenting, however, this conclusion comes with a number of “it-depends”
qualifiers.
A first qualifier is that the child must be able to understand the reasoning. There
are, then, clear developmental constraints—no one reasons with a 6-month-old.
In general, the effectiveness of reasoning increases with age, and the complexity
of the reasoning to which the child can respond increases with age. Nevertheless,
reasoning, if conveyed in a developmentally appropriate manner, can be effective

quite early in development. Zahn-Waxler and colleagues (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-
Yarrow, & King, 1979) examined two forms of prosocial behavior in a sample of
1½-to 2½-year-olds: reparations for a transgression they had just committed and
altruism toward a peer in distress. Also examined were the mothers’ responses
following their child’s transgressions, the question being which sorts of maternal
response would be associated with future prosocial behavior. The most effective
responses were explanations that stressed the consequences of the child’s behav-
ior for others—for example, “Amy is crying because it hurts to be hit.” “You made
Billy sad when you took his toy.”
The Zahn-Waxler et al. (1979) findings raise a further point about reasoning,
and that is that some forms of reasoning work better than others. Explanations
of the “You made Billy sad” sort are simple forms of what are known as other-
oriented inductions—t hat is, techniques that attempt to convey to the child how
others are affected by his or her actions. Other-oriented inductions have proved
to be an especially effective form of reasoning across a range of ages and a range
of disciplinary situations (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). Such explanations
have long been stressed in a major theory of moral development, that of Martin
Hoffman (1970, 2000). According to Hoffman, several characteristics of induc-
tions contribute to their effectiveness: Because they provide a reason for compli-
ance, they are not viewed as arbitrary and thus resisted by the child; because they
require active cognitive processing and focus on the child’s actions, they are likely
to be remembered even in the absence of the disciplinary agent; and finally, they
create an optimal level of arousal, sufficient to direct attention but not so great as
to disrupt learning.
The last point raises a further qualifier with respect to the effectiveness of rea-
soning, and that is that a reason alone is seldom sufficient. The reason must be
delivered with enough force to capture the child’s attention and to convey the
importance of complying with the parent’s directive. In the words of Zahn-Waxler
et al. (1979), “The effective induction is not calmly dispensed reasoning, carefully
designed to enlighten the child; it is emotionally imposed, sometimes harshly and
often forcefully” (p. 327). Furthermore, the reasoning must be accompanied by
other parental practices that make the child both want to comply (thus sufficient
warmth and responsiveness) and be likely to comply (thus sufficient control). As
we saw, reasoning is one component of the authoritative style; it is only one com-
ponent, however.
Monitoring. The term monitoring refers to “a set of correlated parenting behav-
iors involving attention to and tracking of the child’s whereabouts, activities, and
adaptations” (Dishion & McMahon, 1998, p. 61). Monitoring, in short, refers to
how parents come to know what they do about what their children do. As such,
it is an important component of the involvement and control dimensions that are
stressed in work on parenting styles.
Pa r e n t i n g 75
Although monitoring can be an issue as early as the preschool years, most

research has concentrated on adolescence. Most of this research, in turn, has
focused on negative outcomes that may occur in the absence of sufficient moni-
toring. Relatively low monitoring is in fact associated with a number of negative
outcomes in adolescence: poorer performance in school; negative evaluations
from the peer group; association with deviant peers; heightened probabilities of
smoking, drinking, illegal drug use, and delinquency (Crouter & Head, 2002).
In most instances the relation between monitoring and the outcomes of inter-
est is a linear one—t hat is, the lower the monitoring, the poorer the outcome.
Some studies of academic performance, however, have reported a curvilinear
relation, whereby moderate levels of monitoring seem to work better than either
too little or too much (Kurdek, Fine, & Sinclair, 1995). This finding suggests that
in some instances high levels of monitoring may shade (at least from the child’s
perspective) into bothersome intrusiveness and may therefore result in more
harm than good.
As Crouter and Head (2002) note, most research on monitoring has not actu-
ally measured parents’ monitoring activities directly; rather monitoring has been
inferred from measures of the parent’s knowledge of the child, the assumption
being that greater knowledge reflects better monitoring. There is, however, another
possibility: Perhaps greater parental knowledge reflects the fact that some chil-
dren more readily share information with their parents than do others. The locus,
in short, may be more in the child than in the parent. This is exactly what Stattin
and Kerr (2000) found in a study of more than 700 Swedish adolescents and their
parents. Although parents’ attempts to monitor their children did contribute
some to parental knowledge, the bulk of what parents knew about their children’s
activities came from spontaneous disclosures by the child. Furthermore, it was
knowledge gained from child disclosure that was the best predictor of the specific
outcomes (various delinquent behaviors) that were the focus of the research.
A final conclusion about monitoring is perhaps predictable given the impor-
tance of child self-d isclosure. The best predictor of parents’ knowledge about
their children is the overall quality of the parent–child relationship (Crouter &
Head, 2002).
Physical punishment. The question of physical punishment is undoubtedly
the most controversial issue in the parenting literature. Part of the debate relates
to ethical and legal concerns: Is it ethical to strike children, and if not, should such
practices be made illegal (as is the case in 33 countries)? Here I concentrate on the
empirical question: How well does physical punishment work?
An influential meta-analysis by Gershoff (2002) addressed this ques-
tion (see also Gershoff, 2010, 2013). Gershoff’s initial review examined rela-
tions between physical punishment and 11 different child or adult outcomes.
Significant relations emerged on every measure. In one case the effect was a
positive one: Physical punishment was associated with a heightened probability
of immediate compliance with the parent’s directives. Such compliance is pre-

sumably one goal that parents have in using punishment, and thus in this sense
punishment seems to work as intended. All of the other outcomes, however,
were negative. Thus relatively high levels of physical punishment were related
to low levels of moral internalization, high levels of aggression, an increased
probability of becoming a victim of physical abuse, an increased probability
of delinquency in adolescence, and an increased probability of criminality in
adulthood.
I should add that not all psychologists agree in full with Gershoff’s conclusions
(Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002; Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005). Although
these critics cite a number of specific points of contention, two are primary.
One is that the relevant evidence is (necessarily) correlational, and thus causal-
ity cannot be established with certainty. In particular, it may be that the causal
direction is the reverse of that typically assumed—t hat children who are experi-
encing difficulties in development elicit physical punishment from their parents.
The second criticism is that the analysis fails to distinguish between severe forms
of punishment that no psychologist advocates (e.g., slapping in the face, beating
with a stick) and “the more moderate application of normative spanking within
the context of a generally supportive parent–child relationship” (Baumrind
et al., 2002, pp. 580–581). The latter, Baumrind and colleagues argue, has not
been shown to be harmful. Indeed, occasional spanking was used by most of the
authoritative parents in the Baumrind studies.
Psychologists, then, are not totally agreed on the question of physical punish-
ment. Probably all would agree, however, with the conclusion that Joan Grusec
(2011) offers in her recent review of parenting: “One thing that is clear from a
reading of the literature is that any form of physical power assertion needs to be
mild, infrequent, age appropriate, and used in the context of a positive parent–
child relationship” (p. 253).
4
General Aspects of Parenting

and Theory of Mind
As its title indicates, this chapter discusses the relation between broad, general
approaches to parenting and children’s theory of mind. It is therefore the chapter
that maps most closely onto the material considered in Chapter 3. The remaining
chapters focus on more specific aspects of the parenting–t heory of mind relation.
This chapter is divided into four sections. It begins with one of the major top-
ics of Chapter 3, parenting styles. Because a full assessment of styles is rare in the
literature, this section also considers studies that have examined at least one of
the dimensions that define styles—for example, warmth or control.
Not all general approaches to parenting fall under the styles/d imensions head-
ing. The second section of the chapter considers a variety of other approaches that
fit the general but not the styles classification. A major topic under this heading is
parents’ socialization of emotion understanding.
The third section of the chapter addresses one of the topics considered in
Chapter 3: socioeconomic status (SES). We saw there that SES is associated
with on-t he-average effects in the general parenting literature; the question now
is whether similar effects emerge when theory of mind is the child outcome of
interest.
With SES, the variations across families are relatively minor. The final section
of the chapter discusses three more serious departures from the typical family
situation: the effects of forms of parenting that fall outside the scope of normal
and expectable variations in the parent–child relationship (e.g., physical abuse);
the effects of parental mental illness (e.g., depression, schizophrenia) on parent-
ing and on children’s development; and the effects on development when parents
are absent from the child’s early life, that is, the development of children in insti-
tutional settings.
77
Parenting Styles and Dimensions

Table 4.1 provides an overview of the studies to be discussed in this section of the
chapter. In most instances the samples for the research have consisted of predom-
inantly White parents and children from the United States, Canada, or England;
when this was not the case, Table 4.1 indicates the nature of the sample. The Child
Measures column is limited to the theory-of-m ind measures that were the main
outcome measures of interest in all of the studies. In some instances other rel-
evant child measures were included, and in these cases I consider the additional
measures when the study is discussed.
A Few Preliminary Points
A first point is that all of the studies reviewed are correlational—that is, they
measure but do not experimentally manipulate parenting practices and child
outcomes. Because they are correlational, they cannot establish cause-and-effect
relations with certainty. The usual assumption—which is the usual assump-
tion in parenting research in general—is that significant correlations reflect the
effects of parental practices on children’s development. It is possible, however,
that the causal direction is the reverse—t hat it is children who are affecting their
parents. Perhaps, for example, children with relatively advanced theory-of-m ind
skills elicit particular kinds of treatment from their parents. This is a possibility
that is explicitly considered by several of the researchers whose work is reviewed
here (Guajardo, Snyder, & Petersen, 2009; Pears & Moses, 2003; Ruffman et al.,
1999). It is also possible that some third factor accounts for the parent–child
correlations. One possibility under this heading is shared genes: Perhaps rela-
tively intelligent parents favor particular parenting practices; these parents pass
intelligence-enhancing genes on to their children, and these children therefore
perform relatively well on cognitive measures, including theory of mind. If so, we
would have an effect of parents—not, however, of parenting.
Table 3.2 summarized various ways to address the directionality and third-
factor issues. The main possibilities in the former case are longitudinal and
experimental studies. This literature contains three longitudinal studies (Rohrer,
Cicchetti, Rogosch, Toth, & Maughan, 2011; Ruffman, Slade, Devitt, & Crowe,
2006; Symons & Clark, 2000); experimental studies have yet to appear. Statistical
controls for third-factor alternatives (e.g., parent education level) do appear in a
number of studies. The adoption design has not yet been used, however, and thus
shared genes remain a possible explanation for parent–child relations.
A second issue concerns measurement of parental practices. All three of the
general approaches to the measurement of parenting appear in the studies con-
sidered in this section: home observation, lab observation, and verbal report.
G e n e ra l A s p e c t s o f Pa r e n t i n g a n d T h e o r y o f M i n d 79
Table 4.1 Studies Relating Parenting Style or Parenting Dimensions

to Theory of Mind
Study Child Child measures Parenting measures

participants
Cahill et al. 3-year-old twins False belief, Warmth and responsiveness
(2007) understanding of (scored from home
deception observations)
Cole & 4- and False belief, Socioeconomic (SES)
Mitchell 5-year-olds appearance- stress, authoritative and
(1998) reality, facial authoritarian practices
management (re (self-report)
deception)
Farrant Australian 4-to False belief, Maternal empathy,
et al. (2012) 6-year-olds diverse desires, parenting encouraging
diverse beliefs, of perspective-taking
emotional (self-report)
perspective
taking
Guajardo 3- to 5-year-olds Wellman & Stress; overreactive and lax
et al. (2009) Liu battery, parenting (self-report);
understanding of praise, imitation, command,
emotion criticism (scored from lab
observations)
Holmes- 3- to 6-year-olds Affective false Response to misbehavior,
Lonergan in Head Start belief coded as power assertion,
(2003) love withdrawal, or
induction (child report)
Hughes 3-year-old twins False belief, SES, warmth and negativity,
et al. (1999) (same sample as understanding of positive and negative
in Cahill et al., deception control (scored from home
2007) observations)
Hughes 2-year- Simple forms Harsh parenting (scored
& Ensor olds from of theory of from home and lab
(2006) disadvantaged mind (hiding observations)
families game, pretense,
mistaken beliefs)
(continued)
Table 4.1 Continued

participants
Humfress 12- and Strange Stories Parenting quality (conflict/
et al. (2002) 13-year-olds negativity, warmth, support,
monitoring/i nductive
control [child report])
Lewis et al. Chinese 3-to False belief Response to disciplinary
(2006) 5-year-olds situations (self-report),
scored as how feel, general
discussion, reprimand,
ambiguous
Murray 5-year-olds, False belief Recent maternal depression,
et al. (1999) some of whose parental conflict (interview
mothers measure), sensitivity of
had suffered maternal communication
postnatal (scored from lab
depression observations)
Olson et al. 3-year-olds False belief Warm responsiveness
(2011) and corporal punishment
(self-report)
O’Reilly & Australian 5-to Wellman & Liu Modified version of Vinden’s
Peterson 12-year-olds battery, affective PAI
(2014) false belief,
second-order
false belief
Pears & 3- to 5-year-olds False belief, Education, income, response
Moses understanding to negative behaviors (self-
(2003) of perception, report), scored as power
desire, and assertion, instruction,
emotion explanation, consequences
Rohrer et al. 3-year-olds, False belief Maternal depression,
(2001) followed maternal positivity and
longitudinally negativity during joint
to age 5 problem solving when the
child was 3 (scored from lab
observations)
Table 4.1 Continued
participants
Ruffman 3- to 5-year-olds False belief SES, response to
et al. (1999) disciplinary situations
(self-report), scored as how
feel, general discussion,
reprimand, ambiguous
Ruffman 3- year-olds, False belief, Mental state talk, aspects
et al. (2006) followed desire and of parenting style: positive
longitudinally emotion affect, negative affect,
to age 5 understanding responsiveness, social skill,
teaching, control (scored
from lab observations)
Shahaeian Iranian 4-and Wellman and Liu Modified version of the
et al. (2014) 5-year-olds scale, additional Ruffman et al. (1999)
diverse desire questionnaire
and diverse belief
tasks
Symons 2-year-olds, False belief, Maternal emotional stress
& Clark followed including a (self-report), maternal
(2000) longitudinally caregiver- sensitivity when the child
to age 5 location form was 2 (scored from home
observations)
Vinden Korean- False belief, PAI—maternal
(2001) American affective attitudes re three
and Anglo- false belief, dimensions: autonomy-
American 3-, 4-, appearance- granting, strictness, attitude
and 5-year-olds reality toward learning (self-report)
The majority of studies, however, have used verbal report, and in this respect
they mirror the general parenting literature. The majority have also used a single
approach to measurement, although a few reports do provide a convergence of
methods within the same study (Guajardo et al. 2009; Hughes, Deater-Deckard,
& Cutting, 1999; Hughes & Ensor, 2006; Murray, Woolgar, Briers, & Hipwell,
1999). Finally, it is rare, even in reports that talk about parenting styles, to find a
full assessment and discussion of all four of the Baumrind styles. It is interesting,
in this respect, to note that a recent article by Baumrind (2013, p. 12) refers to
“definitional drift” in the conception and measurement of parenting styles. There
is certainly some drift in the studies considered here.
As Table 4.1 shows, the preschool period has been by far the most common
focus for research, and the false belief task has been by far the most common
developmental outcome. As other chapters will show, the literature as a whole
does include other age periods (although almost always younger rather than
older) and a wider range of theory-of mind outcomes; the present studies, how-
ever, are limited on both dimensions. A further point is that in all instances
the variations in false belief that are examined are variations in rate of devel-
opment, which, as noted in Chapter 2, is the usual approach to individual dif-
ferences in the theory-of-m ind literature. Thus in most of the studies to be
reviewed, relatively good theory of mind means relatively fast mastery of false
belief.
Concurrent Relations
The expectation underlying the work on parenting styles has been that the
authoritative style will be beneficial for theory-of-m ind development and that the
authoritarian style will be detrimental. This pattern is, of course, what has been
found across a range of outcomes in the general parenting literature. Most of this
research, it should be noted, has examined children’s compliance with parental
directives and thus falls under the control domain of socialization (Table 3.5). It
is not immediately clear that the same parental practices that result in compliance
will also nurture understanding of mental states. The domain-specificity of paren-
tal practices is, as we have seen, a general theme in writings about domains of
socialization (e.g., Grusec & Davidov, 2010). As noted in Chapter 3, however, the
subset of parenting style studies with cognitive outcomes have generally reported
authoritative-authoritarian differences that parallel those in the literature as a
whole (Gauvain et al., 2013).
Why might authoritative parenting nurture theory of mind whereas authoritar-
ian parenting fails do so? The most obvious explanation concerns the emphasis on
reasoning and discussion that characterizes the former but not the latter approach.
Ruffman et al. (1999) summarize the argument as follows: “Authoritarian parent-
ing is characterized by strict punishment and poor communication, but discus-
sion and communication must be the means by which mothers teach children
about others’ mental states if mothers are to play any role in this regard” (p. 396).
Vinden (2001) offers a similar argument while adding a point about the impor-
tance of the control dimension: “Authoritative parenting, by both providing
structure yet also encouraging the child’s autonomy, simultaneously offers the
child the parent’s perspective while acknowledging the child’s perspective. In
this way, the authoritative parent is constantly providing the child with oppor-
tunity to reflect on dual, and possibly conflicting, perspectives on the world”
(pp. 796–797). I will add that the warmth and responsiveness that characterize
the authoritative approach may also be important, for these qualities may increase
the probability that the child will attend to and be responsive to parental messages
(Darling & Steinberg, 1993).
Research provides some support for the expected benefits of the authoritative
approach (or at least aspects thereof) in comparison to an authoritarian style;
this conclusion comes, however, with a number of qualifications and exceptions.
Among the generally supportive sources are two of the reports cited in the preced-
ing paragraph: Ruffman et al. (1999) and Vinden (2001). The main finding of the
Ruffman et al. study (whose measurement of parental practices was summarized
in Box 3.1) was that maternal disciplinary responses that stressed the effects of
the child’s actions on the feelings of others (the How Feel category of discipline)
related positively to children’s understanding of false belief. The efficacy of such
responses fits with what we saw in Chapter 3 are general conclusions about the
value of other-oriented reasoning. In contrast, the General Discussion category
showed no relation to false belief success, and a relatively high use of Reprimand
related negatively to false belief understanding (although not significantly so
when other factors were controlled). In general, then, discussion and involvement
(two characteristics of the authoritative approach) appeared beneficial, but only
particular forms of discussion.
One further finding from the study is worth noting. Ruffman and colleagues
reported that How Feel responses were directed most frequently to the young-
est children within the study’s 3-to 5-year-old age span. Because the youngest
children were least likely to have mastered false belief, this finding suggests that
the How Feel responses were not elicited by the children’s relatively advanced
theory of mind; rather the causal direction for the correlation was from parent
to child.
Whereas the Ruffman et al. (1999) study reported positive effects of an aspect
of authoritative parenting, the Vinden (2001) study reported negative effects of
an aspect of the authoritarian style. Vinden’s measurement of parenting came
from an instrument constructed for the study: the Parenting Attitudes Inventory,
or PAI. The PAI assesses attitudes with respect to three dimensions relevant to
the authoritative–authoritarian distinction: encouragement of autonomy (e.g., “I
like to see a child have opinions and express them, even to an adult”), behavioral
control (e.g., “Children should do as they are told without questioning their par-
ents”), and freedom in learning (e.g., “It’s OK if my child tries to do things on his
own”). For the Anglo American families in the study there was a negative relation
between mothers’ endorsement of behavioral control and children’s theory-of-
mind understanding. As expected, therefore, an authoritarian approach to parent-
ing appeared to have a negative impact on theory-of-m ind development. Results
for the Korean American families, however, differed in two ways from those for
the Anglo families. First, the Korean American mothers ranked higher in authori-
tarianism than did the Anglo mothers. And second, there was no relation between
authoritarian parenting and theory of mind for the Korean American families.
Both findings, it should be clear, mirror conclusions from the general parenting
literature: Asian parents often score higher on measures of authoritarianism than
do Western parents, and authoritarianism is less likely to have detrimental effects
in Asian samples than in Western samples.
Follow-ups of the Ruffman et al. (1999) and Vinden (2001) studies provide
both some support for their general conclusions and some amendments. Using a
modified version of Vinden’s PAI, O’Reilly and Peterson (2014) reported effects
of parenting in both directions: a positive relation between authoritative parent-
ing and theory of mind, and a negative relation between authoritarian parenting
and theory of mind. Using a modified version of the Ruffman et al. questionnaire
and coding system, Shahaeian, Nielsen, Peterson, & Slaughter (2014) reported
that the Discuss category related positively to theory of mind and that a category
labeled Silence related negatively. They also found that the How Feel category,
although not often used by their Iranian sample, related positively to children’s
understanding of false belief. Finally, Lewis and colleagues (Lewis, Huang, &
Rooksby, 2006), working with a Chinese sample, reported no relation between
response to a slightly modified version of the Ruffman et al. (1999) questionnaire
and children’s false belief performance (performance that lagged behind that typ-
ical in Western samples). This, then, may be another case in which a pattern found
in Western samples does not generalize to Asian cultures. On the other hand, the
variability in both the parents’ responses and the children’s false belief perfor-
mance was low, and restriction of range is therefore another possible explanation
for the negative results.
The restriction-of-range argument may apply more generally to the studies
reviewed in this section. Ruffman et al. (2006) offer restriction of range as a pos-
sible explanation for their failure to find any relation between their measure of
parenting practices (with a special emphasis on warmth) and theory-of-m ind
development. As they note, their sample consisted primarily of middle-and
upper-income families, and parental practices were skewed toward the optimal
end of the dimensions measured. A somewhat different restriction-of-range
problem may account for the absence of significant results in Holmes-Lonergan
(2003), another study to report no relations between parental practices and child
performance. In Holmes-Lonergan’s sample of Head Start children and mothers,
approximately 75% of the maternal disciplinary responses (as reported by the
children) fell into the Power Assertion category.
That a relatively high use of power assertion can often be detrimental is clear
from other studies. We saw in Chapter 3 that this is a general conclusion from
the parenting literature, a conclusion that comes primarily from studies of behav-
ioral compliance but that also extends to work with cognitive outcomes (Pears
& Moses, 2003). In research with theory of mind as the outcome a number of
studies have reported negative effects of a relatively high use of power assertive
or harsh forms of discipline (Hughes et al., 1999; Hughes & Ensor, 2006; Olson,
Lopez-Duran, Lunkenheimer, Chang, & Sameroff, 2011; Pears & Moses, 2003;
Rohrer et al., 2011). This finding holds across several different outcome measures
and several different ways of measuring parental behavior. Conversely, relatively
high levels of parental warmth or parental empathy have emerged as a facilita-
tive factor in a number of reports (Cahill, Deater-Deckard, Pike, & Hughes, 2007;
Farrant, Devine, Maybery, & Fletcher, 2012; Olson et al., 2011). The Farrant
et al. (2012) study also found that mothers’ encouragement of perspective taking
related positively to children’s theory-of-m ind understanding, a finding compat-
ible with the value of How Feel responses reported by Ruffman et al. (1999).
On the other hand, and as is often true in parenting research, these conclu-
sions are accompanied by various exceptions and complications. In the Hughes
et al. (1999) study, the effects of parental practices varied with the sex of the
child. For girls, relatively high parental warmth was associated with good per-
formance on a battery of theory-of-m ind tasks. For boys, there was no effect of
parental warmth; rather, severity of discipline (high use of physical control and
criticism) related positively to theory-of-m ind performance. The finding for girls
is, of course, expectable, but that for boys is not. The authors make the intriguing,
although admittedly speculative, suggestion that the sex difference may be in part
child-d riven: that girls may use their budding theory-of-m ind skills to build affec-
tionate relationships with their parents, whereas boys use their skills in a testing-
the-l imits fashion that often results in parental discipline. This suggestion clearly
requires further testing.
The Hughes et al. (1999) study is not the only report of an unexpectedly ben-
eficial effect of power-assertive discipline. Pears and Moses (2003) examined
relations between power assertion (as determined from mothers’ reports of their
typical methods of discipline) and various measures of their children’s theory-
of-m ind understanding. When false belief was the outcome, power assertion
related negatively to children’s understanding, a conclusion that emerged from
both correlational and regression analyses. When understanding of emotions was
the outcome, however, the direction of the relation reversed, and power asser-
tion related positively to children’s understanding. Why might this be? Pears and
Moses suggest that a clear expression of emotions, especially anger, is likely to be
a frequent accompaniment of power-assertive discipline, and that children may
learn from their parents’ emotional displays. They also suggest that the parent’s
feelings about the disciplinary situation in question are likely to differ from the
child’s feelings, and that such differences in perspective may also help children to
learn about emotions. They also add, however, that the negative effects of power
assertion are likely to outweigh any limited and possibly transitory benefits of the
approach.
In some studies the interest has been not simply in the effects of parenting
on theory of mind but also in the interplay of parenting and theory of mind
with respect to some other developmental outcome. In a study by Hughes and
Ensor (2006) the outcome was behavioral problems in 2-year-olds, as measured

from both maternal reports and observations of mother–child interaction. Both
harsh parenting and deficits in theory of mind proved to be significant predic-
tors of behavioral problems. Although both findings are familiar ones from
the general literature, the demonstration of effects as early as age 2 is a novel
contribution of the study. A further contribution is the demonstration of an
interaction between the two predictors: Harsh parenting was most predictive
of behavioral problems when the child’s theory-of-m ind skills were low. The
authors suggest that theory-of-m ind skills may serve as a buffer against harsh
parenting—t hat the negative effects of such parenting are reduced “when chil-
dren have sufficient ToM [theory of mind] skills to recognise and anticipate
others’ feelings and intentions” (Hughes & Ensor, 2006, p. 493). As their study
also shows, however, harsh parenting makes it less likely that children will
develop the needed buffering skills.
The further outcome of interest in a study by Cahill and colleagues (Cahill
et al., 2007) was children’s feelings of self-worth. The child participants were
3-year-old twins (the same sample that had served as the basis for the Hughes
et al., 1999, report), and the measure of self-worth was the Eder (1990) puppet
task, a measure designed to assess aspects of self-concept in preschool children.
Maternal warmth, as scored from observations in the home, showed a modest
positive relation to the children’s theory-of-m ind understanding. When consid-
ered separately, both theory of mind and maternal warmth related positively,
although again modestly, to the self-worth scores. When the two predictors were
considered together, an interaction emerged: When warmth was high, theory of
mind related positively to self-worth; when warmth was low, the relation between
theory of mind and self-worth was negative (although significantly so in only
some analyses). The general message is the same as that in the Hughes and Ensor
(2006) study: Parenting and theory of mind may be important not only in them-
selves but also as each moderates the effects of the other.
As the discussion to this point suggests, research on styles (or on style-related
dimensions) has been skewed toward the authoritative and authoritarian styles
and the contrasts (differences in warmth and reasoning) that define these styles.
A report by Guajardo and colleagues (Guajardo et al., 2009) provides a rare
focus on the involved–uninvolved dimension. These authors used maternal self-
reports to classify mothers as either overreactive or lax in their response to dis-
ciplinary situations. An example of a response choice indicative of the former is
“When I am upset or under stress I am picky on my child’s back”; an example
of a choice indicative of the latter is “I threaten to do things that I know I won’t
actually do.” The assessment for the child component of the study was unusu-
ally broad, including both the Wellman and Liu (2004) seven-task battery and
a separate measure of emotion understanding. Overreactive parenting did not
relate to either the theory-of-m ind battery or the test of emotion understanding;
lax parenting, however, related negatively to theory-of-m ind performance. This

finding is an expectable one—t hat lax parenting is not conducive to theory-of-
mind development can be predicted from both the general parenting literature
and the research reviewed earlier in this section. Because there was no measure of
maternal warmth, however, the study does not tell us the extent to which the lax
parenting was part of an overall permissive or uninvolved parenting style.
Although in a different way, a study by Humfress and colleagues (Humfress,
O’Connor, Slaughter, Target, & Fonagy, 2002) is also a bit of an outlier among
the studies reviewed here. As Table 4.1 indicates, this study is the only entry
under the styles/d imensions heading to focus on children beyond the preschool
period. As a consequence of this focus, it is also the only study to use a measure
of advanced theory of mind (Happe’s, 1994, Strange Stories), and it is one of only
two studies (Holmes-Lonergan, 2003, being the other) to use child reports as the
measure of parenting.
One emphasis of the study was on the relation between attachment and theory
of mind, and I defer this component of the research until Chapter 5. As Table 4.1
shows, the study also included a number of measures of parenting quality, with a
focus on dimensions (warmth, support, control) central to the Baumrind typol-
ogy. This aspect of the study can be easily summarized: There was no relation
between the parenting measures and children’s theory-of-m ind performance.
Earlier I noted several other instances of a failure to find expected relations
between parenting style and theory of mind. I will add two further instances here.
Murray et al. (1999) measured two aspects of parenting: sensitivity of maternal
communication and parental conflict. Neither measure showed any relation to
children’s false belief understanding. Cole and Mitchell (1998) administered
the Child Rearing Practices Report (Block, 1981), an instrument that includes
both items reflective of an authoritative parenting style (e.g., inductive reasoning,
expression of positive affect) and items reflective of an authoritarian style (e.g.,
physical punishment, repression of affect). The parenting scores showed no rela-
tion to children’s theory-of-m ind performance.
On the other hand, one of the parental measures in the Cole and Mitchell
study (1998) did prove predictive of children’s performance, and that was paren-
tal stress. The direction of the relation varied, however, across the two child
outcome measures included in the study. One measure consisted of standard
false belief and appearance/reality tasks, and in this case parental stress related
negatively to children’s performance. The other measure was a test of expressive
deception: children’s ability, as determined from both verbal and facial cues,
to tell a convincing lie. In this case parental stress was a positive predictor: the
greater the stress, the better the performance. Stress associated with single par-
enthood appeared especially important. We have, then, another instance in which
a generally negative aspect of parenting is associated with relatively advanced
theory-of-m ind development. Presumably (although the study does not attempt
to determine the basis), being reared by a stressed single parent provides oppor-
tunities to experience and practice deception beyond those available in a typical
home situation.
The Cole and Mitchell (1998) study is not the only demonstration that parental
stress can affect theory-of-m ind development, although the direction of effect is
not consistent across studies. Guajardo et al. (2009) included a broad-based mea-
sure of stress: the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin, 1995). Relatively high scores
on the index related negatively to performance on the Wellman and Liu theory-
of-m ind battery. Symons and Clark (2000) also administered the Parent Stress
Index; in their analyses, however, responses to the index were combined with
responses to several other measures (e.g., the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the
Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale) to form a composite mea-
sure of maternal distress. Distress assessed when the child was 2 years old related
positively to false belief performance when the child was 5 years old. Interestingly,
however, the relation held only for a specially developed form of the unexpected
location task in which a mother was the object that changed position. The authors
suggest that distressed mothers might talk more than most mothers about both
their own and their child’s mental states, thus providing clues that aid the child’s
understanding, especially when a mother was the target of the child’s theory-of-
mind efforts. As with other post hoc explanations for unexpected results that we
have seen, this suggestion clearly requires further study.
The variations in stress or distress examined in the studies just discussed fall,
at least for the most part, into the typical, nonclinical range of individual differ-
ences. We will see in the concluding section of this chapter that more severe forms
of emotional distress in a parent can have a definite effect on the development of
theory of mind.
Longitudinal Relations
As the description of the across-time relation in the Symons and Clark (2000)
research indicates, their study was longitudinal—one of three studies listed in
Table 4.1 that provide a longitudinal examination of the parenting-t heory of mind
relation. In each case the longitudinal component of the study is limited to two
time periods, with a separation of 1 year (age 3 to 4) in Ruffman et al. (2006),
2 years (age 3 to 5) in Rohrer et al. (2011), and 3 years (age 2 to 5) in Symons
and Clark.
Longitudinal studies have a number of strengths. The particular strength
for present purposes is that the across-time nature of the longitudinal approach
makes possible causal inferences that are more certain than those that can be
made from one-point-in-time correlations. Specifically, if variations in parent-
ing play a causal role with respect to the development of theory of mind, then we
would expect variations in parenting at time 1 to relate to variations in theory of
mind at time 2; theory of mind at time 1, however, should not predict parenting at
time 2. Such a pattern does not prove causality, for the evidence remains correla-
tional. But it does heighten the plausibility of the causal inference.
I have already mentioned one across-time relation in the Symons and Clark
(2000) study: that between maternal distress when the child was 2 and false belief
performance when the child was 5. Because attachment was a main focus of their
study, Symons and Clark’s measures of parenting were directed to the aspect of
maternal behavior that has proved most predictive of secure attachment: namely,
the sensitivity and responsiveness of the mother’s caregiving interactions with the
child. Maternal sensitivity when the child was 2 also predicted false belief perfor-
mance when the child was 5—again, however, only performance on the mother-
displacement form of the unexpected location task.
The main focus of the Rohrer et al. (2011) study was on effects of maternal
depression, and I defer discussion of this aspect of the study until the conclud-
ing section of the chapter. The study also included a parenting measure: mothers’
positivity (e.g., smiles, praise) or negativity (e.g., frowns, criticism) as assessed in
joint problem solving tasks when the child was 3 years old. Maternal negativity
when the child was 3 was associated with poorer false belief performance when
the child was 5.
Finally, I have already noted the absence of any effects of the parenting style
measures in the Ruffman et al. (2006) study. I will add now that this conclu-
sion applied to both within-time and across-time analyses. In contrast, one
aspect of the mother’s behavior did prove predictive of children’s performance,
and that was mental state talk. The relation, moreover, held over time: A rela-
tively high use of mental state talk when the child was 3 predicted relatively
good theory-of-m ind performance when the child was 4. I return to this find-
ing in Chapter 7.
Other General Approaches

Cognitively Oriented Approaches
As I noted in Chapter 3, most parenting research has been directed to social out-
comes, including most work on parenting styles. But there are exceptions—t hat
is, approaches to parenting that have been designed specifically for the study of
cognitive development. I begin this discussion by considering the application of
two such approaches to theory of mind.
Three studies (Arranz, Artamendi, Olabarrieta, & Martin, 2002; Dobrova-K rol,
van IJzendoorn, Bakersman-K ranenburg, & Juffer, 2010; Galende, de Miguel, &
Arranz, 2011) have made use of an instrument called the Home Observation for
Measurement of the Environment, or HOME (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984). The
HOME, which is based in part on observation and in part on parental interview,
provides a broad assessment of the quality of a child’s early home environment.

It includes both items directed to parenting (e.g., mother structures child’s play
periods, mother does not scold child during visit) and items directed to the qual-
ity of the environment more generally (e.g., number of books in the home, safety
of the play environment). A large research literature has been quite consistent in
demonstrating positive relations between HOME scores and both IQ and perfor-
mance in school (Bradley 2010).
Two of the applications of the HOME to theory of mind have come from the
same research team and involve the same general population. Despite these com-
monalities, the evidence they provide is mixed. The sample in Arranz et al. (2002)
was Spanish mothers and their preschool children. The children responded to
both a variety of theory-of-m ind tasks and a measure of attachment, and the
HOME inventory was administered to the mothers. As I discuss in Chapter 5,
quality of attachment proved predictive of the children’s theory-of-m ind perfor-
mance: Children with secure attachments outperformed those whose attach-
ments were less secure. The HOME scores, however, showed no relation to theory
of mind.
Galende et al. (2011) also worked with Spanish mothers and a slightly older
(5-year-old) sample of children. Again, the children responded to a battery
of theory-of-m ind measures, and again the HOME was administered to their
mothers. In this case, the HOME related significantly and fairly substantially
to the children’s theory-of-m ind performance. Both the total score and various
subscales proved predictive.
Galende and colleagues (2011) do not speculate about the basis for the dis-
crepancy in results across the two studies. One possible contributor may be the
variability in HOME scores, which was greater in the Galende et al. study than
in that conducted by Arranz et al. (2002). In contrast, the HOME scores in the
Dobrova-K rol et al. (2010) study showed reasonable variability, and variations
in the scores related to some of the cognitive measures in the study. The HOME,
however, showed no relation to false belief performance.
One further finding from the Galende et al. (2011) study is worth noting. One
of the strongest predictors of theory of mind among the HOME subscales was
the scale devoted to the quality of the physical environment, something that, for
young children, is determined mainly by the child’s parents. This finding makes
the point that parents can be important in ways beyond those captured by their
face-to-face “parenting” behaviors.
The second general approach is one considered briefly in Chapter 3: the pre-
sentation of teaching tasks as a context in which to observe parenting behaviors
relevant to the child’s cognitive development. We saw there that a form of flex-
ible, contingent teaching known as scaffolding appears to be an optimal parental
approach. Chapter 3, however, did not address the basis for this conclusion—
that is, how do we know what approach works best? Several kinds of evidence
are possible. The most immediate form is the dyad’s success on the task being
taught—do child and parent complete the model, successfully follow the map, or
whatever? A further and more challenging form is the child’s subsequent indepen-
dent performance—can the child now carry out the task or similar tasks on his or
her own? Finally, a third possibility is to look for relations between forms of teach-
ing and general indices of the child’s cognitive development. The connection in
this case is less direct and the causal basis less certain; still, if some parents are
better teachers than others, we would expect to see effects on the child’s overall
development.
It was the third approach that was taken in a study by Galende, de Miguel, and
Arranz (2012). The 5-year-old participants in the study responded to a battery
of theory-of-m ind measures and also attempted to complete two tasks with the
help of either the mother or father (whichever parent was more likely to engage
in such tasks—sex of parent was not a variable in the study): putting together
a puzzle and saying a tongue twister. The emphasis in scoring the interactions
was on behaviors indicative of scaffolding; among the behaviors or dimensions
recorded were promoting independence, explanations, questions, and encour-
agement. Scaffolding so defined turned out to relate positively to the children’s
theory-of-m ind performance; indeed, in regression analyses an initial SES effect
disappeared and only the parenting measures were significant.
As noted, the link between scaffolding and theory of mind in a study like that
of Galende et al. (2012) is quite indirect. The results are compatible with the idea
that this parenting practice promotes theory of mind, but other explanations for
the relation are certainly possible. To date, no parent teaching study has made
theory-of-m ind content the object of the teaching; rather, the focus has been on
execution of physical tasks (building a model, completing a puzzle, etc.). Some
training studies of theory of mind, however, do include manipulations that have
some resemblance to the notion of scaffolding, and I therefore will return to the
concept in Chapter 9. Some instances of parents’ mental state talk also include
aspects of scaffolding, and I will consider these forms of talk in Chapter 7. Finally,
I will note that parental scaffolding has been shown to relate to children’s execu-
tive function skills (Bernier, Carlson, & Whipple, 2010; Hammond, Muller,
Carpendale, Bibok, & Liebermann-Finestone, 2012), and executive function, as
we have seen, is one contributor to theory of mind.
Socialization of Emotion Understanding

Children’s emotional development is one of the major topics in developmental
psychology, and parents’ socialization of emotions is one of the major subtopics
under this general heading. My coverage here is limited in several respects. First,
the concern is with children’s understanding of emotions, and not with other
aspects of emotional development (emotion expression, emotion regulation). It
is, of course, the focus on the cognitive aspect of emotions that makes the topic
a theory-of-m ind topic. Second, much of the work on parents’ socialization of
emotion has been directed to how they talk about emotions, and coverage of this
work is deferred until Chapter 7. Although the dividing line is admittedly often
thin, the present focus is on other ways, beyond emotion talk, in which parents
can affect their children’s understanding. Finally, even with these restrictions,
the relevant literature is too large to permit an exhaustive listing of studies, and
the coverage is therefore of the “for-example” sort. Fuller reviews can be found in
Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad (1998); Halberstadt and Eaton (2002); and
Saarni, Campos, Camras, and Witherington (2006).
What, exactly, is meant by emotion understanding? In Chapter 2 I discussed
some of the most often studied forms. Table 4.2, which is based on Pons, Harris,
and de Rosnay (2004), provides a more exhaustive listing (Denham’s Emotional
Development in Young Children, 1998, is also a good source). The tabulation by Pons
et al., I should note, primarily concerns forms of knowledge that develop from the
preschool period on. As we will see in Chapter 6, some forms of emotion under-
standing make their appearance in infancy.
How might parents affect emotion understanding? Their general style of child
rearing is one possible contributor. As Table 4.1 indicates, emotion understand-
ing was included as an outcome variable in several of the studies discussed in the
first section of this chapter—not, however, with many clear effects. In Ruffman
et al. (2006), parenting style had no effect on any of the outcome measures. In
Guajardo et al. (2009), the lax and overreactive categories derived from mater-
nal interviews showed no relation to emotion understanding. One of the obser-
vational measures did relate: A relatively high level of parental imitation was
associated with relatively poor emotion understanding. Guajardo et al. suggest,
however, that the basis for this correlation was from child to parent rather than
from parent to child—t hat “the presence of more frequent imitation with chil-
dren exhibiting more inadequate emotion understanding may result from paren-
tal attempts to provide appropriate environmental supports to aid their child’s
development” (p. 55).
The Pears and Moses (2003) study also showed a definite, although unex-
pected, link between parenting and emotion understanding: a positive relation
between power assertion and emotion understanding. Their proposed explana-
tion, as we saw, was that children learn aspects of emotion from the emotions their
parents display in the context of power-assertive discipline. The idea that paren-
tal expression of emotions contributes to children’s understanding of emotions
is, in fact, fairly generally held among researchers of the topic. In the review by
Eisenberg et al. (1998) parental expressiveness was one of three general parental
determinants that were discussed, along with talk about emotions and response
to children’s emotions. As its title indicates, parental expressiveness was the sole
topic of Halberstadt and Eaton’s (2002) meta-analysis.
Table 4.2 Components of Emotion Understanding
Component Description
Recognition Recognize and name emotions on the basis of expressive
cues
External cause Understand how external causes affect the emotions of
others
Desire Understand that people’s emotional reactions depend on
their desires
Belief Understand that people’s beliefs, whether true or false,
determine their emotional reactions to a situation
Reminder Understand the relation between memory and emotion—
that emotions fade with time and that elements of a present
situation may reactivate emotions
Regulation Understand that different strategies can be evoked to
control emotions
Hiding Understand that at times there can be a discrepancy
between the outward expression of emotion and the actual
emotion
Mixed Understand that a person may have multiple or even
contradictory emotions about a given situation
Morality Understand that morally praiseworthy actions lead to
positive emotions and that morally reprehensible actions
lead to negative emotions
Note. Derived from Pons, Harris, & de Rosnay, 2004.
As both these reviews and more recent studies indicate, parents’ expression
of emotions does relate to children’s understanding of emotion, but not always,
and not usually in the way reported by Pears and Moses (2003). The evidence,
as we will see, is in fact decidedly mixed.
The emotions that parents express can be either positive or negative. I begin
with the latter. The Pears and Moses (2003) study reported an apparently ben-
eficial effect of negative emotions, although with the caveat that the detrimen-
tal effects of exposure to such emotions might outweigh any benefits. The idea
that frequent exposure to negative emotions can teach children about emotions
finds some support in work with physically abused children, who in some stud-
ies have been reported as especially good at recognizing cues for anger (e.g.,
Pollak & Sinha, 2002). In other studies, however, the outcome has been just the
reverse: poorer emotion recognition by children whose mothers are high in anger
(Garner, Jones, & Miner, 1994; Raver & Spagnola, 2002). And more generally, the
effects of parents’ negative expressiveness, when effects occur, tend to be negative.

This was the conclusion in the meta-analysis by Halberstadt and Eaton (2002),
and it was also the conclusion in a more recent narrative review (Denham, Bassett,
& Wyatt, 2015). Denham and colleagues (2015) offer the following explanation
for the negative effects: “Although exposure to well-regulated negative emotions
can be positively related to emotion knowledge, . . . parents’ frequent, intense neg-
ative emotions—especially anger—may disturb children, as well as discourage
self-reflection, so that little learning occurs” (p. 595; italics in original).
What about exposure to positive emotions? In general, relatively frequent
expression of positive emotions from parents relates positively to children’s emo-
tional understanding. Such is a typical finding in a series of studies by Denham
and colleagues (Denham et al., 2015; Denham & Kochanoff, 2002; Denham,
Mitchell-Copeland, Strandberg, Auerbach, & Blair, 1997), and similar results
have emerged in work from other laboratories (Dunsmore & Smallen, 2001;
Nixon & Watson, 2001). Presumably, frequent exposure to positive emotions fur-
nishes children with helpful information about the nature and the causes of emo-
tions. Denham et al. (2015) suggest a further possible basis: namely, that positive
emotions generate positive feelings, and “positive feelings render children more
open to learning and problem solving” (p. 620).
Once this general (and admittedly commonsensical) conclusion is noted,
a number of qualifiers need to be added. The impact of positive expressiveness
rarely emerges as a simple main effect; rather, effects often vary as a function
of the age of the child or the gender of the child or the gender of the parent or
the particular form of emotion understanding at issue. In addition, a number of
studies have reported no effect at all of parents’ expressions of positive emotion
(Cassidy, Parke, Butkovsky, & Braungart, 1992; Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud,
1994; Nelson et al., 2011). Indeed, the meta-analysis by Halberstadt and Eaton
(2002) concluded that emotion understanding was unrelated to the frequency
of parents’ positive emotions. It is possible to argue that the bulk of the evidence
since their meta-analysis suggests some role for parents’ positive expressiveness.
But the role seems to be a small one.
I turn now to a second general possible contributor: parents’ response to their
children’s emotions. Measurement takes one or both of two forms: self-reports by
parents of their typical responses, or observation of responses during parent–child
interactions. Table 4.3 presents a sampling of items from one of the most often
used self-report measures, The Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale
(CCNES). The CCNES consists of 12 vignettes that are designed to measure six
possible responses to children’s negative emotions: problem-focused reactions,
emotion-focused reactions, expressive encouragement, minimization reactions,
punitive reactions, and distress reactions. In the first vignette in Table 4.3, for
example, the first alternative is an example of a punitive reaction, the second an
Table 4.3 Examples of Items from the Coping with Children’s Negative

Emotions Scale (CCNES)
Response scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very Medium Very

Unlikely Likely
1. If my child becomes angry because he/she is sick or hurt and can’t go to his/her
friend’s birthday party, I would
a. send my child to his/her room to cool off 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
b. get angry at my child 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
c. help my child think about ways that he/ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
she can still be with friends (e.g., invite
some friends over after the party)
d. tell my child not to make a big deal out of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
missing the party
e. encourage my child to express his/her 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
feelings of anger and frustration
f. soothe my child and do something fun 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
with him/her to make him/her feel better
about missing the party
2. If my child falls off his/her bike and breaks it, and then gets upset and cries,
I would:
a. remain calm and not let myself get 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
anxious
b. comfort my child and try to get him/her 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
to forget about the accident
c. tell my child that he/she is over-reacting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
d. help my child figure out how to get the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
bike fixed
e. tell my child it’s OK to cry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
f. tell my child to stop crying or he/she 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
won’t be allowed to ride his/her bike
anytime soon
3. If my child loses some prized possession and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
reacts with tears, I would:
a. get upset with him/her for being so 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
careless and then crying about it
b. tell my child that he/she is over-reacting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(continued)
Table 4.3 Continued
Response scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Very Medium Very

Unlikely Likely
c. help my child think of places he/she 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
hasn’t looked
d. distract my child by talking about happy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
things
e. tell him/her it’s OK to cry when you feel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
unhappy
f. tell him/her that’s what happens when 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
you’re not careful
Note. From “The Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale: Procedures and Scoring,” by
R. A. Fabes, N. Eisenberg, and J. Bernzweig, 1990. Copyright 1990 by the authors. Reprinted with
permission.
example of a distress reaction, and the last an example of an emotion-focused

reaction.
The expectation underlying research has been that the supportive forms of
response illustrated in the first three response categories should be more condu-
cive to children’s emotional development and emotional understanding than the
nonsupportive responses of punishment, minimization, or distress. And such, in
general, appears to be the case. In the main validation study for the instrument,
for example (Fabes, Poulin, Eisenberg, & Madden-Derdich, 2002), relatively high
use of problem-focused and emotion-focused responses by parents related posi-
tively to their children’s emotion understanding, and relatively high use of dis-
tress reactions related negatively. Children’s expression of emotions also showed
expectable links to their parents’ responses—for example, a positive relation to
expressive encouragement and negative relations to punitive and minimization
responses.
Just as with expression of emotions, much of the relevant evidence with
respect to parental reactions to emotion comes from the research program con-
ducted by Denham and colleagues (Denham, Bassett, & Wyatt, 2010; Denham &
Kochanoff, 2002; Denham et al., 1997; Denham et al., 1994). Conclusions from
the Denham studies vary some across studies and across groups and measures
within studies. As with the work on expression of emotions, positive results are
often qualified in some respects, and one study (Denham et al., 2010) reports no
relation at all between parents’ responses and children’s emotion understand-
ing. In balance, however, the conclusions from the series of studies appear in line
with both theoretical expectations and the findings of the Fabes et al. (2002)
study: greater emotion understanding when parents respond in positive, support-
ive ways to their children’s emotions, and poorer emotion understanding when
parental responses are punitive or dismissive. A further finding, most clearly
illustrated in the Denham and Kochanoff (2002) study, is that mothers’ responses
may play a more important role than those of fathers. The Denham et al. (2010)
article provides a fuller account of mother–father differences and their effects on
other aspects of emotional development.
A study by McElwain, Halberstadt, and Volling (2007) adds an interesting
further point with respect to the mother–father comparison. Most studies that
have included both parents have either considered their contributions separately
or analyzed a single composite parent score. McElwain and colleagues were inter-
ested in whether the effects of positive support from one parent (as measured by
the CCNES) might depend on the level of support provided by the other parent.
We might expect a simple additive relation—i f support from one parent is good,
then support from both parents should be even better. This is not what McElwain
et al. found, however. What they found was an interaction: High support from
one parent was most beneficial when support from the other parent was low. This
outcome had been predicted on the basis of the divergence model: the idea that
children benefit when parents differ in their emotion-related behaviors. In the
words of McElwain et al., “Children who experience varying levels of support
from mothers and fathers may develop a heightened awareness that people differ
in their reactions to emotional events. Such awareness, in turn, may lead to more
complex thinking about and understanding of emotions” (p. 1420). To date, this
idea that parental divergence can be beneficial has been limited to the topic of
emotion understanding; it has not yet been applied to other aspects of theory-of-
mind development.
The discussion to this point has concerned effects of parental practices on
emotion understanding. We saw in the previous section that in some studies the
interest in parenting and theory of mind is not simply in the effects of each on the
other but in how they jointly affect some third outcome. A study by Berzenski
and Yates (2013) provides an example in the emotion understanding literature.
Their parenting measures focused on the use of harsh physical and verbal punish-
ment by parents of preschoolers, and the outcome measures were the children’s
self-concepts and conduct problems in school. As would be expected, emotion
understanding related positively to children’s development— children who
were relatively high in emotion understanding had more positive self-concepts
and fewer conduct problems than did children whose understanding was lower.
More interesting, however, were the interactions of understanding and punish-
ment. Harsh physical punishment was associated with conduct problems—most
strongly, however, for children whose emotion understanding was high. Harsh
verbal punishment was associated with self-concept deficits—again, however,
most strongly for children whose understanding was high. We have, then, another
instance in which relatively good theory of mind is associated with relatively poor
developmental outcomes. These effects had been predicted. Harsh punishment
can be an ambiguous experience for children, and its effects may depend on how
children interpret their parent’s behavior. Children whose emotion understand-
ing is high are more likely to perceive the anger and the negative evaluation behind
the punishment—and thus more likely to be negatively affected.
I will note one other finding from the Berzenski and Yates (2013) study, and
that is that there was no relation between punishment and emotion understand-
ing. This study, then, is another instance in which general aspects of parenting
proved to be unrelated to children’s understanding of emotion. Nor is it the only
further such example. Bennett, Bendersky, and Lewis (2005) assessed, via both
observation and self-report, a variety of aspects of both positive and negative par-
enting in mothers of preschoolers. Once other factors were controlled, the parent-
ing measures showed no relation to the children’s emotion understanding.
The absence of effects on emotion understanding has been a fairly frequent
conclusion throughout this section of the chapter. Although some predictors
do emerge, much of what has been said has concerned either null effects or lim-
ited and inconsistent effects of parenting on children’s emotion understanding.
This negative picture should be qualified in two ways. First, aspects of parent-
ing, including those aspects considered here, can clearly affect other components
of emotional development, such as the expression of emotions and the ability to
regulate emotions. Second, probably the main way in which parents affect their
children’s understanding of emotions is through how they talk about emotions,
and this material has been deferred until Chapter 7.
Socioeconomic Status
Studies of SES and theory of mind divide into two groups. In some studies (e.g.,
Curenton, 2003; Shatz, Diesendruck, Martinez-Beck, & Akar, 2003), the nature
of the sample is the main focus of the research, and SES is therefore a primary
independent variable. In other studies, including many reviewed earlier in this
chapter, SES is just one of a number of measures of the home environment, and
the main focus is on more proximal determinants of the child’s development. In
either case, the inclusion of SES as a variable leads to two questions: Are there
differences associated with SES? And if so, where do the differences come from?
Of interest for the present purposes, of course, is the extent to which parenting
contributes to any differences that are found.
The answer to the first question is that there are on-t he-average differences
between SES groups, and the differences parallel those that are found across
a number of dependent variables: Namely, children from low-income homes
perform more poorly than children from middle-i ncome homes. Such was the
case in the two studies cited in the preceding paragraph. It was also the case
in several studies reviewed earlier in the chapter (e.g., Cole & Mitchell, 1998;
Hughes et al., 1999). Differences as a function of SES are found not only for
false belief but also on other measures of theory of mind, including emotion
understanding (Berzenski & Yates, 2013; Cutting & Dunn, 1999; Pears &
Moses, 2003).
A study by Hughes et al. (2005) is an especially informative source in this
regard, both because of its exceptional sample size (1,116 pairs of twins) and
because of its inclusion of an unusually broad battery of theory-of-m ind mea-
sures, including second-order as well as first-order tasks. Hughes et al. reported
average correlations of around .30 between SES and theory-of-m ind performance
across the various groups that were examined—t hus a moderately strong but of
course far from perfect relation. The size of the correlations serves as a reminder
of a basic point about group differences: that they are average effects that do not
apply in every individual case.
Nor do they apply in every study. Although studies with effects outweigh those
with no effects, a number of examinations of the issue have reported no differ-
ences as a function of SES (e.g., Garner, Curenton, & Taylor, 2005; Lucariello,
Durand, & Yarnell, 2007; Murray et al., 1999; Ruffman et al., 1999). There is, at
least on my reading, no obvious factor that divides the studies with and without
effects. Probably the most likely candidate is the nature of the samples, including
the specific way in which SES has been operationalized.
As in most theory-of-m ind research, the individual differences at issue in the
studies just discussed are differences in rate of development. Thus, the general
conclusion is that children from middle-income families develop theory-of-m ind
abilities more quickly than children from low-income families. Whether there
are any more qualitative, beyond-rate-of-development differences is not clear.
Some studies do report SES differences on some but not other theory-of-m ind
measures, which could constitute a difference in kind and not simply in rate; it is
difficult, however, to discern a consistent pattern across studies.
Probably the most explicit claim of a qualitative difference between SES
groups comes in Joan Lucariello’s Functional-Multilinear Socialization (FMS)
model (Lucariello, 2004; Lucariello, Le Donne, Durand, & Yarnell, 2006;
Lucariello et al., 2007). The FMS model posits that theory of mind is divided
into two distinct components: social (reasoning about the mental states of oth-
ers) and intrapersonal (reasoning about one’s own mental states). It posits further
that the socialization experiences of low-income children, including the language
to which they are exposed and the functions for which theory of mind is used,
favor social rather than intrapersonal understanding. In support of this position,
Lucariello reports two studies (Lucariello (2004; Lucariello et al., 2007) in which
low-income children performed better on social measures than on intrapersonal
measures across a range of carefully matched theory-of-m ind tasks. In the second
study, however, the same social–intrapersonal differences were found for children
from middle-income families, raising the question of whether any advantage of
social reasoning is really specific to low-income populations. In addition, two
studies with Head Start populations (Holmes-Lonergan, 2003; Holmes, Black,
& Miller, 1996) have reported better performance for own belief than for other’s
belief on the unexpected contents task, an outcome that is directly opposed to the
FMS model.
The reference to Head Start populations raises a point about the particular low-
income samples that appear in the literature, which, at least in the United States,
often consist of children enrolled in Head Start. Weimer and Guajardo (2005)
point out one possible effect of this sampling decision. In their study a Head Start
sample performed more poorly than a middle-income sample on false belief—
not, however, on a measure of emotion understanding. Weimer and Guajardo sug-
gest this difference may reflect the greater emphasis on emotions than on beliefs
in the Head Start curriculum. The general point is one made earlier: that what is
concluded about SES differences may depend on the particular populations that
are sampled.
Possible qualitative differences between SES levels are not limited to success
or failure on theory-of-m ind tasks. Differences may also occur in how theory
of mind relates to other aspects of children’s development. In Chapter 2 I men-
tioned the sibling effect: the finding (with some exceptions) of a positive rela-
tion between number of siblings and theory-of-m ind performance. Working
with a Head Start sample, Tompkins et al. (2013) not only did not replicate this
finding; they reported a negative relation between number of siblings and false
belief understanding. This relation, in turn, was mediated by language: Number
of siblings related negatively to the children’s language, and poorer language was
associated with poorer false belief performance. In speculating about the reasons
for the absence of a benefit from sibling interactions, the authors suggest that
such interactions in low-income homes may be less likely than those in middle-
income homes to convey useful information about mental states, a difference
that in turn stems from the relatively impoverished linguistic input that children
receive in such homes. In contrast, for children from middle-income homes, input
from siblings appears to play a protective role, for in this case the sibling effect is
especially marked for children whose own language abilities are low (Jenkins &
Astington, 1996).
Although the sibling findings in Tompkins et al. (2013) clearly require fur-
ther study, their conclusions with respect to the importance of language mir-
ror those of the literature in general. As we saw in Chapter 2, various measures
of language development relate positively to theory-of-m ind understanding.
This relation holds for both low-i ncome and middle-i ncome samples when the
groups are considered separately. When the groups are considered together,
language differences between low-income and middle-income children are

one basis for the differences in theory-of-m ind understanding. And because
parents are important determinants of their children’s linguistic abilities, the
language data indicate one way that parents contribute to their children’s the-
ory of mind.
More generally, parenting studies make clear that differences in parental
practices underlie at least some of the SES differences in theory of mind. Just
as in the general parenting literature, the theory-of-m ind studies indicate that
the parenting practices of low-i ncome parents are on balance less optimal than
those of middle-i ncome parents, that is, less authoritative and more authoritar-
ian (e.g., Hughes et al., 1999). Socioeconomic status differences in theory-of-
mind understanding do not necessarily disappear when differences in parenting
(at least those differences that have been assessed) are controlled. In some cases,
however, they do (Galende et al., 2011; Galende et al., 2012). Conversely, con-
trolling for SES may sometimes reduce the magnitude of parenting effects, but
significant relations typically remain even when SES has been removed as a
factor (Galende et al., 2011; Galende et al., 2012; Hughes et al., 1999; Pears &
Moses, 2003).
Development Under Adverse Conditions

In the final section of the chapter I address various kinds of childhood experi-
ences that depart markedly from those found in the typical home setting. The
situations vary in the type and degree of adversity to which children are exposed.
All, however, constitute risk conditions that have been shown to affect a number
of aspects of children’s development. And all, as we will see, are associated with
deficits in the development of theory of mind.
Maltreatment
I draw much of what is said in this section from a review article by Luke and
Banerjee (2013a; see also Kagan, 2013, and Luke & Banerjee, 2013b). The Luke
and Banarjee review addresses two kinds of maltreatment: physical abuse and
neglect. When possible, they discuss the effects of the two forms of maltreatment
separately. Often, however, this is not possible—many studies include various
types of maltreatment in their samples, many children experience more than one
type of maltreatment, and few studies analyze separately by type. My coverage
follows that of Luke and Banerjee in focusing on maltreatment in general and not
on abuse and neglect separately.
Prior to their review of studies, Luke and Banerjee (2013) offer a rationale
for why disturbed parenting might be expected to hinder the development of
theory of mind. Theoretically, they ground their argument in the emphasis on

parenting in the sociocultural approach to theory of mind discussed in Chapter 2.
Empirically, they cite a number of studies that demonstrate that parenting con-
tributes to theory of mind, both some of the research considered earlier in this
chapter and a sampling of the research (e.g., that on mental state talk and mater-
nal mind-m indedness) discussed later in this book. The argument is straightfor-
ward: If parenting is important in the normal case, then deviations in parenting
should cause deviations in theory of mind.
And this is what research shows. The review discusses two main out-
comes: false belief and emotion understanding. The latter is the larger
literature—indeed, large enough to permit a meta-a nalysis of the existing
studies. The meta-a nalysis makes clear that maltreatment is in fact associated
with difficulties in both recognizing and reasoning about emotions (although
for a recent exception, see Pons et al., 2014). Effects are more consistent and
effect sizes are larger with respect to reasoning (e.g., figuring out the causes
of emotion) than with respect to recognition, although they often appear in
the latter case as well. The overall trend for recognition is a negative one, that
is, poorer recognition of emotions by maltreated children. As we saw earlier,
however, when anger is the emotion, a subset of studies report that maltreated
children do especially well (e.g., Pollak & Sinha, 2002; Shackman & Pollak,
2005). Such successes, however, may come at the cost of a hypersensitivity
to possible cues for violence that in many contexts is more maladaptive than
adaptive (Pollak, 2008).
In addition to type of emotion knowledge, the other moderator variable identi-
fied in the Luke and Banerjee (2013a) meta-analysis is age—effects are strongest
in early childhood, weaker in middle childhood, and weaker still in adolescence
and adulthood. It is difficult to know how to interpret this trend, however, given
the fact that the best established and most often used measures are designed for
early childhood.
To date, only three studies have examined false belief understanding in
maltreated children. All have reported delays in development. In Pears and
Fisher (2005) the sample was 3-to 5-year-olds who as a group had experienced
various forms of maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse,
neglect). Compared to typically developing controls, maltreated children
showed deficits in both emotion understanding and general theory-of mind
performance. In Cicchetti, Rogosch, Maughan, Toth, and Bruce (2003) the
sample ranged in age from 3 to 7, and the forms of abuse again spanned a range
of experiences. Most children in the sample had suffered at least two forms of
abuse. The false belief performance of the maltreated children again lagged
behind that of controls. Abuse during the toddler period was especially pre-
dictive of delays in development. Finally, in O’Reilly and Peterson (2015) the
performance of children between the ages of 4 and 13 with a history of abuse
was worse than that of controls on both the standard false belief task and the
affective false belief task. The more severe the maltreatment, the poorer the
performance.
In summarizing conclusions from their review, Luke and Banerjee (2013a)
acknowledge that the research they discuss, although certainly suggesting that
parenting affects theory of mind, does not definitively establish this conclusion,
let alone specify exactly which aspects of parenting are important. Research on
disturbed parenting, as well as the research discussed under the remaining head-
ings in this section of the chapter, constitutes what are referred to as “natural
experiments”—t hat is, research in which the independent variable is not created
by the experimenter but rather reflects naturally occurring conditions. Natural
experiments allow an examination of variations in experience that, for either
ethical or pragmatic reasons, would be impossible to create experimentally, and
for this reason they have played an important role in the history of developmen-
tal psychology. Because of the lack of experimental control, however, natural
experiments are at best suggestive; they cannot establish causality with certainty.
O’Connor (2003) provides a good discussion of both the benefits and the limita-
tions of natural experiments.
Parental Mental Illness

Maternal depression is the main entry under the mental illness heading.
Indeed, the only exception (at least to my knowledge) is a study by Pawlby
et al. (2010) that included not only a group of new mothers with depression
but also a group of mothers with schizophrenia. That study did not measure
any child outcomes; its relevance comes from its inclusion of a measure of
maternal mind-m indedness, that is, a measure of mothers’ tendency to think
of their child in mentalistic terms. As we will see later, in Chapter 8, mater-
nal mind-m indedness is a clear correlate of theory of mind in young children.
Compared to a comparison group of healthy mothers, mothers with depression
were marginally less likely to make appropriate mind-related comments about
their infants. The mothers with schizophrenia, however, did not differ from the
comparison group.
The work on depression and theory of mind follows out of a large and long-
standing literature directed to the nature and effects of maternal depression, a
literature from which two general conclusions emerge. The first conclusion is that
parenting is often impaired in mothers who are suffering from depression, with
greater impairment the more serious the degree of depression (Dix & Meunier,
2009; Lovejoy, Graczyk, O’Hare, & Neuman, 2000). Among the adverse effects
discussed in the Dix and Meunier review are low responsiveness and involve-
ment with the child, a preponderance of negative affect and negative interpreta-
tion of the child’s behavior, and discipline that is often harsh and inconsistent.
The second conclusion is that aspects of children’s development also often show
impairment when the mother is suffering from depression (Downey & Coyne,
1990; Goodman et al., 2011). Although most research has focused on either social
outcomes or various forms of psychopathology, effects on cognitive development
have also been shown (Grace, Evindar, & Stewart, 2003).
Effects have been shown as well for theory of mind. As with research on mal-
treatment, emotion understanding has been the most often studied outcome.
Some impairment in emotion understanding is a consistent finding across a num-
ber of studies of maternal depression (Greig & Howe, 2001; Joormann, Gilbert,
& Gotlib, 2010; Martin, Williamson, Kurtz-Nelson, & Boekamp, 2013; Raikes
& Thompson, 2006; Szekely et al., 2014). In most studies the children have been
preschoolers; the Joorman et al. (2010) study, however, shows effects in a sample
of 9- to 14-year-olds.
One issue in the general literature concerns the timing of the depression and
whether children are more vulnerable at some time periods than at others. In
most of the emotion understanding studies the assessment of depression has been
contemporaneous with the measure of the child’s understanding, and thus during
the preschool years. Raikes and Thompson (2006), however, found that depres-
sion when the child was 2 years old predicted emotion understanding when the
child was 3, whereas a concurrent measure of depression did not relate. On the
other hand, Szekeley et al. (2014) found no relation between depression assessed
when the child was an infant and later understanding; only a concurrent measure
of depression proved predictive.
A report by Kujawa and colleagues (Kujawa et al., 2014) adds two further points.
First, theirs was a rare study to measure paternal as well as maternal depression.
Paternal depression showed no relation to the children’s emotion understanding.
The second point concerns an interaction of predictive factors. Maternal depres-
sion did relate to children’s understanding, but only in interaction with a measure
of negative parenting. The latter was derived from observation of mother–child
interactions on a series of teaching tasks and was defined as relatively frequent use
of criticism, expressions of anger, and other indices of hostility. Negative parent-
ing was associated with poor emotion understanding—only, however, when there
was also a history of maternal depression.
The literature on false belief is both smaller and less consistent than that on
emotion understanding. Greig and Howe (2001) reported no relation between
false belief understanding and concurrent maternal depression in a sample of
3-year-olds. In Murray et al. (1999) a history of maternal postnatal depression
showed no relation to preschoolers’ false belief performance; concurrent depres-
sion, however, related negatively. Finally, in Rohrer et al. (2011) conclusions
depended on the criterion for false belief mastery. When mean number correct
was the criterion, neither maternal depression when the child was an infant nor
recurrent depression showed any relation to the child’s performance. With the
stricter criterion of perfect false belief performance, however, both categories

proved predictive: Children whose mothers had experienced depression were less
likely than controls to demonstrate full mastery.
I noted earlier in the chapter that parenting has been shown to affect one of the
presumed contributors to false belief mastery, namely executive function. The
same point applies to both maternal depression and maltreatment. Hughes and
colleagues (Hughes, Roman, Hart, & Ensor, 2013) traced mothers’ depressive
symptoms longitudinally across a 4-year-period. Depression assessed when the
child was 2 years old related negatively to the child’s executive function skills at
age 6. Pears and colleagues (Pears, Fisher, Bruce, Kim, & Yoerger, 2010) mea-
sured inhibitory control (an aspect of executive function) in a sample of mal-
treated foster children and found clear deficits compared to a control sample.
Inhibitory control, in turn, mediated the differences in academic performance
between the two groups.
Institutional Rearing
Earlier I introduced the concept of natural experiments. Arguably the first natural
experiments to have a major impact on the field of child psychology were studies
of orphanage rearing published in the 1940s (e.g., Goldfarb, 1945; Spitz, 1945).
The orphanages in question were not a random selection of orphanages; rather,
they were among the worst such institutions, settings that provided enough physi-
cal care to keep the children alive (at least usually) but that provided a bare mini-
mum of social and cognitive stimulation. When these settings were discovered
and the children were studied, serious disturbances were evident on a wide range
of social and cognitive outcomes. Reports of the severe effects of such early depri-
vation played an important role in sensitizing the field to the potential importance
of early experience.
Although we would all like to believe that the conditions for such natural
experiments have long ceased to exist, such is not the case. With the fall of
the Nicolae Ceauşescu government in 1989, thousands of Romanian children
who had been placed in orphanages became available for adoption. Many of
the orphanages in which they had been living were no better than those in the
studies of the 1940s. In the words of one of the research teams who studied the
children,
Conditions in these institutions varied from poor to appalling. In most

instances, the children were confined to cots; there were few, if any, toys
or play things; very little talk from caregivers; no personalized caregiv-
ing; feeding of gruel by bottles with large teats, often left propped up;
and an environment that was frequently physically harsh. (Rutter et al.,
2010, p. 6)
The passage just quoted is from a research team headed by Michal Rutter.
Research by the Rutter group is responsible for much of what we know about both
the effects of the Romanian orphanage experience and the capacity for recov-
ery when the children were moved to a better environment—in the case of the
children studied by Rutter and colleagues, adopted by English families (Colvert
et al., 2008; Rutter et al., 1999; Rutter et al., 2010). The outcomes assessed by the
Rutter group are broad in scope, and most are not related to theory of mind. Two,
however, are.
First, one of the unexpected findings from the research was the identification
of several “deprivation-specific psychological patterns”—t hat is, distinct constel-
lations of behavioral problems that did not fit any established clinical syndrome
but rather seemed specific to the deprivation experience. One of these patterns
was labeled quasi-autism. As the name suggests, the defining characteristic of this
pattern was the appearance of several autism-l ike features—for example, stereo-
typed behaviors, difficulties with communication, difficulties in forming rela-
tions with others. In Chapter 2 we saw that many researchers believe that deficits
in theory of mind underlie many of the characteristic features of autism. No one
believes that theory of mind accounts for everything that is seen in autism; ste-
reotyped behaviors, for example, do not seem explicable on the basis of theory of
mind. But deficits in theory of mind may well account for the social difficulties
shown by the Romanian children.
The second kind of evidence is more direct. At age 11 the children in the study
were given the Happe Strange Stories measure. Their performance was compared
with that of the two control samples used throughout the research: a sample of
adopted children born in the United Kingdom and another sample of Romanian
children growing up in their families of birth. Although the differences among
groups were not large they were significant: The Romanian orphanage sample
performed more poorly than either of the other two samples (although not signifi-
cantly so when compared to the Romanian home-reared sample). The longer the
stay in the orphanage, the poorer the performance. Furthermore, further analy-
ses indicated a strong relation between theory-of-m ind difficulties and the quasi-
autism pattern of behavior.
The Romanian studies are not the only demonstration of theory-of-m ind
deficits in children with a history of institutional rearing. In Dobrova-K rol et al.
(2010), a sample of 3-to 6-year-olds from Ukrainian orphanages performed
more poorly on a standard false belief task than did a home-reared control group.
In Yagmurlu, Berument, and Celimli (2005), a sample of 4-to 7-year-olds living
in a Turkish boarding home performed more poorly on a battery of false belief
tasks than did comparison groups. And in Tarullo, Bruce, and Gunnar (2007),
an adopted sample from nine different home countries showed deficits in false
belief performance compared to a home-reared comparison sample.
As with the work on abuse and depression, emotion understanding has been
the other main theory-of-m ind outcome examined in research on institutional-
ization. Deficits have sometimes, but by no means always, been found. In Fries
and Pollak (2004), 4-year-olds adopted from Russian and Romanian orphanages
were worse than controls at identifying emotions. Interestingly, however, there
was one exception: When anger was the emotion, the orphanage sample per-
formed as well as the controls. In Tarullo et al. (2007), the same adopted sample
that had performed more poorly on false belief was equivalent to the control
group in emotion understanding. Two studies based on children from Romanian
orphanages also reported only limited differences: in one case poorer recogni-
tion of happiness but not of other emotions (Moulson et al., 2015); in the other
case, no differences across four different emotions (Jeon, Moulson, Fox, Zeanah,
& Nelson, 2010). Finally, Garvin and colleagues (Garvin, Tarullo, Van Ryzin,
& Gunnar, 2012) reported no differences in emotion understanding between a
sample of 3-year-olds adopted from orphanages and a comparison sample. Their
study, however, was a rare one in this literature to include a measure of post-
adoption parenting, and parenting turned out to be important: Relatively high
scores on a measure labeled Emotional Availability (e.g., high sensitivity, low
intrusiveness) when the child was 18 months old related positively to emotion
understanding at age 3.
The Garvin et al. (2012) study is also unusual in another respect. In most insti-
tutionalization studies the children are at least of preschool age when first stud-
ied, and the measures are correspondingly oriented to developments of that age
period and beyond. Garvin et al. first studied their sample at 18 months, which
meant that they were able to explore possible effects of institutional rearing on
forms of theory of mind that emerge in infancy. The depression literature, with its
emphasis on postpartum depression, also includes some studies of infant theory
of mind. We will therefore return to the topic of adverse rearing conditions in
Chapter 6 on Infancy.
Conclusions
The expectation underlying much of the research discussed throughout this
chapter has been that warmth and reasoning and discussion will be beneficial
for theory-of-m ind development and that harsh control and rigid imposition of
power will be detrimental. The studies reviewed certainly provide some support
for these predictions; in general, warmth and reasoning work out well and harsh-
ness and power assertion work out poorly. The group comparisons discussed in
the latter sections of the chapter (SES contrasts, effects of adverse circumstances)
also support the importance of certain dimensions of parenting.
Once this general conclusion is stated, it must be acknowledged that the

support for parenting style or parenting dimensions as contributors to theory
of mind is hardly overwhelming. A fair number of studies report null results,
and in a few studies at least some of the outcomes are counter to expectation.
Moreover, when expected effects do occur, the effect sizes are invariably modest.
There are, it is true, some mitigating factors. Measurement is an issue; most
studies fall well short of a full, Baumrind-like assessment of parenting styles.
Restriction of range may also be an issue, given the concentration of research on
middle-class families whose parenting practices are skewed toward the favorable
end of the various dimensions. It is good to remember as well that there has been
a heavy concentration on false belief rather than theory of mind in general, and
that the only individual difference considered in the great majority of studies is a
difference in rate of development.
Future chapters will expand the styles approach to parenting in two general
ways. One will be by a focus on the more proximal processes through which par-
ents may affect their children’s development. The other will be by considering
how parents may contribute to theory-of-m ind understanding from very early
in their child’s life, and thus before practices such as reasoning or punishment
become relevant.
5
Attachment
Readers already familiar with the parenting literature will have noticed that one
important entry under that heading received only brief mention in Chapter 3. Ever
since the pioneering work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (e.g., Ainsworth
et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1969), the attachment relationship between parent and child
has been a major focus of research in social development. And a major question
addressed by such research has been how parenting contributes to the develop-
ment of attachment. Indeed, attachment is easily the most common focus for the
study of parenting in the first year or two of a child’s life.
The reason for reserving the discussion of parenting and attachment for a sepa-
rate chapter is straightforward. Beginning with a report by Fonagy, Redfern, and
Charman (1997), there is now a large literature that documents a positive relation
between attachment and theory of mind: On the average, children with secure
attachments fare better on theory-of-m ind measures than do children whose
attachments are less secure. The goal of the present chapter is to summarize this
literature and to explore explanations that have been offered for links between
attachment and theory of mind.
The Development of Attachment

I begin with some material on attachment per se. Attachment can be defined
as “an enduring affectional tie that unites one person to another over time and
across space” (Thompson, 2006b, p. 43). As this definition implies, attachment
is not limited to infancy, and there are in fact attachment measures and a corre-
sponding research literature for every phase of the life cycle, including adulthood.
Nevertheless, the first and most important attachment is the one that develops
between infant and parent across the first year or so of life.
The word “develops” is important. Attachment is not something that is present
at birth (at least in humans); rather, it must develop, and it may do so in some-
what different ways for different children, depending both on their biologically
given characteristics and on the experiences they encounter. There are, to be sure,
109
important commonalities that underlie the differences. Like theory of mind,

attachment is a topic with a strong normative aspect: Virtually all babies form
attachments, and they do so in roughly the same way and on roughly the same
time schedule. But there also are important individual differences in the nature
and quality of the attachments that are formed.
Measurement
As with any topic, a first question is that of measurement: How can we determine
whether an attachment has been formed, and how can we assess individual differ-
ences in the nature of attachment?
The earliest systematic studies of the construct focused mainly on separa-
tion distress—t hat is, the infant’s tendency to be upset when separated from
the attachment object. Does the baby cry, for example, when the mother walks
out of the room or when left alone in the crib at night? Separation distress has
a good deal of intuitive appeal as a measure of attachment; we would expect a
baby who has formed an emotional bond to another person to be more likely
to protest separation than a baby who has not yet formed an attachment.
Furthermore, separation distress shows the developmental course that we
would expect of a measure of attachment: It is absent in the early months of
life but typically emerges, often in quite strong form, some time between 6 and
12 months.
More recent research retains separation distress as one useful measure but
adds a number of other behaviors as well. These additional behaviors include
several more positive ways by which an infant can convey that an attachment to
the parent is being formed. Does the baby smile or babble more readily to the
mother than to other people? Is the baby more secure in the mother’s presence,
better able to venture out and explore new things or to interact with new people?
The ability to use the mother as a secure base was first emphasized in Harlow’s
(1958) work with infant monkeys; it turns out to be important in human infants
also. Does the baby brighten when the mother enters the room and engage in
greeting or contact-eliciting behaviors? In general, does the baby seem to enjoy
the mother’s presence and do various things either to keep her near when she is
already near or to bring her back when she is gone? There are a variety of attach-
ment behaviors, and they vary across situations, developmental levels, and indi-
vidual children; all, however, have this general quality of pleasure and security in
the presence of the attachment object.
Deciding which behaviors to study is one step in the measurement process.
Another step is deciding how to get evidence with respect to these behaviors.
How can we find out whether a baby protests separation from the mother, reacts
more positively to familiar people than to strangers, uses the mother as a secure
base, or does whatever else it is that we have decided is relevant to attachment?
Attachment 111
The answer is that a number of instruments now exist for the measurement of
attachment. Of these, the earliest and still most influential is the Strange Situation
procedure devised by Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (Ainsworth et al., 1978).
As Table 5.1 shows, the Strange Situation is a structured laboratory assessment
in which trained observers record the infant’s response to a series of comings and
goings by both the parent and a female adult stranger. The Strange Situation was
the original basis for the now generally accepted division into various patterns or
categories of attachment, a typology that I discuss shortly.
As Table 5.1 also shows, the Strange Situation procedure was soon joined by
other attachment measures. Various goals motivated the development of further
measures, including the desire for a broader sampling of contexts and behaviors
than those provided by a 20 minute laboratory procedure and the need to exam-
ine attachment in age periods beyond the infancy period for which the Strange
Situation was developed. I should note that the list given in Table 5.1 is not an
exhaustive tabulation of attachment measures; rather, these are the measures that
appear to date in the theory-of-m ind literature. Fuller discussions of measuring
instruments can be found in Kerns, Schlegelmilch, Morgan, and Abraham (2005)
and Solomon and George (2008).
Two general distinctions divide the measures in Table 5.1. The first concerns
the specific conclusions that can be derived from the measure. All have the same
general goal: namely, to assess the security of the attachment relationship. For
some, security is assessed along a continuous dimension ranging from maximally
to minimally secure; the Attachment Q-Set is an example in this category. For
others, the approach is categorical rather than continuous, with a division into
secure attachment and various forms of insecure attachment. The first and best
known example under this heading is the Strange Situation procedure, which, as
I discuss shortly, identifies four different forms of attachment. Both continuous
and categorical approaches have strengths and limitations, and in some instances
it is possible to derive both from the same data set. Fraley and Spieker (2003) and
Solomon and George (2008) provide further discussions of this issue.
The second distinction concerns exactly what is measured by the instrument.
In some measures the focus is on the various behaviors (e.g., crying upon separa-
tion, smiling upon reunion) from which an attachment can be inferred. Such is
the case with the Strange Situation, and it is also the case with what is probably the
other most frequently used measure in the attachment literature, the AQS. Other
measures do not directly tap behaviors; rather, they are directed to the child’s
(or, in some instances, the adult’s) representations of the attachment relationship.
Such is the case, for example, with the Separation Anxiety Test, for which the
child reports possible feelings in response to vignettes that describe being sepa-
rated from the parent. Such is also the case with the main measure of attachment
in adulthood, the Adult Attachment Interview. Such representational measures,
necessarily, are used only with postinfant, verbal participants.
Table 5.1 Instruments for Assessing Individual Differences in Attachment
Instrument Age period Description

Strange 12 to 24 months A structured laboratory procedure with
Situation three participants: infant, parent, and
Procedure (SS) stranger. Assesses the infant’s response to
a series of separations from and reunion
with the parent, as well as response to a
strange person and a strange setting.
Attachment Q- 1- to 5-year-olds Rating of the child with respect to a set of
Set (AQS) behaviors and characteristics relevant to
attachment. Can be completed by either a
parent or a trained observer.
Preschool 16 months to An extension of the Strange Situation
Assessment of 5 years procedure for older children; employs
Attachment a modified coding system that places
(PAA) more emphasis on distal/communicative
behaviors.
Separation 3-year-olds to A semiprojective measure on which
Anxiety Test adolescents the child responds to a set of photos of
(SAT) separation episodes, indicating likely
feelings and responses for both the self
and another.
Child 7- to A semistructured interview focused
Attachment 12-year-olds on attachment-related experiences and
Interview designed to elicit thoughts and feelings
about the child’s primary caregivers.
Attachment 3- to Presentation, with dolls, of five stories
Story 12-year-olds with family figures and attachment
Completion themes; the child’s task is to complete
each story.
Manchester 4- to 8-year-olds Presentation, with dolls representing the
Child child and a caregiver, of four stories with
Attachment attachment themes; the child’s task is to
Story Task complete each story.
Adult adults A semistructured interview in which
Attachment adults respond to 20 questions and follow-
Interview (AAI) up probes designed to elicit memories of
early attachment experiences and their
effects on adult personality.
Attachment 113
There is an important substantive point that underlies the development and

use of the representational measures. Such measures are not intended to tap on-
the-spot creations; rather, the assumption is that the attachment system takes
a representational and not simply behavioral form from early in life. One of the
most influential aspects of Bowlby’s theorizing about attachment was the notion
that children form such representations, or internal working models, of the attach-
ment relationship (Bowlby, 1969; Bretherton, 1985). A working model represents
the belief system that the child has developed, based on a history of experience
with the caregiver, of the caregiver, of the self, and of the relation between the
two. A child with a history of satisfactory experience, for example, will develop
positive beliefs about both the caregiver and the self and will be confident that
his or her needs will continue to be met; a child with a history of unsatisfactory
experience will develop a more negative set of beliefs. Although the initial work-
ing model is specific to the attachment relationship, its effects can be more wide-
spread, for as a first belief system about the social world it can affect, for better or
worse, the child’s subsequent social endeavors.
Individual Differences
The primary goal of each of the instruments listed in Table 5.1 is to identify
individual differences in attachment—in particular, to distinguish between
secure and insecure attachments and, in some approaches, to identify different
forms of insecure attachment. Table 5.2 shows the four patterns of attachment
identified by the Strange Situation. The first three of these patterns came from
the original Ainsworth et al. (1978) research; the fourth was added later. The
descriptions in Table 5.2 are tied to the reunion episodes in the procedure, that
is, how the infant reunites with the mother after being briefly separated from
her. This emphasis is no accident, for the reunion episodes are generally the
most diagnostically informative part of the assessment.
Although the descriptions in Table 5.2 are drawn from behavior in the
Strange Situation, it is important to note that the differences among the attach-
ment groups are by no means limited to that setting. Ainsworth and colleagues
(1978) showed that Strange Situation classifications agreed well with observa-
tions of the same infants in the home setting. Conclusions from the Strange
Situation also correlate well with those from other measures of attachment,
for example, the AQS (van IJzendoorn, Vereijken, Bakermanns-K raneburg, &
Riksen-Walraven, 2004).
Important though it is, the identification of individual differences is really just
a starting point for research. Once we have identified differences on some trait,
there are two further things that we wish to know: Where do the differences come
from, and what implications do they have for future development? I take up the
second of these questions first.
Table 5.2 Attachment Classifications
Classification Description
Secure attachment On reunion after brief separation from parent,
child seeks physical contact, proximity,
interaction; often tries to maintain physical
contact. Readily soothed by parent and
returns to exploration and play.
Insecure-avoidant attachment Child actively avoids and ignores parent
on reunion, looking away and remaining
occupied with toys. May move away
from parent and ignore parent’s efforts to
communicate.
Insecure-a mbivalent attachment Although infant seems to want closeness
and contact, parent is not able to effectively
alleviate the child’s distress after brief
separation. Child may show subtle or overt
signs of anger, seeking proximity and then
resisting it.
Insecure-d isorganized Child shows signs of disorganization
attachment (e.g., crying for parent at door and then
running quickly away when the door opens;
approaching parent with head down) or
disorientation (e.g., seeming to “freeze” for a
few seconds).
Note. Adapted from Social Development (p. 120), by R. D. Parke and A. Clarke-Stewart, 2011,
New York, NY: Wiley. Copyright 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Adapted with permission.
Stability and Predictive Power

Individual differences in attachment in infancy would be of limited interest if such
differences told us nothing about the child’s future development. Longitudinal
research, therefore, has always been an integral part of the attachment literature.
Such research addresses two general questions.
A first question concerns the stability of the attachment relationship itself. If a
child is securely attached at 12 months, will that child also be securely attached at
24 months or at 5 years? Or can attachment change as the child develops?
The answer—one that can probably be applied to every psychological trait of
interest—is that attachment shows moderately good but not perfect stability over
time (Fraley, 2002; Pinquart, Feufner, & Ahnert, 2013). Most children retain
the same attachment classification as they grow, but changes do occur in some
Attachment 115
instances, and they occur in both directions—f rom secure to insecure and from
insecure to secure. Change is most likely when the time span in question is long
rather than short, and it is most likely when the child’s environment changes in
some important way between the two assessments. Both of these conclusions are
general ones from longitudinal research—stability is greater across short time
intervals than across long ones, and one determinant of the stability of the child is
the stability of the environment.
A second question addressed by longitudinal research concerns possible rela-
tions between attachment and later developmental outcomes of interest. The lit-
erature in this case is a large one, for attachment has been shown, in Thompson’s
(2013, p. 205) words, to relate to “a truly dizzying array of later outcomes.”
I mentioned one such outcome in Chapter 3: the quality of the child’s peer rela-
tions. A partial list of the others includes sibling relations, social competence,
self-esteem, problem solving, academic performance, and romantic relations in
adulthood (Berlin, Cassidy, & Appleyard, 2008; Bornstein, 2014). As the last
of these findings indicates, some of the longitudinal follow-ups are quite long-
term, extending to age 34 in one of the major such studies (Sroufe, Coffino, &
Carlson, 2010; Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005). And as some of the
other entries indicate, effects are not limited to the social realm; secure attach-
ment also predicts various aspects of later cognitive development. Theory of mind
is, of course, another entry under the cognitive development heading.
Determinants
The second general issue with respect to individual differences is where they come
from. Why, in the case of attachment, do some children form secure attachments
whereas other children form attachments that place them in one of the insecure
categories? Although biological characteristics (e.g., inborn differences in tem-
perament) may make some contribution (Vaughn, Bost, & van IJzendoorn, 2008),
the consensus among researchers is that the differences are largely experiential
in origin. Ordinarily, as we saw in Chapter 3, such a general conclusion leaves
open a number of more specific possibilities, including the contribution of vari-
ous social agents (parents, siblings, teachers, peers) and environmental settings
(home, neighborhood, school). In the case of attachment, however, the research
lens can be much more focused. What we need to know is what parents do in the
first year or so of life that either promotes or fails to promote a secure attachment.
Chapter 3 gave the generally accepted answer to this question. One of the
childrearing examples presented there was the Ainsworth group’s work on the
childrearing antecedents of secure attachment (Ainsworth et al., 1978). As we
saw, Ainsworth et al. concluded that the key parental contributor was sensitive
responsiveness, that is, the willingness and the ability to respond quickly and
appropriately to the child’s signals across a variety of childrearing contexts. Later
research has confirmed the importance of sensitive responsiveness (Belsky &

Pasco Fearon, 2008; De Wolff & van IJzendoorn, 1997). This research, it is worth
noting, includes experimental as well as correlational evidence for the value of
responsiveness (Bakermans-K ranenburg, van IJzendoorn, & Juffer, 2003). As we
will see, the literature on attachment and theory of mind is certainly compatible
with this conclusion. As we will also see, however, this literature identifies some
further contributors in addition to sensitivity, aspects of parenting that relate to
both attachment and theory of mind. Thus the work on theory of mind adds to the
general literature on parenting and attachment.
An Overview of Studies
Table 5.3 provides an overview of the studies to be discussed in this section of the
chapter.
As noted in Chapter 1, some studies examine more than one possible parental
contributor to theory of mind. This point definitely applies to the studies to be
considered now. As Table 5.3 indicates, many attachment studies have embedded
the attachment component within a broader exploration of potential contributors
to theory of mind. Parallel examinations of mental state talk and maternal mind-
mindedness are particularly common. Here, I focus for the most part on attach-
ment, deferring discussion of the other contributors for later chapters. In some
cases, however, the interpretation of the results for attachment depends on what
we decide about other possible contributors, and in those cases I have provided a
fuller picture of the study’s conclusions.
As the Child Participants column in Table 5.3 indicates, the studies divide into
two groups. Some studies examine concurrent relations between attachment and
theory of mind. Others follow their sample longitudinally and are able to trace
relations between the two developments over time (while often looking at con-
current relations as well). I will first discuss what we know about concurrent rela-
tions and then move on to the longitudinal research.
As the Child Measures column in Table 5.3 indicates, a variety of theory-of-
mind outcomes appear in this literature. Of interest, the two most common out-
comes, are the same outcomes that were most common in the research considered
in Chapter 4: false belief and emotion understanding.
Why Might Attachment Relate to Theory of Mind?

I have already previewed the general conclusion that this chapter will
reach: namely, that attachment does relate to theory of mind. This point is not in
dispute; the challenge is to determine why the relation occurs. It will be helpful,
Attachment 117
Table 5.3 Studies Relating Attachment to Theory of Mind

participants
Arranz, 3- and False belief, Attachment HOME (Home
Artamendi, 4-year-olds Story Completion Observation for
Olabarrieta, Measurement of the
& Martin Environment)
(2002)
Barone & 3- to 5-year- Emotion understanding, Adult Attachment
Lionetti olds (late Manchester Child Interview
(2012) adoptees) Attachment Story Task
Bost et al. 2- and Emotion language during Mental state and
(2006) 3-year-olds conversation, Attachment emotion language
Q-Set during conversation
Clark & 5- to Self-esteem, attributions None
Symons 9-year-olds for others’ behavior,
(2009) Separation Anxiety Test
Claussen et al. 12-month- Joint attention, Strange None
(2002) olds, followed Situation at 15 months
longitudinally
to 15 and
18 months
de Rosnay & 3- to Emotion understanding, None
Harris (2002) 6-year-olds Separation Anxiety Test
Fonagy et al. 3- to Emotion understanding None
(1997) 6-year-olds Separation Anxiety Test
Greig & 3-year-olds False belief, emotion Maternal depression
Howe (2001) understanding,
Attachment Story
Completion
Humfress 12- and Strange Stories, Child Parenting
et al. (2002) 13-year-olds Attachment Interview quality: warmth/
support, conflict/
negativity,
monitoring,
inductive control
(child-reported)
Laible & 2- to Emotion understanding, None
Thompson 5-year-olds Attachment Q-Set
(1998)
(continued)
Table 5.3 Continued

participants
Laranjo et al. 26-month-olds Level 1 perspective Maternal mind-
(2010) taking, discrepant desires, mindedness
Attachment Q-Set (assessed when child
was 1)
Laranjo et al. 4-year-olds False belief, Level 2 Maternal mind-
(2014) (same sample perspective taking, mindedness
as in Laranjo Attachment Q-Set (assessed when child
et al., 2010) was 1)
Lemche et al. 12-month- Internal state language None
(2007) olds, followed during play-separation
longitudinally episodes, Strange
to 36 months Situation
McElwain 12-month- False belief, Strange Parental sensitivity
& Volling olds, followed Situation at 12 months
(2004) longitudinally (scored from lab
to 4 years observations)
McQuaid 3- to Mental state and emotion Mental state and
et al. (2008) 6-year-olds language during emotion language
conversation, Preschool during conversation
Assessment of
Attachment
Meins et al. 1-year-olds, Symbolic play at 2½ Maternal teaching
(1998) followed years, false belief at when child was 3 (lab
longitudinally 4 years, origins of observations)
to age 5 knowledge and affective
false belief at 5 years,
Strange Situation at
1 year
Meins et al. 12-month- Appearance-reality at Maternal sensitivity,
(2002) olds, followed 3 years, false belief at mental state talk, and
longitudinally 3 and 4 years, Strange mind-m indedness
to 4 years Situation at 12 months when the child was
6 months old
Meins et al. 8-month- Joint attention, Strange None
(2011) olds, followed Situation at 15 months
longitudinally
to 15 months
Attachment 119
Table 5.3 Continued

participants
Moore & 3-year-olds, False belief at 4 years, None
Symons followed Attachment Q-Set at
(2005) longitudinally 3 years
to age 4
Ontai & 3-year-olds, Emotion understanding, Talk about emotions
Thompson followed Attachment Q-Set (story context)
(2002) longitudinally
to age 5
Ontai & 4- and False belief, Attachment Elaborative
Thompson 5-year-olds Q-Set discourse, mental
(2008) state discourse
Raikes & 2-year-olds, Emotion understanding, Talk about emotions,
Thompson followed Attachment Q-Set maternal depression
(2006) longitudinally
to age 3
Repacholi 4- and False belief, emotion None
& Trapolini 5-year-olds understanding
(2004) (sometimes with mother
as target), Separation
Anxiety Test
Scholmerich 4-month- Joint attention, Strange Teaching tasks
et al. (1997) olds, followed Situation at 13 months
longitudinally
to 8, 12, and
13 months
Steele et al. 5- and Understanding of mixed Adult Attachment
(1999) 6-year-olds emotions, Strange Interview—both
Situation (mother at parents, during
12 months, father at pregnancy
18 months)
Steele et al. Same sample Understanding of mixed Adult Attachment
(2002) as in Steele emotions (slightly Interview—both
et al. (1999), modified from Steele parents, during
tested at age 11 et al., 1999), Strange pregnancy, parental
Situation (mother at attitudes and beliefs
12 months, father at
18 months)
(continued)
Table 5.3 Continued

participants
Steele et al. Same sample Recognition of emotions, Adult Attachment
(2008) as in Steele Strange Situation Interview—both
et al. (2002), (mother at 12 months, parents, during
analyzed at 6 father at 18 months) pregnancy
and 11
Symons 2-year-olds, False belief, Attachment None
(2001) followed Q-Set at 2 and 5 years
longitudinally
to age 5
Symons & Same sample False belief, Attachment Maternal sensitivity
Clark (2000) as in Symons Q-set at 2 and 5 years (from Maternal
(2001) Behavior Q-Sort),
maternal distress
Vanwoerden 12- to Movie for the Assessment None
et al. (2015) 17-year-olds of Social Cognition,
Child Attachment
Interview
Yoon et al. 12-month- Joint attention, Strange Communicative
(2014) olds, followed Situation at 12 and behavior
longitudinally 18 months
to 18 months
prior to the review of studies, to have an overview of the possible explanations

that have been offered. We can then return to particular explanations as relevant
in the review of studies and consider some overall conclusions once the review is
complete.
The least interesting explanation for a relation between attachment and the-
ory of mind would be that the relation is artifactual—t hat is, it comes about
for some reason other than a genuine relation between the two developments.
Perhaps, for example, securely attached children are in general more intelligent
or more linguistically skilled than are their insecurely attached counterparts,
and this is why they excel on theory-of-m ind tasks. In fact, however, most
research finds no differences in intelligence or language as a function of attach-
ment status. In addition, many theory-of-m ind studies control for differences
in general intelligence or verbal ability when comparing groups, and effects of
attachment still emerge.
Attachment 121
Fonagy and Target (1997) suggest another way in which an artifactual link
might arise. As they note, securely attached children tend to be at ease and self-
assured when dealing with others. Responding to a typical theory-of-m ind assess-
ment requires such skills, for the child must answer a series of questions posed
by an unfamiliar adult, often after having been taken to some unfamiliar setting.
Securely attached children may bring greater social confidence to such a task, and
this may be why they outperform their less securely attached peers. As we will see,
however, differences among groups occur even on measures that require no par-
ticular social or test-taking skills—for example, in the use of mental state terms in
conversation with the mother. So the greater social confidence may be helpful, but
it is unlikely to account for much of the difference among groups.
Meins (2012) suggests yet another possible artifact. She ties her argument
to research that uses the Separation Anxiety Test as the measure of attachment,
but the argument may apply to some extent to some of the other representational
assessments as well. As Meins notes, the Separation Anxiety Test requires that
the child impute thoughts and feelings to the story characters—requires, in
short, the use of theory-of-m ind skills. Any attachment–t heory of mind correla-
tion, therefore, may reflect the common grounding of both measures in theory
of mind and not a genuine relation between the two constructs. Even if valid,
however, this argument has limited scope. Most of the evidence for links between
attachment and theory of mind comes from the two leading behavioral measures,
Strange Situation and the Attachment Q-Set, and this evidence is not subject to
the common-g rounding argument.
Although the Meins (2012) argument is directed to a possible artifact, its
emphasis on theory of mind as a causal factor also raises a substantive possibil-
ity. Explanations for the relation between attachment and theory of mind have
focused on ways in which secure attachment might promote theory of mind. But
suppose that the causal direction is the reverse—t hat is, that relatively advanced
theory of mind promotes secure attachment. A one-point-in-time correlation is,
after all, compatible with either causal direction.
Two arguments, both temporal in nature, can be offered against the possibility
of theory of mind as the causal factor. First, not all of the evidence with respect to
attachment and theory of mind takes the form of one-point-in-time correlations.
A number of longitudinal studies have addressed the issue, and many (although
not all) have found what would be expected if attachment is the causal basis for
the correlation: namely, that attachment at time 1 correlates with theory of mind
at time 2. With one limited exception (Meins, 2012), however, no study has
included a measurement of theory of mind at time 1; thus the literature does not
provide a full cross-lagged examination of the issue.
The second argument is related. A glance at the Child Measures section of
Table 5.3 will suggest a reason that no study has included a theory-of-m ind
measure at time 1. Many basic theory-of-m ind achievements are preschool
achievements, and thus they emerge well after the nature of the child’s attach-
ment has been determined. Attachment and theory of mind develop on different
time schedules, and any causal relation must be from the earlier development to
the later.
Once this point is acknowledged, a further point must be added. Theory of
mind does not get its start at age 3; rather (as Chapter 6 discusses), it gets its start
very early in life, and by 12 months or so a number of basic theory-of-m ind devel-
opments are in place. To date, only a handful of studies have explored possible
links between attachment and these early forms of theory of mind. As we will see
when these studies are discussed, the assumed causal direction has been a social
to cognitive one: that aspects of the attachment relation either hasten or delay the
emergence of early theory-of-m ind skills. Admittedly, it is more difficult to see
how early forms of theory-of-m ind skills could play any direct causal role with
respect to attachment. Nevertheless, it is possible that such skills could play an
indirect role through their effect on the caregiver’s response to the infant—t hat
babies who (for example) maintain eye contact, respond readily to social cues,
and so forth elicit especially responsive caregiving from the parent. Thus theory
of mind might contribute to parental differences in sensitivity, which in turn con-
tribute to differences in attachment. Such possible links remain to be explored.
Assuming that the primary causal direction is from attachment to theory of
mind, how might the relation be explained? Various researchers have tackled this
question (Fonagy & Target, 1997; P. L. Harris, 1999; Meins, 1997, 2012), and
although the terminology and some specifics vary, all offer what seems to be a ver-
sion of the same basic argument. Each identifies two explanations for why a secure
attachment might relate to theory of mind. I sketch these possibilities briefly now
and then return to them following the review of studies.
One possibility is that a secure attachment might heighten the probability of
experiences that nurture the development of theory of mind. Securely attached
infants, for example, are confident in their mother’s responsiveness and availabil-
ity; they can therefore explore and learn more readily than can their less secure
counterparts, who lack a base to support their efforts. It is, of course, people about
whom children must learn for theory of mind, and secure attachment might be
especially helpful in this regard. A positive relation with the mother, for example,
ensures that interaction with her will be something that the child enjoys and seeks
out and that sharing of thoughts and feelings between the two will be common.
Although initially specific to the attachment object, the positive internal working
model that a securely attached child develops would be expected to support posi-
tive interactions with other people as well, and thus further opportunities to learn
about the mental states of others.
The first explanation, then, is that attachment makes development-enhancing
activities more likely, and this is why it relates to theory of mind. The second
possible explanation is that the relation between the two developments reflects
Attachment 123
their common source: that attachment and theory of mind are related because
the same experiences that result in secure attachment also result in good theory
of mind. We have seen, for example, that sensitive responsiveness on the par-
ent’s part is one antecedent of secure attachment. It makes sense to think—a nd
research in fact suggests—that sensitive responsiveness will also nurture the
development of theory of mind. We will see later in this chapter, and more fully
in Chapters 7 and 8, that mental state talk and maternal mind-m indedness both
relate positively to theory of mind. Both, it turns out, also relate positively to
security of attachment. In general, good things tend to go together in develop-
ment, and attachment and theory of mind may be just one more example of this
general principle.
I will add that the two explanations just sketched are not mutually exclusive.
As we will see, the evidence suggests that both probably apply.
It was not long into the theory of mind era before researchers began to speculate
about possible relations between attachment and theory of mind (Bretherton,
Bates, Benigni, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979; Fonagy, Steele, Steele, Moran, &
Higgitt, 1991; Main, 1991). It was not until 1997, however, that the first study
was reported (although see Fonagy, 1996, for an earlier, partial report). Fonagy
et al. (1997) used the Separation Anxiety Test to assess differences in attach-
ment in a sample of 3-to 6-year-olds. The theory-of-m ind outcome of interest was
the emotion-based form of false belief described in Chapter 2—t hat is, the abil-
ity to judge an inappropriate emotion that followed from a false belief. The two
measures proved to be related: Children with secure attachments outperformed
those whose attachments were less secure, a difference that remained even when
chronological age and language ability were controlled. The effect, moreover, was
a substantial one: 71% correct responses by the former group, as opposed to 20%
for the latter group.
To date, the affective false belief task has appeared in just two other stud-
ies in the attachment literature (it was also employed, but dropped because
of poor performance, by Repacholi & Trapolini, 2004, and employed, but
not analyzed separately, by Ontai & Thompson, 2008). The results are mixed.
Like Fonagy et al. (1997), de Rosnay and Harris (2002) used the Separation
Anxiety Test to assess attachment in a sample of preschoolers. Their measure
of affective false belief understanding included both a typical such story and an
attachment-t heme story, in which a child was separated from his or her mother.
The expectation was that response to the attachment-t heme story would relate
more strongly to attachment than would response to the typical story. This did
not prove to be the case. The basic finding, however, replicated that of Fonagy
et al.: a positive relation between security of attachment and affective false
belief understanding.
The second study, that of Meins, Fernyhough, Russell, and Clark-Carter
(1998), was longitudinal, and I therefore consider it more fully in the next section.
As we will see there, security of attachment at age 1, as assessed by the Strange
Situation, related to a number of later theory-of-m ind outcomes. The only excep-
tion was the affective false belief task (although there was a nonsignificant trend
toward better performance by the securely attached group).
The affective false belief task taps into both false belief understanding and
emotion understanding. As noted earlier, standard forms of these two develop-
ments account for most of the relevant literature.
The picture is perhaps somewhat clearer for emotion understanding than for
false belief (which, in fact, is the conclusion that Hughes, 2011, reached from the
research available at the time of her review). Of the six concurrent examinations of
attachment and emotion understanding, five have reported significant relations,
that is, better performance by securely attached children (Barone & Lionetti,
2012; Greig & Howe, 2001; Laible & Thompson, 1998; Ontai & Thompson,
2002, Study 2; Repacholi & Trapolini, 2004). The successful demonstrations
span a range of attachment measures, including both behavioral (the Attachment
Q-Set) and representational (Attachment Story Completion, Manchester Child
Attachment Story Task, Separation Anxiety Test) forms. The measures of emo-
tion understanding also span a range of forms, although the most commonly used
are the tests developed by Denham (1986; Denham & Auerbach, 1995).
One of the reports with positive results is also the source for the only failure
to find a relation between attachment and emotion understanding. Ontai and
Thompson’s (2002) Study 1 examined the issue with a sample of 3-year-olds
and reported no relation between the measures. The same children and the same
measures were reexamined 2 years later, and in this case a significant relation
emerged. The link between attachment and understanding of negative emotions
was especially strong, something that had also been true in the earlier study by
Laible and Thompson (1998). In discussing the reason for the age difference in
outcomes, the authors emphasize the child’s developmental level and hence readi-
ness to benefit from potentially helpful experiences. In their words, “the benefits
for socioemotional understanding of the more sensitive maternal responsiveness
to emotional issues documented by attachment theorists await the greater com-
prehension of others’ inner, psychological states that develops most significantly
after age 3” (p. 447).
Findings are a bit less consistent for false belief than they are for emotion under-
standing. Three studies have reported significant concurrent relations between
attachment and false belief understanding (Arranz et al., 2002; Repacholi &
Trapolini, 2004; Symons & Clark, 2000), but two other studies failed to find a
relation (Greig & Howe, 2001; Ontai & Thompson, 2008). A report by Meins
Attachment 125
(2012) offers findings in both categories: no relation with Attachment Story

Completion as the measure of attachment, a positive relation with the Separation
Anxiety Test as the measure. There is no obvious difference that divides the stud-
ies with positive and negative outcomes. The false belief measures are in every
case standard ones, and the attachment measures fall on each side of the positive–
negative divide: one positive and one negative outcome with the Attachment Q-
Set, one positive and one negative outcome with Attachment Story Completion.
The Repacholi and Trapolini (2004) study adds an interesting wrinkle to the
assessment. Ordinarily, the target that must be judged in theory-of-m ind research
is a generic one—for example, Maxi in the original study of false belief intro-
duced in Chapter 2. Repacholi and Trapolini presented a generic target on half
of their false belief and emotion understanding trials; on the other half, however,
the child’s mother served as the target. The expectation was that any effects of
attachment on performance might be especially pronounced when the attach-
ment object was the target for the child’s reasoning efforts. And such proved to be
the case, although only for the false belief trials and not the emotion understand-
ing trials. Children whose attachments fell in the avoidant category (one of the
dimensions that can be scored on the Attachment-Q-Set) had special difficulty
in judging their own mother’s false beliefs. In explaining this outcome, Repacholi
and Trapolini evoke Bowlby’s (1969) concept of a working model. They suggest
that children with avoidant attachments have developed negative working mod-
els with respect to the mother and the mother’s relationship to the self, and that
these working models bias their ability to attend to and reason about the mother’s
beliefs.
The Repacholi and Trapolini (2004) study is not the only attempt to explore
possible effects of a familiar target on children’s theory-of-m ind reasoning; it is,
however, the only one to date to show clear effects of attachment. I have already
mentioned Symons and Clark’s (2000) use of a caregiver form of the false belief
task. The caregiver task was associated with several significant effects—none,
however, that had to do with the child’s attachment status. Clark and Symons
(2009) elicited attributions for behavior for three targets: parent, teacher, and
peer. Various effects were associated with target, but none showed any relation
to attachment. Ontai and Thompson (2008) used the mother as target on half of
their false belief and emotion understanding trials; their analyses, however, were
based on composite scores that did not distinguish between targets, and thus any
possible effects went unexplored. Finally, Laranjo, Bernier, Meins, and Carlson
(2010) used the mother as the target for Level 1 perspective taking in 2-year-olds,
the rationale being that expected effects of the variables of interest (maternal
mind-m indedness as well as security of attachment) would.be greatest with the
attachment object as the target. But because no other target was included for com-
parison, it was not possible to determine whether use of the mother in fact made
a difference.
As noted, the target effects in Clark and Symons’s (2009) study of attributions
did not vary as a function of attachment status. Attributions in general, however,
did relate to attachment: Securely attached children offered more positive attri-
butions than did less securely attached children. Securely attached children also
offered more positive self-evaluations than did less securely attached children.
Two other studies provide evidence about possible effects beyond the pre-
school period. In Humfress et al. (2002), response to the Strange Stories measure
by 12-and 13-year-olds related positively to a concurrent measure of attachment
security. Controlling for verbal IQ reduced but did not eliminate the relation. In
Vanwoerden, Kalpakci, and Sharp (2015), adolescents’ responses to an advanced
measure of theory of mind related positively to attachment status—only, how-
ever, for girls. Girls with disorganized attachments performed more poorly than
did those with other classifications.
As the descriptions in the preceding paragraphs indicate, false belief and emo-
tion understanding are not the only outcomes that are represented in the attach-
ment and theory of mind literature. Two other dependent variables appear in
several studies. One is the child’s use of mental state language in conversation—
either mental state words in general or emotion words in particular. Two stud-
ies under the Concurrent Relations heading provide evidence on this point. In a
study by McQuaid and colleagues (McQuaid, Bigelow, McLaughlin, & MacLean,
2008), attachment security was positively related to preschoolers’ use of both
mental state terms in general and emotion terms in particular. Bost and col-
leagues (Bost et al., 2006) also found a significant relation between attachment
security and use of emotion words (the only aspect of language assessed); when
the mother’s own use of emotion terms was controlled for, however, the relation
to attachment disappeared.
The other dependent variable is joint attention in infancy. Joint attention (as
I discuss more fully in Chapter 6) is the ability to share the attentional focus
of others, an ability that develops gradually across the first year or so of life.
Relations between joint attention and attachment are hardly robust in research
to date, but some relation has emerged in three of the four examinations of the
issue (the exception being a study by Yoon, Kelso, Lock, & Lyons-Ruth, 2014).
In two studies (Claussen, Mundy, Mallik, & Willoughby, 2002; Scholmerich,
Lamb, Leyendecker, & Fracasso, 1997) the disorganized pattern of attachment, as
assessed by the Strange Situation, was associated with relatively poor joint atten-
tion, in one case (Claussen et al.) in interaction with the experimenter and in one
case (Scholmerich et al.) in interaction with the mother. In a third study (Meins
et al., 2011) it was the avoidant pattern that diverged from the other classifications.
Compared to the other attachment groups, infants with avoidant attachment
showed both more joint attention with the experimenter and less joint attention,
especially of higher level forms (i.e., pointing and showing), with the mother.
The lower response to the mother was interpreted as evidence that the avoidant
Attachment 127
response shown under conditions of stress (which is what defines the attachment
relationship) is a more general characteristic of the infant–mother relationship.
The greater response to the experimenter was interpreted as evidence that infants
who tend to avoid the mother compensate by increased responding to other social
partners.
Across-Time Relations
Longitudinal study—of attachment and theory of mind or of any issue—does
not solve the problem of causality. Correlational data remain correlational data.
Nevertheless, the across-time information can heighten the plausibility of a causal
inference, assuming that variations in the hypothesized cause at time 1 relate to
variations in the hypothesized outcome at time 2.
Such, in general, is the case with attachment and theory of mind. Predicted
relations, it is true, emerge less consistently in longitudinal examinations than
they do in concurrent tests. It is also the case, as noted earlier, that the literature
lacks a full cross-lagged test of the issue, given the failure to relate theory of mind
at time 1 to attachment at time 2. Nevertheless, the existing evidence appears
compatible, at least mostly, with a causal role either for attachment or for factors
associated with attachment.
Three research programs provide the evidence with respect to emotion under-
standing. I have already noted that Meins et al. (1998) found no relation between
attachment at age 1 and performance on the affective false belief task at age 5. Two
studies by Thompson and associates provide mixed results, despite the fact that
the two studies used almost identical measures of emotion understanding. In
Ontai and Thompson (2002) attachment as assessed by the Attachment Q-Set
at age 3 showed no relation to emotion understanding at age 5. In Raikes and
Thompson (2006) attachment at age 2, again as assessed by the AQS, related
positively to emotion understanding at age 3. Finally, three articles by Steele and
associates (Steele, Steele, & Croft, 2008; Steele, Steele, Croft, & Fonagy, 1999;
Steele, Steele, & Johansson, 2002) report on a sample assessed with the Strange
Situation as infants, once with the mother and once with the father, and then
tested for understanding of mixed emotions at ages 6 and 11. Performance at age 6
related positively to security with the mother; attachment to the father showed no
relation. When the sample was retested at age 11, the positive relation had disap-
peared. In the final report, however, the data were reanalyzed to focus on emotion
recognition rather than reasoning about emotions, and a significant relation to
attachment again emerged—again, however, only for attachment to the mother.
Studies of false belief also present a mixed picture. Moore and Symons (2005)
reported a positive relation between attachment security as assessed by the AQS
at age 3 and false belief understanding at age 4. In Symons and Clark (2000) the
AQS at age 2 failed to predict false belief performance at age 5. The AQS data were
subsequently reanalyzed, however, to focus on a subscale composed of secure
base behavior and absence of avoidance, and this subscale did prove predictive of
later false belief success (Symons, 2001).
Several studies have examined Strange Situation assessments in infancy
as possible predictors of eventual false belief success. Both Meins et al. (1998)
and McElwain and Volling (2004) found that security assessed by the Strange
Situation at age 1 related to false belief performance at age 4. In contrast, in Meins
et al. (2002) Strange Situation assessments at age 1 showed no relation either to
later false belief or to success on the appearance-reality task. Further, in Meins
(2012) Strange Situation classifications showed no relation to performance on the
Wellman and Liu theory-of-m ind battery.
As was true under the Concurrent heading, a handful of outcomes in addition to
emotion understanding and false belief appear in the longitudinal literature. Two
studies of the child’s use of mental state language provide conflicting results: a
positive relation to security of attachment in Lemche, Kreppner, Joraschky, and
Klann-Delius (2007), no relation in Meins (2012). In Laranjo et al. (2010) secu-
rity of attachment showed no relation to toddlers’ understanding of discrepant
desires; it did relate to Level 1 perspective taking, but only for boys. In a follow-up
of the same sample at age 4, security of attachment showed no relation to false
belief but did relate to Level 2 perspective taking, again, however, only for boys.
Finally, in Meins et al. (1998) security of attachment related to understanding
of the origins of knowledge at age 5. At an earlier age period, it also related to
toddlers’ ability to incorporate the pretense suggestions of an experimenter when
engaged in symbolic play. The latter finding mirrored an earlier similar result in
Slade (1987).
To this point, the discussion has said almost nothing about possible effects of
attachment to the father. Many representational measures of attachment do not
distinguish between the parents, and when a distinction is made (as is true for
both the Strange Situation and the Attachment Q-Set), most researchers have
focused on the mother. Data about the father come from two studies. We saw in
the Steele et al. research that attachment to the father had no relation to any of
the measures at any time point. In contrast, McElwain and Volling (2004) found
that attachment to either parent was predictive of later false belief performance,
although the relation was somewhat stronger for the mother.
I noted in Chapter 4 that one way in which parents can affect theory of mind
is by nurturing the executive function skills that contribute to theory-of-m ind
competence. The attachment literature contains two examples of this point. One
is a longitudinal demonstration. Von Der Lippe and colleagues (von der Lippe,
Eilertsen, Hartmann, & Killen, 2010) showed that secure attachment in infancy,
as assessed by the Strange Situation at age 1, related positively to measures of
Attachment 129
executive function at age 6. Thorell and colleagues (Thorell, Rydell, & Bohlin,
2012) provide a concurrent demonstration: Disorganized attachment at age 8, as
assessed by Attachment Story Completion, was associated with deficits in execu-
tive function skills.
Other Predictors
In many of the studies just reviewed, attachment was not looked at in isolation;
rather it was examined in conjunction with aspects of parenting that might con-
tribute to theory of mind—and that might account for any apparent effects of
attachment on theory of mind. I consider four such predictors.
One is parental sensitivity. As we have seen, sensitivity is a consistent corre-
late of secure attachment. Sensitivity has been examined less often with respect
to theory of mind, and it is sometimes not clear how closely the uses of the term
in the theory-of-m ind literature map onto its uses in the attachment literature.
The general conclusion, however, is that sensitivity also relates positively to
theory of mind. This was the conclusion from the studies of sensitivity reviewed
in Chapter 4, and it is also the conclusion from the studies in this chapter that
included measures of sensitivity (McElwain & Volling, 2004; Meins et al., 2002;
Symons & Clark, 2000).
A further question, of course, is whether sensitivity can account for the appar-
ent effects of attachment. The answer is not clear based on the limited evidence
to date. The McElwain and Volling (2004) report does not analyze for indepen-
dent effects of each predictor with the other controlled. In Meins et al. (2002)
there was no effect of attachment, and thus the issue does not arise. There was
an effect of sensitivity, but it disappeared in regression analyses, and mothers’
use of mental state comments emerged as the only predictor of theory of mind.
Finally, in Symons and Clark (2000) conclusions varied somewhat depending on
the time period at issue (concurrent vs. longitudinal prediction) and the specific
false belief measure. Only sensitivity, however, showed any across-time relation
to theory of mind, and the conclusion drawn was that “the current data point to
a generalised measure of sensitive parenting as being a better predictor of per-
formance than either antecedent or concurrent attachment security” (Symons &
Clark, 2000, p. 18).
The literature is both larger and more consistent with respect to a second pre-
dictor: the language used by parents (typically mothers) in conversation with
the child. Parental language is the subject of Chapter 7, and I will say more there
about how it is elicited and what is typically analyzed. For now I note simply that
the usual focus is on the use of mental state terms, either mental state terms in
general or emotion terms in particular, although in some cases more general dis-
course variables serve as the target for analysis.
Six studies have examined maternal language in conjunction with a measure of

attachment (Bost et al., 2006; McQuaid et al., 2008; Meins et al., 2002; Ontai &
Thompson, 2002, 2008; Raikes & Thompson, 2006). In two of the studies (Meins
et al., 2002; Ontai & Thompson, 2008) attachment did not relate to theory of
mind, and thus the issue of a mediator did not arise (in both, however, the mea-
sures of maternal language did predict theory of mind). In two other studies (Bost
et al., 2006; Raikes & Thompson (2006) a significant effect of attachment disap-
peared when maternal language was taken into account. The results in McQuaid
et al. (2008) were a bit more complicated. Controlling for mothers’ mental state
language removed the relation between attachment and emotion understanding;
attachment, however, still made an independent contribution to children’s use of
mental state terms. Finally, in Ontai and Thompson (2002) the relation between
attachment and emotion understanding remained significant when controls for
maternal discourse style were imposed.
The third predictor of attachment is maternal mind-m indedness, as examined
in a series of studies by Elizabeth Meins and colleagues (Laranjo et al., 2010;
Laranjo, Bernier, Meins, & Carlson, 2014; Meins, 1997, 2012; Meins et al., 2002).
Mind-m indedness will receive extended treatment in Chapter 8, and so here
I will simply reiterate the brief definition given in Chapter 1: namely, that mind-
mindedness refers to parents’ tendency to think about and treat their children as
psychological agents.
So defined, mind-m indedness shows a clear relation to theory of mind: Parents
who are high in mind-m indedness have children who do well on measures of the-
ory of mind. Mind-m indedness also relates positively to security of attachment
(Meins, Fernyhough, Fradley, & Tuckey, 2001). How the two predictors work
together is not clear from research to date. The reports by Meins and colleagues
find only scattered and limited effects of attachment, and they do not indicate
whether these effects remain when mind-m indedness is controlled. There are,
however, consistent effects of mind-m indedness, and they remain when attach-
ment is controlled.
The final predictor is maternal teaching. We saw in earlier chapters that some
parents are more effective teachers than others. One of the studies by Meins
and colleagues (Meins et al., 1998) adds two points. First, mothers of securely
attached children are better teachers than mothers of insecurely attached chil-
dren. And second, there is a positive relation between quality of teaching and chil-
dren’s false belief understanding.
Conclusions
Table 5.4 provides a tally of the results just reviewed as a function of three fac-
tors: theory-of-m ind measure, attachment measure, and design (concurrent
Table 5.4 Tabulation of Results from Studies of Attachment and Theory of Mind
Concurrent relation Longitudinal relation Total
Positive Null Mixed Positive Null Mixed Positive Null Mixed

Theory of mind measure
False belief 4 2 5 3 9 5
Emotion understanding 8 2 1 3 2 11 4 1
Other 5 1 1 4 1 2 9 2 3
Attachment measure
Behavioral 4 2 1 9 3 3 13 5 4
Representational 8 3 8 3
versus longitudinal comparison). Outcomes are tabulated as positive (a sig-

nificant relation between attachment and theory of mind), null (no relation), or
mixed (a significant relation for some but not all analyses). Because of its hybrid
nature, the uses of the affective false belief task have been counted under both the
false belief and emotion understanding headings.
For various reasons, the exact numbers in the table should not be taken too seri-
ously. As just noted, one task has been double-counted, different studies contrib-
ute different numbers of entries, and in some cases the same sample contributes
multiple entries across different reports. In addition, there are various forms of
confounding among the three factors—in particular, all of the longitudinal stud-
ies have used behavioral rather than representational measures of attachment.
Once these points are acknowledged, the main point to take away from the
tally is that attachment does relate to theory of mind—not always, not necessarily
strongly, but usually. The relation, moreover, is not limited to a particular design,
or a particular measure of attachment, or a particular measure of theory of mind;
rather, a positive relation is the modal outcome across every combination of these
factors. Not surprisingly, effects seem to emerge more consistently when relations
are examined concurrently rather than longitudinally. There is also the sugges-
tion that they may emerge more consistently for emotion understanding than for
false belief, and for representational compared to behavioral measures of attach-
ment. Any such differences are small, however, and at present the numbers are
both too small and too uncertain to determine whether any such differences are
genuine.
Earlier I identified two ways in which a relation between attachment and
theory of mind might come about. Of these, the second—the common-basis
argument—receives clear support from the studies just reviewed. Many of the
aspects of parenting that support the development of attachment also support the
development of theory of mind. Controlling for these aspects (in particular, men-
tal state talk and mind-m indedness) does not always remove apparent effects of
attachment—clearly, there is no single determinant of either attachment or the-
ory of mind. But the two developments do have some determinants in common,
and this is one reason that they are correlated.
As already noted, this conclusion is not incompatible with a second explana-
tion for the correlation: that a secure attachment creates conditions favorable for
the development of theory of mind. Although earlier I presented this argument in
general form, it is possible to be more specific, for researchers who have addressed
the issue have identified a number of ways in which secure attachment might pro-
mote theory-of-m ind skills (Fonagy & Target, 1997; Main, 1991; Meins, 1997).
Here is a brief and partial list.
Securely attached children engage in both more independent play and more
pretense play than do insecurely attached children. When playing with a partner,
they are more responsive to the partner’s suggestions, and thus are more likely to
Attachment 133
enter into a shared meeting of minds. Compared to insecurely attached children,

their early language contains a higher proportion of referential words as opposed
to frozen phrases, and they are more skilled at using speech for self to direct their
problem-solving efforts. Finally, compared to insecure children, securely attached
children are more skilled in their interactions with siblings and with peers, both
fertile opportunities for learning about the minds of others.
That at least part of the causal basis for relations between attachment and
theory of mind runs from attachment (or factors associated with attachment) to
theory of mind is not in dispute. I conclude by returning to the possibility that the
causal direction for the relation may not be solely from attachment to theory of
mind. I will suggest three ways in which theory of mind might affect attachment.
I have already suggested that differences among infants in early theory-of-
mind skills (or perhaps the precursors of such skills) might influence parental
behavior, which in turn might influence the development of attachment. Not all
researchers find such a scenario plausible; Meins (1997) doubts that any differ-
ences among infants would be evident early enough or clearly enough to affect
what parents do. But even if early differences among infants are not important,
early commonalities may be. As I noted at the start of this chapter, attachment is
a normative as well as idiographic topic, for the differences that we can see (and
on which research has concentrated) occur alongside some basic similarities in
development that apply to babies the world around. Attachment is clearly a devel-
opment for which infants are biologically prepared, and theory-of-m ind compe-
tencies (interest in others, sensitivity to social cues, ability to learn about others)
may be part of the preparation.
The preceding argument is based on the fact that the development of theory of
mind begins well before the preschool years that have been the focus of research.
A second argument is based on the fact that the development of attachment con-
tinues well beyond the 12-month point at which most Strange Situation assess-
ments occur. Children’s working models change in various ways as they develop
and as both their cognitive resources and their social worlds expand, and for
some children the nature of the attachment relationship (secure or various forms
of insecure) may also change. Such changes in attachment occur across a time
period during which major changes in theory of mind are also occurring. It seems
possible that the two developments affect each other in a transactional, back-and
forth-manner as children develop. Longitudinal research to address this possibil-
ity remains to be done.
A final argument concerns the concept of working models and its relation to
theory of mind. A working model is a system of beliefs concerning the self and
others, built up through experience and constrained by the child’s cognitive level.
Theory of mind is also a system of beliefs concerning the self and others, built up
through experience and constrained by the child’s cognitive level. Considering
the overlap between the concepts, as well as their long-time centrality in research,
the similarities and the distinctions between the two formulations have been the
subject of surprisingly little discussion. There are exceptions, however, and here
I draw two points from discussions by Paul Harris (1997) and Mary Main (1991)
(see also Palacios & Alvarez, 2006).
First, several features that are intrinsic to working models might profitably
receive more attention in work on theory of mind. One concerns the role of affect.
A working model is not a disinterested processing of characteristics of the self and
others; rather, it is inherently affect-laden, and the beliefs that it embodies about
self and other are of maximal importance to the child. A second feature concerns
the target for the child’s reasoning efforts. A working model is not directed to
the characteristics of people in general; rather, it is directed to the people whom
the child knows best, namely the parents and the self. A final point concerns dif-
ferences among children. Differences in the working models that children form
are not simply a matter of degree or rate of development; rather, there are impor-
tant qualitative differences that reflect the nature of the child’s attachment. All
of these points—t he role of affect in reasoning, reasoning about familiar and not
just generic others, individual differences of a qualitative and not only quanti-
tative nature—a re arguably weaknesses in the theory-of-m ind literature in its
current state.
The second point concerns possible effects of theory of mind on working
models. Both P. Harris (1997) and Main (1991) discuss ways in which an ini-
tial working model would be expected to change as the child’s theory-of-m ind
abilities change. Children come to realize, for example, that the attachment
object has goals of her own that may or may not involve the child and that
these goals underlie both her behavior and her emotional responses. They also
come to realize that what is immediately apparent is not always the same as
what is real, and that self and other may have different and in some cases mis-
taken beliefs about the same situation. Although both Harris and Main focus
on the effects of developmental changes in theory of mind, individual differ-
ences among children in theory-of mind understanding might well lead to dif-
ferences in their working models of attachment. These links, too, remain to be
explored.
6
Developments in Infancy
This chapter is divided into two general sections. The first section provides
an overview of the one aspect of theory of mind omitted from the review in
Chapter 2: development during infancy. The first goal of the chapter is to sum-
marize the main forms of theory-of-m ind understanding that emerge in the first
18 or so months of life.
As noted in Chapter 2, theory of mind in infancy, more so than during any
other age period, is embedded in a social context, developed and expressed in
interaction with others. The second goal of the chapter is to discuss how the social
context contributes to these developments.
A point made in Chapter 5 is relevant here as well. Ordinarily, “social context”
encompasses a variety of settings and a variety of social agents who contribute to
a child’s development, and one challenge for research is to pull apart the contri-
butions of the different agents. In infancy, however, most children’s social worlds
are a good deal more limited, and the research focus is correspondingly also a
good deal more limited. What research has addressed is how parents contribute
to their infants’ development. Indeed, the focus is more limited still, given that in
the great majority of studies “parent” has meant “mother.” I will note some excep-
tions to this point as we go.
The research literatures being reviewed in this chapter run into the hun-
dreds of studies, and even those with a focus on the contribution of parents may
include several dozen entries. My coverage is thus often of the for-example sort.
As always, there are further sources to supplement the discussion here. Legerstee
(2005) and Reddy (2008) offer book length-treatments of infant theory of mind.
Among general books on theory of mind, Moore (2006) provides an especially
helpful discussion of infancy. Finally, a review article by Legerstee (2009) deals
directly with the question of interest here: how parents contribute to their infants’
theory-of-m ind development.
135
Theory-of-M ind Developments

Early Social Interest and Responsiveness
As we will see, the most often studied aspects of infant theory of mind do not make
their appearance until roughly the last third of the first year. This does not mean,
however, that learning about people begins only at this point. In fact, infants are
interested in and responsive to the social world from birth. Here is a sampling
of the phenomena that illustrate this point (Flavell et al., 2002; Legerstee, 2005;
Reddy, 2008; Walker-A ndrews, Krogh-Jespersen, Mayhew, & Coffield, 2013).
From birth, infants find voices especially interesting in the auditory realm, and
from birth or soon after (there is some dispute on this point) they find faces espe-
cially interesting in the visual realm. From birth infants can recognize their own
mother’s voice, and from soon after birth they can recognize their own mother’s
face. Furthermore, infants are not simply passive observers of the social world;
rather, from birth they emit signals that elicit specific and adaptive responses
from the people around them. Crying is the first such signal, and it is soon joined
by smiling, cooing, and babbling.
Not only do such early infant behaviors elicit predictable responses, but
the infant expects them to do so. From early on, infants enter into turn-taking
bouts with the parent, emitting a behavior and waiting for a response, emitting
another behavior once the response is received, and so forth. That infants expect
a response is shown by what happens in its absence, for if the expected response
is not forthcoming, infants typically become quite upset. The main source of
evidence on this point comes from a procedure called the Still-Face Paradigm
(Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, & Brazelton, 1978). The Still-Face Paradigm
consists of three phases: an initial baseline phase of normal face-to-face inter-
action between an adult (typically the mother) and the infant, a second phase
during which the adult adopts a neutral expression and no longer responds to the
infant’s overtures, and a final phase in which the adult resumes normal interac-
tion. Most infants find the second phase upsetting, reacting at first with height-
ened attempts to elicit a response, followed by distress, followed by turning away
and withdrawal.
Various additional ways in which infants distinguish between people and
other objects become evident across the early weeks. By 5 weeks infants imitate
the actions of a person but not similar actions produced by an inanimate object.
By about the same age they expect people to respond to their social overtures (as
results from the Still-Face Paradigm show), but they show no such expectations
for inanimate objects. By a few months of age they reach for objects that they
wish to draw near but vocalize to bring people near. By the middle of the first
year they are surprised by apparent self-produced movement from an inanimate
object but show no such surprise when people move. And by the middle of the
first year, if not earlier, they are sensitive to the emotional expressions of others,
Developments in Infancy 137
including the way in which different emotional cues fit together. If shown an
angry face, for example, they expect to hear an angry voice should the face start
to speak.
These and other forms of early social sensitivity are precursors to the theory-of-
mind achievements to which I turn now. Before discussing specific developments,
however, I will note a general advance that is reflected in each of the more specific
achievements. Figure 6.1, taken from the Moore (2006) book, provides a picto-
rial depiction. As we have just seen, from birth infants are social creatures who
engage in countless interactions with the important people in their lives. Initially,
though, all such interactions are dyadic, in the sense that each partner’s focus is
on the other, and any environmental element (a toy, a bottle, etc.) is at best an
incidental prop in the interpersonal back-and-forth. Infants do, of course, at times
focus on toys and bottles and other parts of the inanimate environment; when
they do, however, they do not maintain a simultaneous focus on an interactional
partner. The interaction thus remains dyadic, either infant and social partner or
infant and environmental object.
By some time in the second half of the first year the situation changes. The
change is gradual rather than abrupt, and researchers are not agreed with respect
to its timing. Eventually, however, the focus of interaction broadens to include
not just two but three elements: infant, adult, and environment. Now the interac-
tion between infant and adult is about something, and now the infant for the first
time realizes that the adult has a psychological connection to something in the
world—t hat the adult sees, likes, desires, or whatever the object on which both
Figure 6.1 Example of a triadic interaction in infancy. Note. From The Development of

Commonsense Psychology (p. 94) by C. Moore. Copyright 2006. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and
Francis Group, LLC, a division of Informa plc.
are focused. Such a realization marks a basic advance in theory of mind: the earli-
est understanding that other people have psychological states.
Joint Attention
What sorts of psychological states must infants come to understand? Arguably
the most basic psychological state is attention: the realization that one’s inter-
actional partner is focused on and processing some aspect of the environment.
Imagine, for example, that a mother and child are playing happily on the floor
and the mother then suddenly turns her head and looks toward the corner of the
room. Does the infant also turn his head in an attempt to follow her gaze? Such
gaze following is unlikely in young infants, but by the last third of the first year it
has become a common response. The establishment of a shared focus of attention
in this way is referred to as joint attention, and from some theoretical perspectives
(a point to which I return) it can be argued to reflect several basic realizations
about the mind on the infant’s part: Mommy is having an interesting visual expe-
rience; I am like Mommy; therefore I can share her visual experience if I look
where she is looking.
Joint attention has been the most thoroughly studied aspect of theory of
mind in infancy, and this brief description glosses over a number of complexi-
ties in its study (for fuller discussions, see Frischen, Bayliss, & Tipper, 2007; and
Seeman, 2012). The probability and the ease of gaze following vary as a func-
tion of a number of factors. Initially, gaze following is dependent on motion by
the interactional partner, either of the head or at the least of the eyes; eventually
eye orientation alone is sufficient for the infant to zero in on the target of inter-
est (Frischen et al., 2007). Initially, gaze following tends to be successful only if
the target is within the infant’s visual field; with development, infants become
able to track further and further targets (Flom & Pick, 2005). With development
they also become more successful at identifying a specific target when several
possibilities are within view (Butterworth, 1995). Initially, infants may follow the
partner’s apparent gaze even when the partner’s eyes are closed; eventually they
realize that the eyes must be open for gaze following to make sense (Brooks &
Meltzoff, 2005). Eventually they also become able to handle obstacles or barriers,
following the partner’s gaze when the partner’s line of sight is unobstructed but
not when an obstacle intervenes, and moving or peering around a barrier them-
selves when necessary to locate a target (Butler, Caron, & Brooks, 2000; Moll &
Tomasello, 2004).
Further complexities arise from the fact that eye movements are not the only
cue to someone else’s attentional focus, and thus not the only cue that infants
must learn to use. Pointing also serves to direct attention; indeed, pointing does
so more explicitly and more exclusively than does gaze. Infants begin to respond
appropriately to points at about the same time that they begin to follow gaze
(Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello, 1998). By this time or soon after they also begin
to use points themselves. Infants produce two sorts of points (Bates, Camaioni,
& Volterra, 1975). An imperative point is a request for the object pointed at; its
message is “Give me that.” A declarative point, in contrast, is intended to draw
its recipient’s attention to something of interest; its message is “Look at that.” It
has been argued that in some cases declarative points may serve an interrogative
purpose—t hat is, that the child is seeking information about the object in ques-
tion (Kovacs, Tauzin, Teglas, Gergely, & Csibra, 2014). It most instances, how-
ever, their purpose seems to be simply to share experience with another. In this
sense, they constitute a prototypical theory-of-m ind development.
As infants develop, episodes of joint attention begin to extend well beyond sin-
gle instances of gaze following or point following. Infants enter into what some
researchers (e.g., Tomasello, 1999) refer to as joint engagement—t hat is, relatively
extended bouts of social interaction with a partner that are centered on some
object of common interest. They also begin to use joint attention as simply a first
step toward further information gathering and decision making. The next section
describes one way in which this occurs.
Social Referencing
Let me modify the mother–infant example to introduce a further development.
Imagine now that the mother looks not to the corner of the room but to a door,
and that she does so because a stranger (i.e., someone unknown to the baby) has
just appeared in the doorway. How does the baby respond? Again, babies in the
first half year or so are unlikely to respond at all. By late in the first year, how-
ever, the infant may not only follow the mother’s gaze but do something more
as well. Having seen the stranger, the infant now looks back at the mother’s face,
searching in her expression for cues that will help him make sense of this unusual
event. The search of the mother’s face is an example of social referencing: using the
emotional cues provided by others, conveyed via either facial expression or tone
of voice, to guide one’s own response in uncertain situations (Baldwin & Moses,
1996; Walden, 1991). Social referencing is thus the conjunction of two skills
whose development we have seen: the ability to establish joint attention, and the
ability to infer the emotions of others.
The starting point for possible instances of social referencing is some novel or
ambiguous situation, a situation in which the infant is uncertain what is happen-
ing but wants very much to know. Experimental studies of the topic have contrived
various such situations. The vignette used to introduce the concept, response
to strangers, is one common example. Others include response to a novel and
ambiguous toy, response to an unfamiliar animal, and behavior on the visual cliff.
Just as there are various possible elicitors of social referencing, so are there
various possible sources for helpful cues. Parents, of course, are a primary source,
and I will discuss what we know about parents, including comparisons between
parents and other adults, in the second section of the chapter. We will see that the
source for social referencing does not need to be a familiar one, for children read-
ily look to experimenters in laboratory situations. In more naturalistic situations
a variety of sources may be drawn from, including siblings (Feinman, Roberts, &
Hsieh, 1988), day care workers (Camras & Sachs, 1991), and characters seen on
TV (Mumme & Fernald, 2003).
The messages conveyed in social referencing vary along two dimensions: posi-
tive or negative valence as the content of the message, and facial expression or tone
of voice as the medium of expression. Athough either can affect children’s behav-
ior, negative messages generally carry more weight than positive ones (Vaish,
Grossmann, & Woodward, 2008). And although, again, either can be effective,
tone-of-voice cues generally have more impact than facial expression (Vaish &
Striano, 2004). On the other hand, the separation of cues into auditory or visual
in experimental studies is somewhat artificial, for parents often use both channels
when they are not constrained to the use of just one, and evidence suggests that a
combination of vocal and facial cues is more effective than the use of either alone
(Kim, Walden, & Knieps, 2010).
As with joint attention, the ability to engage in social referencing strength-
ens in various ways as infants develop. A young infant may look at a nearby adult
regardless of the adult’s focus of attention; older infants do so only if the adult
is paying attention to both them and the object of interest (Striano & Rochat,
2000). Whereas initially infants benefit only from messages for which they are the
intended recipient, eventually they can acquire information from what they over-
hear or see in exchanges between others (Repacholi & Meltzoff, 2007). Finally,
whereas the earliest effects of social referencing tend to be immediate ones, with
development infants can retain and use the information across longer and longer
spans of time (Flom & Johnson, 2011; Hertenstein & Campos, 2004).
Understanding of Intention
So far we have considered infants’ ability to understand what others are perceiv-
ing and to understand what others are feeling. A third basic task is to understand
what others are intending—t hat is, to infer the goals that underlie people’s behav-
ior. This achievement (and, indeed, the achievements already discussed) is actu-
ally twofold: first, realizing that other people have intentions, and then accurately
judging what the intentions are in particular situations.
As we saw, both joint attention and social referencing involve overt behav-
iors from which the underlying theory-of-m ind knowledge can be inferred.
Understanding of intention, however, has no obvious behavioral correlate, and its
study therefore presents a challenge. How can we figure out what a baby under-
stands about intentions? Two methods of study have proved informative.
One is the method that has been most influential in general in the study of
infant perception and infant cognition: the habituation–d ishabituation tech-
nique. Habituation refers to a decline in interest and attention when the same
stimulus or event is encountered repeatedly; dishabituation refers to a recovery
of interest and attention when the stimulus or event changes in some way. By clev-
erly exploiting infants’ tendency to become bored with repetition and interested
at the occurrence of change, researchers have been able to explore a wide variety
of early perceptual and cognitive achievements.
Amanda Woodward is the researcher who has applied the technique most pro-
ductively to the study of understanding of intentions (Woodward, 2005, 2009).
In one study, for example, the infant watched as an experimenter reached repeat-
edly toward one of two toys (see the top half of Figure 6.2). Once the infant had
habituated to this event, the spatial position of the toys was reversed, and the
experimenter either reached for the same toy as before or reached for the other toy
(see the bottom half of Figure 6.2). One change, therefore, maintained the same
goal but changed the arm movement, whereas the other change maintained the
same arm movement but changed the goal. By 5 months of age infants looked lon-
ger when the reach was toward the other, previously ignored toy, suggesting that
they had encoded the intention behind the reach and that they were surprised
when the intention apparently changed.
Like the other developments discussed, infants’ understanding of inten-
tions improves in various ways throughout infancy. Initially, infants understand
Habituation Event
New Toy Test Event Old Toy Test Event
Figure 6.2 Procedure used to study infants’ understanding of intention. Note. From

“Infants’ Developing Understanding of the Link Between Looker and Object,” by A. L. Woodward,
2003, Developmental Science, 6, p. 305. Copyright 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with
permission.
goal-related action only when it results in a touch of the target object; eventu-
ally a point or a look is sufficient to infer the actor’s intention (Woodward, 2003).
Initially, infants demonstrate an after-the-fact understanding of intentional
action; eventually they are able, given sufficient information, to predict what the
action will be (Cannon & Woodward (2012). Infants also become sensitive to the
sequence of actions, showing more interest when an intended series of actions
is interrupted before its completion than when it is carried through successfully
(Baldwin, Baird, Saylor, & Clark, 2001). They come as well to appreciate the emo-
tional consequences of completing or failing to complete an action, reacting with
more surprise when a negative emotion follows goal fulfillment than when it fol-
lows a failure to achieve the goal (Skerry & Spelke, 2014).
At the same time that they are learning about the behavior of others, infants
are also developing their own set of goal-d irected behaviors. One way in which
they do so is by using the intentions of others to guide their own action. Having
seen an adult reach for a particular toy, they are subsequently more likely to
choose that toy themselves—only, however, if the adult’s reach was an unambigu-
ous attempt to obtain the toy (and not, for example, a back-of-t he-hand contact—
Hamlin, Hallinan, & Woodward, 2008). The self–other relation goes in the other
direction as well. One of the contributors to infants’ understanding of acts such
as reaching and pointing is their own ability to produce such behaviors (Gerson
& Woodward, 2014). Finally, infants also become sensitive to actions directed
toward themselves. One interesting finding here comes from what has been
labeled the unable–unwilling distinction. In this procedure an adult starts but then
fails to hand a toy to an infant, in one case deliberately (she is teasing the baby)
and in the other case accidentally (she drops the toy). For 6-month-olds this dis-
tinction does not matter; 9-month-olds, however, react in the way you or I might,
that is, more annoyance in response to the tease than in response to the accident
(Behne, Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello, 2005).
The second approach to understanding of intention makes use of infants’ ten-
dency to imitate the behaviors of others. Imitation in itself, of course, does not imply
any understanding of the intent behind the action. Some forms of imitation, how-
ever, do. In a study by Meltzoff (1995) 18-month-olds watched an adult attempt to
carry out a series of tasks—for example, to pull apart the sections of a dumbbell or
to drop beads into a cylinder. Half of the children saw a successful performance of
the tasks; the other half saw the same behaviors but a failure to complete the tasks
(for example, the adult’s hand slipped off when attempting to pull apart the dumb-
bell). Imitation of the full, successful action was equivalent in the two conditions,
indicating that the children had encoded the intention behind the actions and that
it was the intention, and not necessarily the actual behavior, that guided their own
behavior. Similarly, in a study by Carpenter, Akhtar, and Tomasello (1998) 14-to
18-month-olds saw an adult perform a series of actions in pursuit of some goal, in
some cases intentionally (the adult said “there!” following the behavior) and in
some cases accidentally (the adult said “woops!” following the behavior). Infants
imitated twice as many of the intentional actions as of the accidental actions, indi-
cating again that they had identified which behaviors were goal-directed and which
ones were not.
Recent research adds several further points with respect to understanding
of intention. Bellagamba, Camaioni, and Colonessi (2006) demonstrated that
individual differences in intention understanding were stable over time—t hat is,
infants who were relatively high in such understanding at 12 months remained rel-
atively high at 15 months. Olineck and Poulin-Dubois (2009) also demonstrated
stability over time, in this case between attentional measures at 10 months and
imitation measures at 14 months. They also reported some within-time consis-
tency in performance on different forms of attentional measure. Finally, Dunphy-
Lelii and colleagues (Dunphy-Lelii, LaBounty, Lane, & Wellman, 2014) provide
data on an important question: whether typical laboratory measures of intention
understanding relate to infants’ real-life social interactions. Their answer was a
positive one: Looking-time measures of infants’ ability to parse intentional actions
were positively related to social attentiveness and joint engagement in interaction
with the mother. Such measures also related to the mother’s responsiveness to the
infant, a finding that I return to in the second section of the chapter.
Rich Versus Lean
In introducing joint attention, I noted that the description given for the infant’s
understanding (I am like Mommy. She is having an interesting visual experience.
I can share her visual experience) was specific to some theoretical interpretations
of the phenomenon. Specifically, such a description constitutes what is a called
a rich interpretation of infant behavior (Racine, 2012; Slaughter & McConnell,
2003). A rich interpretation imputes a good deal of underlying, interrelated
knowledge in its attempts to explain overt behavior—i n the present case, either
an adult-l ike or close to adult-l ike understanding of the psychological states that
underlie acts of joint attention. Among the prominent researchers who generally
subscribe to a rich interpretation of infant competencies are Simon Baron-Cohen
(e.g., Baron-Cohen, 1995), Maria Legerstee (e.g., Legerstee, 2005), Andrew
Meltzoff (e.g., Meltzoff, 2007), and Michael Tomasello (e.g., Tomasello, 1999).
The alternative to rich interpretation is lean interpretation. As the label sug-
gests, the lean approach attributes considerably less underlying knowledge than
does the rich approach. The attempt, rather, is to identify simpler, more parsimo-
nious explanations for the behaviors we see, resorting to richer conceptions only
when the child’s behavior unequivocally demonstrates that such understanding
has developed. Successful gaze following, for example, might be explained, at
least initially, as an individually learned response, established because it pays off
in the reinforcement of interesting things to see and without any implications for a
broader system of interrelated understanding. Among the proponents of the lean

approach are Jeremy Carpendale and Charlie Lewis (e.g., Carpendale & Lewis,
2010), Chris Moore (e.g., Moore, 2006), and Ted Ruffman (e.g., Ruffman, 2014).
Note that the differences between rich and lean are not, at least for the most
part, differences in the conception of the final, mature form that knowledge takes.
The differences concern when and how this final level is achieved.
What are the implications of the rich–lean distinction for the role of parents in
the development of infant theory of mind? We might expect that the parent’s role
would be greater from the lean perspective—t here is, after all, less knowledge yet
in place through much of infancy, and thus more that still needs to be developed,
if we adopt a lean interpretation of infants’ abilities. On the other hand, the rich
perspective hardly denies a role for experience, including an important role for
parents, in children’s development. Although theorists under this heading may
offer a more positive conception of infant abilities than do those working under
the lean heading, none believes that abilities emerge automatically and in full
form; rather, any ability has a developmental history and a typical time of emer-
gence (and indeed, theorists in the rich tradition differ among themselves with
respect to when particular competencies develop). Furthermore, some theorists
under the rich heading (Legerstee and Tomasello in particular) are strong propo-
nents of the sociocultural approach to theory of mind, and thus of a maximal role
for experience in general and for experience with parents in particular. Parents,
then, can be important under either a rich or a lean perspective; again, the differ-
ences concern not whether but when and how.
Relations to Later Development

Often in the study of cognitive development, the achievements of a particular
developmental period are of interest not only in themselves but also for their pos-
sible relation to developments yet to come. Such is definitely the case with infant
theory of mind. This point holds true in both a normative and an idiographic
sense—t hat is, with respect to both commonalities and individual differences in
development.
The argument with regard to commonalities is straightforward. It is that later,
relatively advanced developments become possible only once the building blocks
provided by earlier developments are in place. This is a point long familiar to
readers of Piaget, in whose theory sensorimotor schemes serve as a prerequisite
for concrete operations, and concrete operations in turn pave the way for formal
operations. It is a point that applies as well to theory of mind. Children could
hardly master the second-order forms of reasoning that characterize the middle
childhood years without first becoming capable of first-order reasoning. And—to
turn to the point at issue now—t hey could hardly master first-order reasoning
about mental states without the realization that mental states exist, and this real-
ization is a basic achievement of infancy.
The preceding argument has to do with developments that are achieved by
all typically developing children. Does it matter how quickly or how well they
achieve the early steps in the process? This is the across-time question in the idio-
graphic sense—do early individual differences in theory of mind relate to later
individual differences in theory of mind?
A number of recent studies indicate that they do. Table 6.1 summarizes the
studies that have examined the issue. It can be seen that the sampling of abili-
ties at both time periods, while hardly exhaustive, does span a range of outcomes.
Most commonly studied in infancy are joint attention and understanding of
Table 6.1 Studies Relating Infant Theory of Mind to Later Theory of Mind
Study Participants Infant measures Later measures

Aschersleben, 6-month-olds, Understanding of Wellman & Liu
Hofer, & tested again at intention battery
Jovanovic (2008) 4 years
Brooks & Meltzoff 10-month-olds, Gaze-following Mental state
(2015) tested again at language (2½
2½ and 4½ years years),
Wellman & Liu
battery (4½ years)
Charman et al. 20-month-olds, Joint attention Level 1
(2000) tested again at perspective
3½ years taking, origins
of knowledge,
desire-based
emotion
Colonnesi, 11-month-olds, Production and Level 1
Rieff, Koops, tested again at 14 comprehension perspective
& Perucchini and 38 months of pointing, taking,
(2008) understanding of explanations for
intention behavior, false
belief
Kristen et al. 6-month-olds, Joint attention, Mental state
(2011) tested again at understanding of language
8, 11, 14, 17, and attention
36 months
(continued)
Table 6.1 Continued
Study Participants Infant measures Later measures

Nelson, Adamson, 18-month-olds, Joint engagement False belief
& Bakeman tested again at 3-
(2008) month-i ntervals
until 30 months
and then at
42, 54, and
66 months
Olineck & Poulin- 14-and 18- Understanding of Mental state
Dubois (2005) month-olds, intention language
tested again at
32 months
Olineck & Poulin- 14-and 18- Understanding of Wellman & Liu
Dubois (2007) month-olds, intention battery, explicit
tested again at understanding of
4 years intention
Thoermer et al. 15-month-olds, Implicit Level 1 Explicit Level 1
(2012) tested again at perspective taking perspective taking
18, 30, 36, and (15 months), (30 months),
48 months implicit false belief understanding
18 months of desire
(36 months),
explicit false belief
(48 months)
Wellman, Phillips, 14-month-olds, Understanding of Wellman & Liu
Dunphy-L elii, & tested again at intention battery
LaLonde (2004) 4 years
Wellman, Lopez- 10- to 12-month- Understanding of Wellman & Liu
Duran, LaBounty, olds, tested again intention battery
& Hamilton at 4 years
(2008)
Yamaguchi, 12-month-olds, Understanding of Wellman & Liu
Kuhlmeier, tested again at intention battery
Wynn, & 4 years
vanMarle (2009)
intention. Most commonly studied in later childhood is false belief, although the
fuller Wellman and Liu (2004) battery also appears in a number of studies.
The general conclusion from this research to date is easy to state: Every study of
the issue has reported a relation between infant theory of mind and later theory of
mind. In several cases, moreover, the relations remain when various third-factor
explanations (e.g., language ability) are controlled. To be sure, not all possible
relations work out; some would-be predictors fail to predict, and some later out-
comes turn out to have no significant antecedents. In some instances, however
(although not always), such null outcomes are informative, because they help to
establish the specificity of the relationship. In the study by Kristen and colleagues
(Kristen, Sodian, Thoermer, & Perst, 2011), for example, understanding and
production of imperative points uniquely predicted later talk about desires, an
expectable finding given that the former are really just a nonverbal version of the
latter. In the study by Thoermer and colleagues (Thoermer, Sodian, Vuori, Perst,
& Kristen, 2012), performance on an implicit false belief measure in infancy
related to the procedurally and conceptually similar unexpected locations task in
preschool—not, however, to performance on the unexpected contents task.
The first of the longitudinal reports (Charman et al., 2000) set forth two general
explanations for such cross-time relations, explanations that have generally been
endorsed by later researchers as well. One, which was suggested in the examples
just given, is that early abilities grow into later ones as the initially implicit compe-
tencies of infancy are reworked with experience into the explicit, representational
form that they take in later childhood. The other general explanation, which is by
no means mutually exclusive, is that the social context in which infant abilities
emerge and are expressed provides a rich opportunity to learn about the men-
tal states of others. Engaging in joint attention or social referencing, for example,
requires a continual focus on the mental states of one’s interaction partner, along
with the realization that the partner’s perspective may differ from one’s own. Such
experiences, therefore, serve as building blocks for developments yet to come.
A third possible contributor to the cross-time relations is also not incompatible
with these first two possibilities. Later theory of mind is not the only developmen-
tal outcome for which proficiency in infant theory-of-m ind skills is important.
There is, in fact, a considerably larger research literature that predates the work
just discussed, and that is research directed to relations between infant theory of
mind, especially joint attention, and children’s language development. It makes
sense to think that the ability to achieve a common focus on the object of talk
would be important for language learning, and this turns out clearly to be the
case (Graham, Nilsen, & Nayer, 2007; Meltzoff & Brooks, 2009). As I have noted
at various points, individual differences in language ability are one contributor to
individual differences in theory of mind. Thus the work on joint attention and lan-
guage acquisition suggests another way in which what happens in infant theory of
mind is important for what happens in later theory of mind.
Parents’ Contribution
We turn now to how parents contribute to the various developments just dis-
cussed. In what follows, I divide the coverage into the same four general headings
used in the first part of this chapter: namely, early social interest and responsive-
ness, joint attention, social referencing, and understanding of intention. Most of
the relevant studies have in fact focused on just one of these developments. As we
will see, however, research suggests what we might expect: namely, that the same
parental practices are important across a range of theory-of-m ind outcomes.
Early Social Interest and Responsiveness

Some of the clearest evidence for the importance of parents comes when parents
do not behave as parents normally do. As noted in Chapter 4, mothers who are
suffering from depression often show forms of parenting that are nonoptimal in
various ways, including low involvement with the child, low responsiveness to sig-
nals from the child, low levels of tactile and vocal stimulation, infrequent expres-
sions of warmth, and a preponderance of either no affect or negative affect (Field,
2010). Furthermore, these departures from normal parenting may be evident very
early, indeed from birth in many cases.
Effects of such distorted parenting may also be evident very early. Newborns
of depressed mothers are less responsive to faces and voices than are newborns
in general (Field, Diego, & Hernandez-Reif, 2009). They are also less responsive
to other animate stimuli, such as newborn cry sounds and vocal music (Field,
Hernandez-Reif, & Diego, 2011). Later in infancy children of depressed moth-
ers show deficits in the ability to discriminate facial expressions (Bornstein,
Arterberry, Mash, & Manian, 2011), and they laugh less and fuss more in interac-
tion with their mothers (Field et al., 2007).
Variations within the range of normal parenting may also affect babies’ early
social responsiveness. The Still-Face Paradigm is one source of evidence for this
conclusion. Although most infants find the still-face procedure upsetting, infants
vary in how upset they become and in how readily they resume normal interac-
tion in the final phase of the procedure. One determinant of these variations is
parenting behavior. The parent’s immediate behavior can be important. When
the mother interacts sensitively with the infant in the initial phase of the proce-
dure, infants show less negative affect during the still-face episode, they are more
successful at regulating their affect, and they show less resistant and avoidant
behavior during the reunion phase (Braungart-R ieker et al., 2014; Mesman, van
IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-K ranenburg, 2009). The more long-term parent–child
relation can also be important. A history of sensitive parenting by the mother
is associated with less negative affect and more self-soothing in response to the
still-face episodes (Tarabulsy et al., 2003). We might also expect that a history
of maternal depression would affect still-face responding; research to date, how-
ever, provides a mixed picture, with negative effects in some but not all studies
(Mesman et al., 2009).
The Still-Face Paradigm examines what happens when there is a disruption in
the usual contingency between the infant’s behaviors and those of the mother.
Another way to examine the same question is the replay task, a procedure intro-
duced by Murray and Trevarthen (1985). The replay task contrasts infant behav-
iors under two conditions: a normal face-to-face interaction with the mother,
and a subsequent video replay of the mother’s part of this initial interaction. The
two conditions are therefore identical in maternal behavior (same smiles, same
vocalizations, etc.); the difference is that in one condition the behaviors are tied
to the infant’s ongoing behavior and in the other condition this contingency has
disappeared. As with the Still-Face Paradigm, infants find the lack of contingency
upsetting; they tend both to attend less and to smile less when the mother’s behav-
iors are not in synchrony with their own. And as with the Still-Face Paradigm,
parenting history affects the infant’s response. Infants with a history of warm,
sensitive, and responsive parenting show a clear differentiation between the two
conditions, responding with more smiles, gazes, and vocalizations to the live than
to the replay version of the mother; infants who lack such a parenting history show
little differentiation between conditions (Markova & Legerstee, 2006). A relative
lack of differentiation between live and replay is also characteristic of infants of
depressed mothers (Skotheim et al., 2013).
I turn now to joint attention. Although all typically developing infants mas-
ter joint attention, some do so more quickly than others, and some deploy their
joint attention skills more readily and effectively than others. The question now is
where such differences come from—in particular, of course, how parents contrib-
ute to their infant’s development.
Relevant evidence divides into two general categories. Some studies have
explored how well general approaches to parenting, most of which have already
been discussed in other contexts, can account for the emergence of joint atten-
tion. I begin with work under this heading. Other studies have concentrated on
the joint attention context itself and specific experiences that may nurture infants’
understanding. This work makes up the second part of the coverage.
Joint Attention: General Approaches

One possibility is to examine general styles or dimensions of parenting. Although
the full Baumrind approach to parenting styles is not applicable with parents
of infants, many of the dimensions of parenting considered in Chapter 4 (e.g.,
warmth, sensitivity, control) do apply and have in fact been studied.
We saw in Chapters 3 and 4 that parenting that is high in warmth and sensi-
tivity is associated (albeit with some qualifications and exceptions) with positive
outcomes in development, including positive theory-of-m ind outcomes. Such is
also the case for developments in infancy, including joint attention.
Let me say a word first about measurement. A variety of approaches to assess-
ing the quality of early parenting appear in the literature. I will single out two as
examples, both of which have contributed to multiple reports.
One is the Child-Adult Relationship Experimental Index, or CARE-I NDEX,
developed by Patricia Crittenden (1988, 2004). The CARE is an observational
assessment of mother–infant interaction, derived from a videotaped segment
(typically 5 minutes in length) of free play behavior in a laboratory setting. The
mother’s behavior is coded on three scales: sensitivity, control, and unresponsive-
ness. A sensitive mother, for example, is skilled at reading signals from her infant,
adjusts well to the infant’s wishes and needs, and is consistently warm and sup-
portive in her interactions; a controlling or unresponsive mother falls short of this
desirable pattern, although the two categories do so in somewhat different ways.
The second influential measurement comes from the work of Maria Legerstee
and associates (Legerstee, Markova, & Fisher, 2007; Legerstee & Varghese, 2001).
The focus of the Legerstee group is on maternal attunement to the infant, that
is, the mother’s ability to recognize and to respond appropriately to the affective
states of her baby. Attunement is argued to be an essential contributor to infants’
awareness of the fit between their own emotions and those of others, including
the realization that mother knows and shares their emotions. Operationally,
attunement is defined in terms of behaviors along three dimensions: maintain-
ing attention, warm sensitivity, and social responsiveness. Table 6.2 provides a
description of each dimension. The assessment is again an observational one,
based on a sampling of free-play interaction between mother and infant in a labo-
ratory setting.
I have already mentioned one finding from the Legerstee research. A relatively
high degree of maternal attunement early in infancy is associated with a rela-
tively strong differentiation between live and replay conditions in the replay task
(Markova & Legerstee, 2006). Maternal attunement is also positively related to
joint attention later in infancy (Legerstee, 2005). The relation, moreover, is not
only concurrent but also prospective. Before they are capable of joint attention,
infants engage in gaze monitoring, that is, preferential looking toward an inter-
actional partner’s face, especially the region of the eyes. Legerstee et al. (2007)
reported a positive relation between gaze monitoring at 3 months and joint atten-
tion at 10 months—only, however, for infants whose mothers were high in mater-
nal attunement. The relation between early and later developments was seen as
evidence for continuity in social understanding over time, with an early dyadic
form of response developing into the triadic form of understanding represented
by joint attention. Such continuity was found, however, only when a “supportive
Table 6.2 Measurement of Maternal Attunement (Legerstee)
Category Definition
Maintaining attention Maternal directive, question, or comment that was
related to the activity or object that the infant was
currently visually engaged with, physically engaged
with, or both, just prior to the mother’s request,
or was in direct response to the infant’s attempt to
attract her attention to an object or activity.
Warm sensitivity Degree of sensitivity mothers displayed to infants’
cues, including promptness and appropriateness of
reactions, acceptance of infants’ interests, amount of
positive affect, and tone of voice.
Social responsiveness Mothers’ imitative responses to infants’ smiles and
vocalizations, and as modulation of infants’ negative
affect.
Note. Adapted from “The Role of Affect Mirroring on Social Expectancies in Three-Month-Old
Infants,” by M. Legerstee and J. Varghese, 2001, Child Development, 72, p. 1306. Copyright 2001 by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
maternal interactive style” (Legerstee et al. 2007, p. 303) helped the infant to
make the dyadic to triadic transition.
Although its operationalization is somewhat different, the concept of attun-
ement also figures importantly in a study by Rollins and Greenwald (2013). Their
specific emphasis was on the intensity of the affect in instances in which the
mother matched her affect to that of her infant. Thus matches between mother
and baby were scored for both valence (positive or negative emotion) and inten-
sity (low, moderate, or high). The attunement measures were taken at 6 and
9 months, and joint attention was measured at 12 months. Intensity turned out to
be important. Low intensity matching at 6 months related positively to later joint
attention; moderate intensity matching at 9 months, however, related negatively.
The relations, moreover, were substantial ones: correlations of .63 and –.65. The
contrasting effects of low and moderate matching were interpreted as a reflection
of the mother’s role in promoting a transition from an early understanding of oth-
ers’ emotions to an eventual understanding of others’ attention. Such understand-
ing is most likely to emerge when the infant’s arousal is not too great, and “some
caregivers are more skilled at supporting their infant’s joint attention in calm
interactions without over-a rousing them” (Rollins & Greenwald, 2013, p. 352).
The CARE-I NDEX has appeared most often in research on understanding of
intention, and that is work that I consider later in the chapter. The one application
to joint attention comes in a study by Raver and Leadbeater (1995). Their sample
was an at-r isk one: the infants of socially disadvantaged adolescent mothers. The
infants were observed twice, first at 12 months and then again at 20 months. At
both ages relatively high maternal sensitivity related positively to joint attention.
The relation held for both total time spent in joint attention and proportion of
reciprocal bidding sequences. A reciprocal bid is one to which the interactional
partner responds positively, and thus one that results in a successful bout of joint
attention. As such, reciprocal bids are an index of the quality of joint attention
initiatives.
Although they do not use the specific measures of sensitivity just discussed,
a number of other studies have examined maternal sensitivity as a predictor of
joint attention (Bigelow, MacLean, & Proctor, 2004; Flanagan, Coppa, Riggs, &
Alario, 1994; Gaffan, Martins, Healy, & Murray, 2010; Hobson, Patrick, Crandell,
Garcia Perez, & Lee, 2004; Wade, Madigan, Akbari, & Jenkins, 2015). In each
case the relation has proved to be a positive one. In the Hobson et al. (2004) study
the infant assessments included not only joint attention but also measures of non-
social understanding (object permanence and means–end relations). The effects
of maternal sensitivity turned out to be specific to the social measures. In the
Flanagan et al. (1994) study the sample was teen mothers (all less than 17 years
old) and their infants. Although the level of joint attention for these dyads was
lower than that typically found, sensitivity still made a difference within the sam-
ple, with the best performance by infants of relatively sensitive mothers.
Sensitivity is also a component of another parenting construct that appears in
the joint attention literature, the construct of emotional availability. The idea of
emotional availability is perhaps self-explanatory; it refers to the caregiver’s avail-
ability and responsiveness in times of emotional need. Operationally, the best
established measure of the construct, the Emotional Availability Scales (Biringen,
Robinson, & Emde, 2000), is composed of four caregiving subscales: sensitivity,
structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility. As with the other measures con-
sidered in this section, the assessment is an observational one, based on a sam-
pling (typically at least 10 minutes in length) of caregiver–child interaction.
We saw in Chapter 4 that relatively high emotional availability on the parent’s
part is associated with good emotion understanding in preschoolers (Garvin et al,
2012). The same study reported a positive, although modest, relation between
emotional availability and joint attention at 18 months. In contrast, the only other
study to examine emotional availability as a predictor of joint attention (Osorio,
Martins, Meins, Martins, & Soares, 2011) found no relation at all. The authors of
the latter report suggest that the young age of their sample (9 to 11 months) may
account for the absence of a relation. Conceptually, the construct of emotional
availability is tied to the attachment relationship. Emotional availability may
become important, then, only once the attachment relationship is fully formed.
As we saw in Chapter 5, the attachment relationship itself has been examined
as a possible predictor of joint attention in four studies (Claussen et al., 2002;
Meins et al., 2011; Scholmerich et al., 1997; Yoon et al., 2014). Three of the stud-
ies reported a relation. In two instances it was the disorganized pattern of attach-
ment that diverged from the other patterns, resulting in lower levels of joint
attention, in one case in interaction with the mother (Scholmerich et al.) and
in one case in interaction with an experimenter (Claussen et al). The Yoon et al.
study is an exception, for they reported no differences between infants in the
disorganized category and the other attachment groups. They did, however, find
a difference among the mothers: Mothers of disorganized infants initiated fewer
bids for joint attention than did mothers of other infants. Finally, in the Meins
et al. (2011) study it was the avoidant group that proved distinctive, showing
both less initiation of joint attention with the mother and more initiation of joint
attention with the experimenter than did the other attachment groups. As noted,
in Chapter 5, the authors’ interpretation of this finding is straightforward: The
avoidance of the mother shown in the Strange Situation assessment extends
to other interactional contexts, and the infant compensates by an increased
response to other social partners.
The Meins et al. (2011) report adds a further point. The joint attention measures
were taken twice, first at 8 months and then again at 15 months. It was only at the
older age that differences among the attachment groups appeared. The authors’
explanation for this age effect is similar to that offered by Osorio et al. (2011) for
the contrasting effects of emotional availability at different ages: Effects of the
attachment relationship emerge only once the relationship is fully formed.
There are two more entries that fall under the general-approaches heading. One
is work on maternal depression. We have seen that maternal depression can affect
infants’ social responsiveness from very early in life. Maternal depression can
also affect the emergence and the frequency of joint attention. Effects, to be sure,
are not inevitable. Gaffan et al. (2010) found no effects of mothers’ self-reported
depressive symptoms on joint attention in 9-month-olds, and in Henderson and
Jennings (2003) a mean difference favoring the infants of nondepressed mothers
fell short of significance. On the other hand, Henderson and Jennings did find
that nondepressed mothers made more initiations directed to the child’s focus
of attention, a generally positive strategy with respect to joint attention. And sev-
eral other studies (Goldsmith & Rogoff, 1997; Jameson, Gelfand, Kulcsar, & Teti,
1997; Raver & Leadbeater, 1995) have reported lower levels of joint attention in
the infants of depressed mothers.
The second entry under the general heading is a topic not yet considered, for
it is the subject of Chapter 7. Most work on parental talk as a contributor to chil-
dren’s theory of mind has concentrated, understandably, on children who are old
enough to understand the talk and to produce speech themselves. But parents, of
course, do not wait for the postinfant years to begin to talk to their children. And
recent research suggests that early parental talk can contribute to the emergence
of joint attention.
The clearest effects appear in a study by Roberts et al. (2013). Maternal speech
to the infant was measured when the baby was 6 months old, and joint attention
was measured (in a structured assessment with an experimenter) when the baby
reached 12 months of age. Of special interest in the coding of the speech samples
were references to the infant’s mental states. Most mothers in fact made several
such references; most frequent were references to what the baby was perceiving,
followed by references to desire and emotion. The mother and infant measures
proved to be positively (albeit modestly—a correlation of .25) related: The more
frequent the references to the infant’s mental states at 6 months, the better the
joint attention at 12 months.
One other aspect of maternal speech also proved predictive of joint atten-
tion, and that was variability in pitch. Modulations in pitch are a component of
a style of speech that many adults adopt in talking to young children, a style that
is typically labeled either motherese or infant-directed speech. It has long been clear
that motherese aids the child in the task of language learning. The Roberts et al.
(2013) study suggests that motherese also aids in the emergence of joint attention.
Two reports by Slaughter, Peterson, and Carpenter (2008, 2009) provide fur-
ther data with respect to possible effects of early maternal speech. The source for
both reports is the same: a sample of 24 mother–infant dyads originally studied
by Carpenter et al. (1998). The design was longitudinal, with data collected when
the infants were 9, 12, and 15 months of age. As in the Roberts et al. (2013) study,
maternal references to infant mental states were frequent. Perception was again
the most often labeled mental state, although references to desires (especially the
word “want”) were also common.
Both reports suggest a back-and-forth relation between maternal speech and
child competence, although the specific pattern differs across the two reports. In
Slaughter et al. (2008) there was no overall relation between mothers’ talk about
perception and children’s joint attention. There was, however, an across-time rela-
tion: References to perception dropped significantly in the period following the
child’s mastery of joint attention. This pattern suggests that mothers label their
children’s perceptual experiences as long as they are still trying to help the child
establish joint attention; once joint attention is in place, talk is more likely to shift
to other matters—for example, a focus on the object of mutual interest.
In Slaughter et al. (2009) the interest was in the infant’s production of com-
municative gestures, especially the two forms of pointing identified earlier in
the chapter: declarative points and imperative points. Although maternal speech
showed no relation to declarative points, the mother’s use of volitional (i.e.,
desire) terms did relate to the age at which the infant first produced imperative
points: the more frequent the mother’s use of such terms, the earlier the age of
emergence. There was, then, a relation between the mother’s talk about desires
and the infant’s ability to communicate desires through pointing. This relation
was not evident, however, until the 15 month test period, and thus well after the
emergence of imperative points. The authors interpret this finding as a child-to-

parent effect: It is only once imperative points become frequent that mothers
begin to notice and to label them. But they also suggest that such labels can aid
the child in the next step in theory-of-m ind development. Such labels provide “a
mapping from the internal experience of desire to the vocabulary for referring
to that experience. In this way, infants and toddlers can ‘break into’ mental state
language and begin to acquire explicit concepts of mind” (Slaughter & Peterson,
2012, p. 9). This is an argument to which we will return in the next chapter.
Joint Attention: Specific Experience

There is an admittedly thin dividing line between some of the studies just dis-
cussed and those to which I now turn. The focus now is a more proximal or
micro one—a n attempt to determine what parents do within the joint attention
context itself that either promotes or fails to promote joint attention in their
infants.
A number of studies provide data on this question (Deak, Krasno, Triesch,
Lewis, & Sepeta, 2014; de Barbaro, Johnson, & Deak, 2013; Gaffan et al., 2010;
Mendive, Bornstein, & Sebastian, 2013; Osorio et al., 2011; Vaughan et al., 2003).
Each includes measurement of several potentially helpful parental practices,
along with a variety of possible infant responses (e.g., response to joint attention
bids, initiation of bids, number and length of joint attention episodes). Several of
the studies employ sequential analysis, in which the moment-by-moment contin-
gencies of parental behavior and child behavior are traced over time (Deak et al.,
2014; de Barbaro et al, 2013; Mendive et al., 2013). As Chapter 3 indicated, the
across-time nature of sequential analysis heightens the plausibility of causal infer-
ences drawn from correlational data—in the present case, the inference that the
parent’s behavior is driving that of the child and not the reverse.
Although there are some differences in their specific findings, the similarities
in what these studies show are greater than the differences. Parents do a variety
of things that attract and maintain infants’ attention. Presentation of an object
is, of course, often the starting point, but the object is most likely to be interest-
ing if movement is involved, either movement of the object or movement of the
parent’s hands in manipulating the object. Indeed, most infants spend more time
watching the parent’s hands than they do watching the parent’s face. An initial
elicitation of interest is a first step toward joint attention, but parents must also do
various things (e.g., minimize distracters, move the object within grasping dis-
tance) to maintain attention, while also being ready to switch activities should the
infant’s attention lag. Parents need to strike the right balance in their attention-
eliciting efforts; stimulation that is too strong may be counterproductive, and too
frequent initiations by the parent may undercut the infant’s ability to take on the
initiating role. Parents must be ready, in any case, to respond to initiation bids
from the infant, which means both reading signals from the infant accurately and
being willing to let the infant take the lead. Finally, parents must also adjust their
behavior as the child’s abilities and interests change with development. Explicit
bids from the parent become less necessary as the infant begins to take greater
initiative, and extended sequences of turn taking become more possible as the
child’s sensorimotor skills and attentional resources improve.
The microanalyses of mother–infant interaction speak to theoretical issues in
the field, including the rich–lean distinction. In particular, Deak and colleagues
(Deak et al., 2014; de Barbaro et al., 2013; Triesch, Teuscher, Deak, & Carlson,
2006) have argued that their research demonstrates that naturally occurring
experiences and reinforcement contingencies are sufficient to account for the
emergence of joint attention, with no need for a grounding in a broader theory-of-
mind system. Not all researchers agree, however (e.g., Csibra, 2006).
I will add that the question of how to nurture joint attention is not only of theo-
retical interest. As discussed in Chapter 2, children with autism show marked def-
icits in theory-of-m ind understanding, and one of the earliest appearing problems
is difficulty in establishing joint attention. A number of intervention programs
have been developed—and applied with some success—to help such children
acquire joint attention skills (White et al., 2011).
A final variable to be considered is the interaction partner. We have already
seen, of course, that interaction partner can make a difference; the main mes-
sage from the work reviewed so far is that some mothers are better at eliciting and
maintaining joint attention than are others. The question now is whether there
are general, on-t he-average differences in such effectiveness across the different
sorts of partners with whom young children interact. Three contrasts have been
explored.
The clearest conclusion comes from a contrast first examined by Bakeman and
Adamson (1984).The infants in the study were followed longitudinally, and joint
attention was measured on multiple occasions between 6 and 18 months. On each
occasion it was measured with two interaction partners: the infant’s mother and a
familiar peer. The basic finding was a perhaps expectable one: Joint attention was
considerably more common (up to 5 to 10 times more common depending on the
measure and the age period) with the mother than with the peer. Similar mother–
peer differences have appeared in other examinations of the issue (Bakeman &
Adamson, 1986; Legerstee & Fisher, 2008). Bakeman and Adamson (1984) sug-
gest several explanations for the superiority of the mother as an interaction part-
ner, including a helpful shared history that is greater for infant and mother than
for infant and peer, the mother’s greater motivation and willingness to engage
in joint attention with the infant, and the mother’s greater skill at directing and
maintaining the infant’s attention. This last point, of course, ties into the specific
learning experiences just discussed—mothers are more likely to provide such
experiences than are peers.
A second contrast, that between mother and father, has received surprisingly
little attention in research to date. To my knowledge, the only systematic exami-
nation of the issue is a recent study by Martins and colleagues (Martins, Mateus,
Osorio, Martins, & Soares, 2014—a lthough see Hsu, 1996, for an interesting case
study approach to the question). Martins et al. measured 10-month-olds’ joint
attention on two occasions, once in interaction with the mother and once in inter-
action with the father. Although the differences were not large, infants responded
more to bids from the mother, and they directed more bids to the father. The
authors suggest that the mother’s greater skill may account for the first difference
and her greater availability may account for the second; their own data, however,
do not provide evidence on these points.
The final contrast is between the parent (the mother in all studies to date) and
a stranger. Although I will limit the discussion to studies that offer a within-study
comparison of these two partners, it is worth noting that the literature in general
includes parents and strangers (i.e., experimenters) in roughly equal frequency.
The selection between the two generally seems to have been made on pragmatic
rather than theoretical grounds, and there is no indication that basic conclusions
about joint attention vary as a function of which interaction partner is involved.
Some specific differences do appear in some of the within-study comparisons.
I have already mentioned one: Meins et al. (2011) reported more initiation of joint
attention with a stranger than with the mother—only, however, among infants
with an avoidant attachment. In other studies the stranger–mother difference has
proved more general. In Striano and Berlin (2005) infants showed developmen-
tal improvements in joint attention between 5 and 9 months when paired with a
stranger but not when paired with the mother, and they showed more joint atten-
tion at 7 and 9 months with a stranger than with the mother. Gredeback, Fikke,
and Melinder (2010) also found earlier developmental improvements when the
pairing was with a stranger, as well as more joint attention with stranger than
with mother. Although no significance tests were included, Gaffan et al. (2010)
also reported higher levels of joint attention with a stranger, as well as a moderate
(r = .32) correlation between joint attention with the mother and joint attention
with the stranger.
Why might a stranger elicit more joint attention than the mother? Gredeback
et al. (2010) suggest that a novelty effect may be involved. The stranger is, by defi-
nition, a more novel object than a parent, and she may elicit heightened attention
for this reason. This same point, it should be noted, applies to the mother–stranger
comparisons to be considered below under the Social Referencing heading.
Social Referencing
Because establishing joint attention is the first step in social referencing, much
that has just been said about joint attention also applies to social referencing.
Perhaps for this reason, there has been limited research that has focused specifi-
cally on the sources for individual differences in social referencing. There is one
exception to this statement, however, and it concerns the variable just discussed.
Examinations of the possible effects of interaction partner appear frequently in
the study of social referencing.
An obvious prediction can be offered with respect to interaction partner, a pre-
diction that follows out of both common sense and psychological theory (e.g.,
Ainsworth, 1992). The prediction is that the mother (or whoever fulfills the pri-
mary caregiver role) will be the most important target for infants’ social refer-
encing efforts. Beyond sheer propinquity as a basis for selection, the mother is
typically the main source of comfort and security for the baby (hence the term
“secure base”). If the purpose of social referencing is to gain emotional reassur-
ance in the face of uncertainty, then the mother is the natural source to turn to.
The last sentence suggests a possible qualifier to the prediction about the
importance of the mother. Although the resolution of uncertainty is presumably
always a component of social referencing, situations vary in the extent to which
the more specific goal is to gain reassurance or simply to acquire information
about some novel event. It is only in the former case that the mother would be
expected to be primary. This, in fact, is a point that Ainsworth (1992) made in her
discussion of social referencing.
The point turns out to be well taken. The most extensive examination of the
question is a program of research by Stenberg and colleagues (Schmitow &
Stenberg, 2013; Stenberg, 2009; Stenberg & Hagekull, 2007). The comparison
in each case is between mother and stranger (i.e., a female experimenter) as the
source for information. The object in question is in each case an unfamiliar toy;
the studies vary in how the toy is presented, in whether both adults are simultane-
ously present, and in the specific outcome variables that are measured (looks at
the adult, facial expression, subsequent behavior). The results, however, do not
vary: In each case the stranger is the preferred source of information. Infants
look more at the stranger than they do at the mother, and their behavior is more
affected by what the stranger does than by what the mother does. Similar con-
clusions from different laboratories were reported by Kim and Kwak (2011) and
Walden and Kim (2005).
Why should the stranger be preferred to the mother? Stenberg offers an exper-
tise explanation. Infants, she argues, perceive the laboratory context (the setting
for all the studies) as the province of the experimenter rather than the mother, and
they therefore expect her to be the knowledgeable one with respect to the new toy.
Support for this hypothesis comes from a further study in which expertise was
experimentally manipulated and infants were found to prefer the more knowl-
edgeable of two experimenters (Stenberg, 2012). Support also comes from a large
body of recent research (which is reviewed in Chapter 9) showing that children,
including in some cases infants, can choose sensibly among would-be informants.
The preceding does not mean, of course, that mothers are never a preferred
source. The first wave of social referencing research (reviewed in Feinman,
Roberts, Hsieh, Sawyer, & Swanson, 1992) tended to focus on emotionally arous-
ing situations, and these studies provided numerous demonstrations of the value
of the mother as a source of information and support, including instances in
which the mother was preferred to a stranger (e.g., Feiring, Lewis, & Starr, 1984;
Zarbatany & Lamb, 1985). I will note too that in many social referencing studies
(including all of the Stenberg studies) the adult’s behavior is scripted—t hat is, she
is instructed to pose a particular facial expression and to emit a particular vocal-
ization. Such controls are imposed because the typical focus of such research is
on the infant rather than the adult; also, the comparison of different informants,
such as mothers versus strangers, is simplified if their behavior is held constant.
Still, it could be argued that a full test of the mother’s value as a source for social
referencing is not possible as long as the mother is not allowed to behave as she
normally does.
The other comparison that appears in the social referencing literature is that
between mothers and fathers. Possible mother–father differences were explored
in several early social referencing studies (Dickstein & Parke, 1988; Hirschberg,
1990; Hirschberg & Svejda, 1990), in some instances with both parents present
and sending conflicting signals and in some instances in separate assessments.
Whatever the method, the similarities in response far outweighed the few scat-
tered differences. Most infants apparently viewed both parents as equally good
sources of information.
Recent research suggests some modifications to this conclusion. Moller and
colleagues (Moller, Majdandzic, & Bogels, 2014) tested 12-month-olds’ willing-
ness to cross the deep side of the visual cliff given signals from either the mother
or the father. Although there were no overall mother–father differences either in
infants’ time to cross or in their expressed anxiety on the cliff, differences did
occur with respect to specific parent–child links. The main difference concerned
the relation between the parent’s expressed anxiety and the child’s anxiety and
avoidance: no relation for mothers, a positive relation for fathers. The greater
effect of paternal anxiety had in fact been predicted based on an evolutionarily
oriented theory that posits different roles for mother and father in the care of
children: inner protection for mothers (feeding, soothing, comforting), external
protection for fathers (exploration of novelty, encounter with potential dangers—
Bogels & Perotti, 2011; Moller, Majdandzic, Vriends, & Bogels, 2014). Because of
this difference in parental roles, it is paternal anxiety that sends the more impor-
tant signal to the child, and therefore paternal anxiety that has the stronger effect.
Although mother–father differences in effects of expressed anxiety do appear
in some research with older children (e.g., Bogels, Stevens, & Majdandzic, 2011),
the Moller et al. study (2014) is the only demonstration in the context of social
referencing. Other research, however, makes clear that parental anxiety can
affect both the social referencing process and what children take away from their
social referencing experiences. Murray et al. (2008) compared the social refer-
encing signals produced by two groups of mothers in response to a stranger: one
group with social phobia and an unaffected comparison group. The mothers with
social phobia expressed more anxiety and less encouragement in the presence of
the stranger, and their infants showed increasing avoidance of the stranger over
time. Similarly, Aktar and colleagues (Aktar, Majdandzic, de Vente, & Bogels,
2014) reported the greatest fear and avoidance in response to social referencing
elicitors among toddlers whose parents had a lifetime social anxiety disorder.
They also found that parental expressed anxiety in the social referencing situa-
tion had its greatest impact when the parent had been diagnosed with an anxiety
disorder.
Having noted such negative effects of social referencing, I will close on a more
positive note. In many situations the function of social referencing is to reduce
anxiety (reassure the child that a stranger is not dangerous, encourage play with
a potentially scary toy, etc.), and there are numerous demonstrations that social
referencing can in fact do so. Although most experimental demonstrations are
of short-term effects, repeated presentations of reassuring experiences have been
shown to result in long-term reductions in children’s anxiety (Egliston & Rapee,
2007). Finally, social referencing, like joint attention, can be taught to children
whose skills are initially lacking—for example, children of depressed mothers
(Pelaez, Virues-Ortega, Field, & Schnerch, 2013).
Understanding of Intention
As Woodward (2005) indicates, all models of the origins of understanding of
intention, even those with a heavy nativist component, assume that understand-
ing depends on some combination of infants’ observations of the actions of others
coupled with their experiences of themselves as intentional agents. Social experi-
ence, then, is a necessary contributor. There has been little discussion, however,
of exactly what sort of social experience, including any special role for parents.
A few studies have addressed the issue of possible differences among par-
ents in their ability to support their infant’s mastery of intention. Two (Hofer,
Hohenberger, Hauf, & Aschersleben, 2008; Hohenberger et al., 2012) made use of
the CARE-I NDEX. We saw earlier in this chapter that a high standing on the sen-
sitivity dimension of the CARE related positively to joint attention. In neither of
the intention studies did sensitivity show any relation to children’s understanding
(as assessed with the habituation procedure when the infants were 6 months old).
The control dimension, however, did: Infants with moderately controlling moth-
ers (defined as above the median for the sample) were most likely to show an early
understanding of intention. In interpreting this finding, the authors are careful
to qualify their conclusions with respect to both sensitivity (limited variability in
the sample may have masked effects) and control (moderate, not high and intru-
sive, was beneficial). They suggest that the beneficial effects of moderate control
may stem from the fact that mothers who exert such control, more so than other
mothers, compel the infant to attend to their actions and to attempt to discern
the goals behind the actions. Especially with young infants, such structuring may
provide learning opportunities that are less likely to occur with other forms of
parenting.
Two other parenting measures encountered earlier have been applied to the
study of understanding of intention. The Legerstee (2005) book describes a series
of unpublished studies in which maternal attunement was examined as a predic-
tor of understanding of intention in 9-to 14-month-old infants. At every age and
across several measures of understanding, relatively high attunement related to
relatively good understanding. Licata et al. (2014) examined emotional availabil-
ity (as assessed by the Emotional Availability Scales) as a possible predictor of
understanding of intention. Both the overall score and various subscales proved
predictive, and they remained predictive when various other factors (maternal
education, infant temperament) were controlled statistically.
Because sensitivity is a component of both attunement and availability, these
results indicate, in contrast to those of Hofer et al. (2008) and Hohenberger et al.
(2012), that maternal sensitivity does sometimes relate to understanding of inten-
tion. Further evidence on this point comes from the Dunphy-Lelii et al. (2014)
study touched on earlier in this chapter. These investigators reported a positive
relation between quality of maternal care (as defined by sensitivity, nonintrusive-
ness, and positive affect) and infants’ understanding of intention.
One more finding from Dunphy-Lelii et al. (2014) is worth noting. Their study
was rare in its inclusion of two measures of infant theory of mind: not only the
intention assessment but also a measure of joint attention. The two measures
turned out to be positively related. This finding makes sense. Joint attention maxi-
mizes attention to the actions of one’s interaction partner and thus maximizes the
opportunity to learn about the intentions that underlie the actions.
Conclusions
The abilities discussed in this chapter emerge in every normally developing infant.
They emerge more quickly and more productively, however, in some infants than
in others, and what parents (mainly mothers, in research to date) do contributes
to these differences.
Most of the facilitative parental practices are ones we have seen before. The
value of warm, sensitive, and responsive parenting may be the most firmly estab-
lished conclusion in the childrearing literature. Although the relevant evidence is
still somewhat limited, it seems clear that infant theory of mind is another topic
for which this general conclusion holds true. It seems likely, moreover—a lthough
the relevant research remains to be done—that the specific teaching practices
that have been shown to nurture joint attention are simply specific manifestations
of a generally sensitive and responsive style of parenting.
Two other general parenting constructs have been shown to bear some rela-
tion to infant theory of mind. Emotional availability (a construct that overlaps
with sensitivity) has been found helpful in some but not all studies. The construct
of control necessarily takes a somewhat different form in infancy than it does in
childhood or adolescence. At any age, however, control in the sense of involve-
ment and structuring is probably helpful, and such seems to be the case with
respect to understanding of intention.
Conclusions are less straightforward with respect to the subject of
Chapter 5: possible effects of the attachment relationship. It seems reasonable to
predict that infants who are securely attached would be more likely to enter into
bouts of joint engagement with the caregiver, as well as more likely to turn to the
caregiver as a source for social referencing. As we have seen, however, there is
only limited support for the former prediction; forms of insecure attachment are
sometimes associated with deficits in joint attention, but there is no evidence for
general differences between securely attached and insecurely attached infants.
Nor is there much evidence for a relation between attachment and social refer-
encing. There is, to be sure, a temporal conjunction between the two develop-
ments: Infants begin to look to others for support and information at the same
time that the attachment relationship is being consolidated. Attempts to relate
individual differences in attachment to social referencing, however, have proved
mostly unsuccessful (Bradshaw, Goldsmith, & Campos, 1987; Dickstein,
Thompson, Estes, Malkin, & Lamb, 1984).
Parental talk is undoubtedly more important for postinfant forms of theory of
mind than it is during infancy. As we saw, however, talk in the first year of life has
been found to show some relation to the emergence of joint attention. Clearly, it is
not the semantic aspect of the input that is important at 6 months, although it may
become so by the second year, as Slaughter and Peterson (2012) suggest. Initially,
however, parental speech is presumably effective because it heightens attention to
the actions of the parent, especially when the speech takes the form of motherese.
It is also possible that a relatively high use of mental state speech is a marker for
another, more directly causal aspect of parenting. The most obvious possibility is
mind-m indedness, or the proclivity to treat one’s infant as a psychological agent.
The application of mental state terms to one’s baby’s actions could be argued to be
a form of mind-m indedness in itself. It should be noted, however, that the limited
attempts to relate independent measures of mind-m indedness to infant theory
of mind have reported no relation (Dunphy-Lelii et al., 2014; Licata et al., 2014).
The emphasis throughout this chapter has been on parents’ contributions
to individual differences among infants. As I have noted at various points,
however, differences are not the only aspect of development that we want to
explain. Theory of mind is very much a normative as well as an idiographic
topic. All typically developing infants and children master the theory-of-m ind
developments that are discussed throughout this book, and these common-
alities in development require explanation just as much as do the individual
differences. And parents, at least in the typical case, are undoubtedly impor-
tant contributors to the commonalities among children, especially in infancy.
As we have seen, parents may not always be the preferred interaction partner
for episodes of joint attention or social referencing. For the great majority of
infants, however, parents are the first interaction partners, the ones in interac-
tion with whom these skills first emerge and are first nurtured. For the great
majority of infants, parents are also far and away the most frequent interaction
partners. Without parents or someone to play the parent role, infant theory of
mind could never develop.
7
Parental Talk
The preceding chapter touched on a contribution of maternal speech to the emer-

gence of joint attention in infancy. This chapter takes up the topic of parental talk
more generally.
Although various aspects of parental talk are considered, my focus in on a par-
ticular aspect of parents’ speech to their children: namely, the use of mental state
terms (“think,” “want,” “hope,” etc.). Recall that it was this aspect of language that
proved important in the work on joint attention discussed in Chapter 6.
The topic is a big one. Of the various literatures on parenting and theory of
mind covered in Chapters 4 through 9, the literature on parental talk is easily the
largest. Fortunately, as we will see, it is also fairly clear and fairly consistent in
what it shows.
The organization for the chapter is as follows. The chapter begins with two
sections that are necessary preludes to a discussion of how parental talk affects
theory of mind. The first is a consideration of the methodological issues that arise
in such study. Two questions are addressed: How can we measure parental talk,
and how can we establish cause-and-effect relations between parental talk and
children’s development? These questions, it should be clear, are simply specific
versions of what are always the two basic methodological issues in the study of
parenting and children’s development: How can we measure the aspects of par-
enting that are hypothesized to be important, and how can we determine that
these aspects of parenting are in fact important?
Before examining possible effects of parental talk, it is necessary to know
something about the talk itself. If the focus is on mental state utterances, then we
need to know (among other things) how often such utterances occur, what forms
they take, under what circumstances they are most likely, and how they change as
the child changes with development. The second section of the chapter is devoted
to questions of this sort.
The next four sections are organized along two dimensions: the mental state
terms under study and the method of studying them. The division in the first
case reflects an asymmetry in the literature. Although a variety of mental state
terms have been the objects of study, there has been a special focus on emotion
165
terms and emotion understanding. My coverage begins, therefore, with mental

state terms in general and then moves on to emotion terms in particular. The sec-
ond division is the same one that was followed in the discussion of attachment in
Chapter 5. Some studies have examined concurrent relations between parental
talk and children’s development, and these studies are considered first under each
mental state heading. Other studies have traced longitudinal relations over time,
and these studies make up the second part of the coverage.
A final section of the chapter is devoted to variations among children in their
experience of mental state language. Most of the chapter, of course, is concerned
with this topic, but the variations considered in the initial sections fall within a
normal, expectable range. Those considered in the final section are more extreme.
Some children receive considerably less relevant linguistic input than do others,
and some children are less capable of dealing with the input that they do receive.
Deaf children have been the most often studied instance of the first point, whereas
children with autism are the main examples of the second. These groups provide
evidence about language and theory of mind that is not available in the typical
case, and they therefore are singled out for coverage.
Given the clear interrelation of language and theory of mind, there is no short-
age of previous discussions of the possible contributions of parental talk to chil-
dren’s development. Among the most helpful sources are Astington and Baird
(2005); de Rosnay and Hughes (2006); Harris, de Rosnay, and Pons (2005);
Hughes (2011); Slaughter and Peterson (2012); Symons (2004); Thompson
(2006a); and Turnbull and Carpendale (2009).
Methodological Issues
Measuring Parental Talk
Measuring how parents talk to their children requires two methodological deci-
sions. The first concerns the context within which to record parental talk. The
second concerns the aspects of parental talk on which to concentrate.
Table 7.1 provides an overview of the possibilities with respect to the first deci-
sion. The entries in the table reflect a familiar divide that applies to the study of
many topics: whether to carry out the measurements in the natural setting, which
in this case is the home (the first entry in the Table 7.1), or whether to measure the
outcomes of interest in some specially constructed laboratory environment (the
remaining entries).
Observations in the home account for close to a third of the relevant studies.
Among other challenges, such studies face the fact that mental state utterances
do not occur very frequently in most parent–child conversations. One study, for
example (Jenkins, Turrell, Kogushi, Lollis, & Ross, 2003), reported that mental
state terms occurred at a rate of 2.79 per hour in talk with 3-year-olds and 5.13 per
Pa r e n t a l Ta l k 167
Table 7.1 Methods for Collecting Samples of Parent Talk
Method Description Examples

Home observation Recording of parental talk Ensor & Hughes
during naturally occurring (2008); Jenkins, Turell,
parent–child interactions in Kogushi, Lollis, & Ross
the home (2003)
Laboratory Recording of parental Beeghly, Bretherton,
observation talk during parent–child & Mervis (1986);
interactions in a free-play Symons, Fossum, &
laboratory context Collins (2006)
Storybook reading Recording of parental talk LaBounty, Wellman,
as the parent reads a picture Olson, Laguttuta, &
book (usually a wordless Liu (2008); Ruffman,
book) to the child. In some Slade, & Crowe (2002)
instances the parent and
child cocreate the story.
Memory talk Recording of parental talk Fivush & Wang (2005);
as parent and child talk Reese & Cleveland
about one or more events (2006)
from the child’s past
Description of child Elicitation of an open-ended de Rosnay, Pons,
description of the child by Harris, & Morrell
the parent (2004)
Standardized Measurement of parent’s Peterson & Slaughter
questionnaire tendency to use mentalistic (2003)
language through response
to childrearing vignettes
hour in talk with 4-year-olds. Although such utterances become more common as
children grow older, the base rate remains low.
Researchers have employed various strategies in an attempt to maximize the
yield from home observations. It is common to schedule visits at times when fam-
ily talk is most likely; the time period surrounding and including family meals
is a frequent focus. It is also common to request that family members temporar-
ily forgo activities (e.g., TV, video games) that may cut down on the possibilities
for conversation. Finally, the main strategy is one that is common to naturalistic
observational research in general: namely, to sample as broadly as possible. In one
(admittedly exceptional) example, parents and children were observed across six
90 minute home visits (Jenkins et al., 2003).
One of the virtues of laboratory study is that situations can be contrived to

maximize the occurrence of the outcomes of interest, and thus the yield per time
expended is typically greater than is true with naturalistic observation. The most
popular method of eliciting parental talk in the laboratory has been the story-
book approach, in which talk is recorded as the parent and child look together at
a storybook. In some instances commercial storybooks have been used, includ-
ing books with written text (e.g., Ensor, Devine, Marks, & Hughes, 2014). More
common, however, is the use of wordless picture books constructed for the study.
The absence of a written text clearly maximizes the opportunity for the parent to
provide her own interpretation of the story, including references to the mental
states of the characters (and many books are designed to encourage such refer-
ences). The storybook approach has been the most common method of measuring
parental talk; indeed, this approach accounts for close to half of the studies to be
reviewed.
Given the challenges of any of the possible forms of measurement, it is perhaps
understandable that most studies have included only a single method of measur-
ing parental talk. There are, however, some exceptions (e.g., Beeghly, Bretherton,
& Mervis, 1986; Ensor et al., 2014; Howe, Rinaldi, & Recchia, 2010; Kucirkova
& Tompkins, 2014; Laible & Song, 2006). As we will see, these studies do show
some variations in outcomes across different methods of assessment. To date,
however, no study has provided a clear test of whether the effects of parental talk
vary across the two most often used forms of measurement: home observation
and storybook reading. It has been argued, based on across-study comparisons,
that the more extensive data from home observations make possible more precise
conclusions about links between parental talk and theory of mind than does the
laboratory approach—specifically, not just effects of general mental state talk but
differential effects of talk about different mental states (Hughes, 2011). As we will
see, however, many applications of the storybook approach also identify specific
and not just general links between parental talk and theory of mind. On my read-
ing, the various methods of study are a good deal more similar than different in
the conclusions they provide.
Identifying differential effects of talk about different mental states requires
that several mental states be examined in the same study. Not all studies provide
such comparative data. As I have already noted, many studies focus solely on emo-
tion talk. A smaller number consider cognitive states only (e.g., Furrow, Moore,
Davidge, & Chiasson, 1992; Howard, Mayeux, & Naigles, 2008).
When multiple states are included, the most frequently examined are those
shown in Table 7.2. Of the various categories, perception is the least often studied.
Perception was included, however, in the infancy studies discussed in Chapter 6
(Roberts et al., 2013; Slaughter et al. 2008, 2009), and it appears as well in some
studies of postinfant development (e.g., Adrian, Clemente, Villanueva, & Rieffe,
2005). Other categories not listed in the table (e.g., preferences, goals) are found
Table 7.2 Categories and Examples of Mental State Words
Category Examples
Cognition Think, know, believe, remember, understand, recognize, imagine,
forget, explain, expect, find out, mean, guess, idea, learn, wonder
Emotion Happy, cheerful, pleased, excited, proud, enjoy, fun, joy, sad,
angry, frightened, scared, upset, fed up, worried, hate, shame
Desire Want, hope, wish, prefer, fancy, need, miss, would like, would love
Perception See, look, watch, listen, hear, peek
in a handful of studies, although in at least some instances the category label may
be just a different term for a concept typically addressed under another heading
(e.g., “volition” instead of “desire”).
As the examples in the table suggest, assigning terms to particular categories
is generally straightforward. It is not always straightforward, however. Symons
(2004) offers one example. Depending on the context, “dream” or “dreamy”
might refer to a cognitive state, a desire, or an emotion. Similarly, the phrase “was
hurt” might refer to an emotional reaction (and thus would need to be included)
or a physical injury (and thus would need to be ignored). Because of such com-
plexities, all studies report interobserver reliability, and the reliabilities are gener-
ally quite good.
In addition to deciding about particular items, researchers must make two gen-
eral decisions about their coding system. One is whether to apply so-called exclu-
sionary rules. This issue arises most obviously in the coding of cognitive terms.
In some instances a cognitive term seems to function more as a conversational
device than as a genuine mental state reference (e.g., “You know?” “Guess what”).
Some researchers (e.g., Ensor & Hughes, 2008) exclude such conversational uses
from their cognitive tally; others (e.g., Jenkins et al., 2003) do not. This decision
may have some effect on conclusions about children’s mental state understanding,
especially young children (Brown, Donelan-McCall, & Dunn, 1996). There is no
evidence that it affects conclusions about parental talk.
The second decision about coding concerns whether to correct for verbosity.
Some parents talk more than others, and they may produce more mental state
words simply because they are producing more words in general. For this rea-
son, some researchers (e.g., Slaughter et al., 2008) use proportion scores rather
than totals in their analyses. Others (e.g., Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002) work
with raw totals, the argument being that more exposure means more information
about mental states, even if the exposure comes in the midst of a good deal of less
relevant input. As with exclusionary rules, this decision may affect the descriptive
information from a study, but there is no evidence that it affects conclusions about
the effects of parental talk.
A final point about coding is a more substantive one. In many studies, tabula-
tion of mental state words is the only goal of the observational system, and the
total number of such words is the only aspect of parental talk examined in the
analyses. Some researchers, however, have gone beyond a simple tally of words in
an attempt to identify variations in the quality of the linguistic input that children
receive. The various ways of defining quality, as well as possible effects of differ-
ences in the quality of parental talk, will be an important theme in the review of
studies.
Establishing Cause-and-Effect Relations

Like parenting research in general, studies of parental talk and theory of mind
are correlational, in that both constructs are measured rather than experimen-
tally controlled. Because such research is correlational, it cannot establish cause-
and-effect relations with certainty. As with parenting research in general, any
significant parent–child correlation has three possible explanations. One is that
the causal locus is with the parent—t hat parental talk contributes to children’s
theory-of-m ind development. A second possibility is that the causal locus is with
the child—that children with relatively advanced theory-of-m ind skills elicit
mental state talk from their parents. Finally, the third possibility is that no causal
relation exists at all—t hat some third factor or set of factors is responsible for both
outcomes.
The ways to attempt to pull apart these possibilities were discussed in
Chapter 3. The main way to address the direction-of-effect issue is through lon-
gitudinal study. If parental talk is the causal factor in the correlation, then varia-
tions in talk at time 1 should relate to variations in theory of mind at time 2; the
reverse, theory of mind to talk direction should be either weaker or nonexistent.
As we will see, longitudinal studies are frequent in this literature, and most report
the pattern just described: namely, that early talk relates to later theory of mind.
As P. L. Harris (2006) notes, another way to show that variations in how par-
ents talk are not determined solely by variations in their children’s level of devel-
opment is to measure parental talk independently of the child’s presence. The last
two methods described in Table 7.1 do precisely this. Only a handful of studies
have adopted these methods, and thus the evidence is limited. Research to date,
however, suggests that the same variations in parental talk and the same effects of
those variations occur when the talk that is measured is independent of the child’s
immediate presence.
The main way to rule out third factor explanations is to control for potentially
important third factors, either in advance through selection of participants or after
the fact through statistical controls. Such controls are common in the research to
be reviewed. At the child level, age and language ability are the variables that are
most often controlled; at the adult level, education is the variable that is most often
controlled. As we will see, the great majority of parent–child relations remain sig-
nificant even when third factor alternatives are ruled out.
The discussion of methods in Chapter 3 identified another way to address both
the directionality and third factor issues: namely, experimental manipulation
of the hypothesized causal variable. A small such literature now exists, for pro-
viding extra experience with mental state terms is one way in which researchers
have attempted to train theory-of-m ind understanding. I consider this research
in Chapter 9.
Mental State Talk
I have already noted two conclusions about parents’ mental state talk. One is that
such talk may begin very early in the child’s life. Chapter 6 noted effects of mental
state talk measured when the child was 6 months old (Roberts et al., 2013), and
many of the parents in that study had no doubt been talking to their infants long
before the six month point. The second conclusion is that talk about mental states
increases as the child grows older. The numbers from the Jenkins et al. (2003)
study cited earlier indicated an 80% increase in parents’ use of mental state terms
between the ages of 3 and 4. Across a broader age span, Ensor et al. (2014) reported
that mental state terms were almost 10 times as frequent in speech to 6-year-olds
as they had been when the children were 2.
Not only the frequency but the nature of parental talk changes as the child
develops. We saw in Chapter 2 that children typically begin to talk about desires
before they talk about beliefs. Almost certainly not coincidentally, parents tend to
talk to their children about desires before they talk to them about beliefs. In the
Ensor et al. (2014) study desire terms were more than twice as frequent as cogni-
tive terms in speech to 2-year-olds. By age 6 cognitive terms were four times as
frequent as desire terms.
Another change with development concerns the target for the mental state.
Speech to infants and toddlers tends to concentrate on the child’s own mental
states. In the Slaughter et al. (2008) study, for example, more than 85% of the
mental state references in speech to 9-to 15-month-olds concerned the children’s
mental states. Such references to the child do not disappear as the child develops,
but their proportion decreases as reference to other targets becomes more likely.
I will add that we might expect that method of assessment would affect conclu-
sions about target. The memory talk approach, with its focus on discussion of an
event from the child’s past, seems likely to maximize talk about the child’s own
thoughts and desires and emotions. Conversely, the storybook approach, with
its emphasis on the story characters, seems skewed in the other direction. On
the other hand, it is easy to imagine parents supplementing talk about the story
characters with more personal references to their child (e.g., “Do you remember
when you were sad like the little girl?”). And, in fact, several reports make clear
that talk about the child’s mental states does occur with some frequency with
the storybook approach (Adrian, Clemente, & Villanueva, 2007; Taumoepeau &
Ruffman, 2006, 2008).
Possible effects of the target for mental state utterances are just one of the ways
in which method of assessment may affect conclusions about parental talk. I take
up the issue of context effects more generally in the review of studies.
We have seen that parental talk changes in various ways as the child develops.
This fact leaves open another important question, and that has to do with the sta-
bility of individual differences in such talk. If a mother is high in mental state talk
when her child is 2, will she also be high when the child is 4 or 6 or 8? Many stud-
ies have examined this question, and the consistent finding is of moderately good
stability (correlations in the .60s or .70s) across intervals of up to 2 years (e.g.,
Degotardi & Torr, 2007; Moore, Furrow, Chiasson, & Patriquin, 1994; Ruffman
et al., 2002). Like any psychological attribute, mental state talk is not perfectly
stable over time; some parents increase their use and some parents decrease
their use. In addition, the one study to examine stability across a longer interval
reported only minimal relations, at best, between talk when the child was 2 and
talk when the child was 6 (Ensor et al., 2014). Thus the tendency to use mental
state talk appears to be a somewhat consistent parental attribute; how consistent,
however, is still not clear.
Although I have been referring to “parental” talk, most of the conclusions to
this point have concerned mothers, as mothers are the only parent participants
in the great majority of studies. As we will see, however, fathers are beginning to
appear in the literature (e.g., LaBounty, Wellman, Olson, Lagattuta, & Liu, 2008;
Roger, Rinaldi, & Howe, 2012). We will see as well that there is suggestive evi-
dence that in some respects both the nature and the effects of parental talk may
differ for fathers as compared to mothers.
Because most studies are built around parent–child interaction, it is also possi-
ble to examine the child’s use of mental state terms, and many studies have in fact
done so. As we would expect, the use of such terms increases with development,
at least through the preschool and early grade-school years. I have already noted
a developmental change in the content of mental state talk, from an early focus
on desires to an eventual incorporation of thoughts and beliefs as well. Although
most of the research concerns the child’s production of mental state terms, evi-
dence indicates that comprehension also improves as children develop (Grazzani
& Ornaghi, 2012; Howard et al., 2008).
The ability to use mental state terms correctly is itself a form of theory of mind,
and such use is therefore treated as an outcome variable in many of the studies to
be reviewed. It is still interesting to ask, however, whether children’s use of mental
state terms correlates with their performance on standard measures of theory of
mind such as false belief. The answer is that it usually does (e.g., Babu, 2009; Ensor
et al., 2014; Grazzani & Ornaghi, 2012; Symons, Peterson, Slaughter, Roche, &
Doyle, 2005) but not always (e.g., Charman & Shmueli-Goetz, 1998; Meins,
Fernyhough, Johnson, & Lidstone, 2006). It is worth noting that studies of chil-
dren with autism fall in the first of these categories (Tager-Flusberg, 2003).
Mental State Terms in General:

Table 7.3 shows the studies to be reviewed in this section. As in earlier chapters,
I have indicated the origin of the sample only when it is drawn from a popula-
tion from other than one of the Western countries (United States, Canada, Great
Britain, Germany) that have contributed most of the data on theory of mind.
Studies that include special populations (e.g., deaf children, children with autism)
have been deferred for coverage in a later section.
The most general question addressed by this research is whether variations in
how parents talk about mental states relate to variations in children’s theory-of-
mind development. This question is easy to answer: Virtually every study sum-
marized in Table 7.3—a nd indeed, every study to be covered in the next section
on longitudinal relations—has reported a relation between parental talk and
theory of mind. The only exception is the study by Randell and Peterson (2009),
and, as the authors acknowledge, this study suffered from restriction of range
on both the parent and the child measures. The overall positive conclusion does
not mean, of course, that every possible relation emerges as significant; often,
some predictors turn out not to be predictive and some outcomes have no iden-
tifiable antecedents. It is also true that no one knows how many unpublished
studies with null results may reside in file drawers somewhere. Nevertheless,
the general conclusion is not in doubt: Parental talk does relate to theory
of mind.
How strongly does it relate? The answer, of course, varies across studies. The
relation, however, is often fairly substantial—for example, correlations in the
.40 to .50 range. It is worth noting in this respect that the average sample size
for the studies reviewed in this section is 52, and for several the value is in the
20s or 30s. It is understandable, of course, that the sample sizes are not larger,
given the labor-i ntensive nature of such research. But the modest sample sizes
ensure that small effects are not being inflated to statistical significance simply
because of the sample size; significant effects are generally fairly large effects.
Because this research is correlational, an important question is whether the
relations hold up when potentially important third factors are controlled. I have
already indicated that the answer is positive. Not in every instance, of course—
occasionally a significant relation falls to nonsignificance, and the magnitude of
Table 7.3 Studies Relating Parental Talk to General Aspects of Theory

of Mind: Concurrent Relations

participants
Adrian, Spanish 4-and False belief Picture book
Clemente, 5-year-olds reading in the
Villanueva, & laboratory, scored
Rieffe (2005) for cognitive,
emotional, and
perceptual terms.
Self-report of
picture book
reading at home.
de Rosnay et al. 5-year-olds False belief, Mental state
(2004) affective false utterances
belief drawn from free
descriptions of the
child
Howard et al. 3- and False belief, Use of cognitive
(2008) 4-year-olds understanding of verbs (e.g., “think,”
cognitive verbs “know”) in a
semistructured
laboratory
interaction with the
child
Howe, Rinaldi, & 3- and Mental state Same as child.
Recchia (2010) 4-year-olds language Mental state
during home references scored
interactions, as cognitions,
discussion of emotions, goals, and
affective pictures preferences.
Hutchins, Bond, 5- to Story creation Story creation in
Silliman, & 10-year-olds in response to response to pictures,
Bryant (2009) pictures Ways of Knowing
interview
Ontai & 4- and False belief, Memory talk,
Thompson 5-year-olds attachment scored for mental
(2008) state references
and elaborative
discourse
Table 7.3 Continued

participants
Peterson & 4- and 5-year- False belief (Study Maternal Mental
Slaughter (2003) olds (Study1), 1), theory-of- State Input
Australian 3-to mind battery Inventory
5-year-olds (Study 2)
(Study 2)
Racine, 4-year-olds False belief, Story creation for
Carpendale, & labeling and wordless picture
Turnbull (2006) recognition book, scored as
of emotions, belief-dependent
affective and non-belief-
perspective taking dependent emotion
talk
Randell & Australian 3-to False belief Attitudes toward
Peterson (2009) 5-year-olds sibling conflicts,
cognitive state
words in describing
conflicts
Recchia, 3- and 4-year- Production and Production of ironic
Howe, Ross, & olds and 5-to comprehension utterances
Alexander (2010) 7-year-olds of naturally
(sibling pairs) occurring ironic
utterances in the
home
Sabbagh & 2- to 5-year-olds Cognitive state Response to
Callanan (1998) utterances during the child’s
picture book utterances, coded
reading as mentalistic,
acknowledge, help,
and other
Slaughter, Australian 3- False belief Mental state terms
Peterson, & and 4-year-olds during picture book
Mackintosh reading
(2007)
(continued)
Table 7.3 Continued
participants
Symons, 5- to 7-year-olds False belief, Mental state terms
Peterson, affective false and story theme
Slaughter, Roche, belief discourse scored
& Doyle (2005) during picture book
reading
Turnbull, 3- to 5-year-olds False belief, Story creation for
Carpendale, & mental state talk wordless picture
Racine (2008) book, scored for
mental state terms
Welch-Ross 3- and False belief, Discussion of three
(1997) 4-year-olds origins of past events with the
knowledge child
effects may shrink some when controls are imposed. It is true as well that no study
can control for every potentially important third factor. It is worth noting, in fact,
that no study to date has controlled for shared genes as an explanation for parent–
child relations, given the absence of adoption studies in this literature. But the
effects are robust in the face of controls for some of the most obvious possible
confounds—in particular, child language ability and parent educational level.
Fundamental though such information is, the existence and the magnitude of
an effect is always just the starting point in the examination of any topic. What
more do we need to know once we know that parental talk can affect children’s
development? The answer, of course, is quite a few things. Here I will discuss
five further questions that research to date has raised but not yet fully answered.
Because the longitudinal studies also speak to these issues, I simply list the ques-
tions here and then return to them in the next section.
One question was touched on earlier, and that is possible effects of context. It
has long been clear that aspects of parents’ speech to their children vary across
different contexts (Haden & Fivush, 1996; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991). Does the same
hold true for talk about mental states? Although this is most immediately a ques-
tion about methods of study, the methodological contrasts can also tell us some-
thing about the real-l ife contexts in which parental talk occurs.
A second question concerns the interpersonal context. Does it matter who it is
who is producing the talk? Here, of course, the main question is whether talk from
fathers has the same effect as does talk from mothers.
The remaining questions concern aspects of the talk itself. Again, one question
was touched on earlier, and it concerns the target for the mental state reference.
Does it matter whether the talk is about the child’s own mental states, or do chil-
dren learn equally well or perhaps even better from talk directed to the mental
states of others? We can also ask about the specificity of links between talk and
theory-of-m ind learning. Is any sort of mental state talk helpful for the develop-
ments in question, or do children need to hear talk about desires to learn about
desire and talk about beliefs to learn about belief? Finally, we can ask about the
quality of the speech input. Beyond just the number or variety of mental state
terms, what is it about some parental talk that makes it especially effective in nur-
turing theory-of-m ind understanding?
Before leaving this section, I will note a few points of interest from several of
the studies summarized in Table 7.1. First, one of the measurement options listed
is the presentation of a standardized questionnaire to measure parents’ tendency
to engage in mental state talk. The only entries to date in this category are a pair
of studies reported by Peterson and Slaughter (2003). These investigators devised
an instrument called the Maternal Mental State Input Inventory on which moth-
ers chose among various response options when presented with a series of parent-
ing vignettes. In each case one of the options emphasized discussion of mental
states, and mothers’ preference for this option turned out to be associated with
good theory-of-m ind performance by their children in both studies. Although
this approach clearly does not provide the direct measure of talk found with the
other measurement options, it has some compensating strengths—in particular,
a wider range of relevant situations than is likely to occur in most observational
samples. The Maternal Mental State Input Inventory or similar measures could
certainly serve as a valuable complement to the other ways of measuring parental
talk; to date, however, its initial use remains its only use.
The study by Hutchins and colleagues (Hutchins, Bond, Silliman, & Bryant,
2009) prefigures the work to be discussed in Chapter 8. These researchers mea-
sured mental state talk in both mother and child and showed, as have numerous
other studies, that the two were related. The main goal of their research, however,
was to determine whether mothers’ use of mental state language was a reflection
of their general belief system concerning knowledge and ways to acquire knowl-
edge, a belief system that was measured through an instrument called the Ways of
Knowing Interview. I consider this aspect of the work in Chapter 8.
Finally, Adrian et al. (2005) provide the only storybook study to supplement
the laboratory assessment with a measure of how often the mothers in the study
read storybooks to their children at home. Their data confirmed that storybook
reading is indeed a familiar experience for many children; 32% of the mothers
reported that they read daily to their child, and another 47% read between one
and six times per week. Frequency of reading at home related positively to chil-
dren’s theory-of-m ind understanding, a finding that has emerged in other research
as well (Mar et al., 2010). The mother’s use of mental state terms while reading
the storybook in the laboratory also related to theory-of-m ind performance.
Interestingly, however, there was no relation between the home and laboratory
measures; that is, mothers who were frequent readers were no more likely than
mothers in general to use mental state terms.
I will add that content analyses of storybooks for children make clear that
such books can indeed be rich sources of mental state information. One analy-
sis found that mental state words occurred on average every three sentences in
books intended for 3-to 6-year-olds (Dyer, Shatz, & Wellman, 2000). Although
there are some intriguing variations across countries and languages, mental
state language has been found to be a common feature of storybooks in every
country studied, which to date include the United States, China, Japan, Italy,
Romania, and Turkey (Dyer-Seymour, Shatz, Wellman, & Saito, 2004; Shatz,
Dyer, Marchetti, & Massaro, 2006; Tsai, Louie, Chen, & Uchida, 2007; Vander
Wege et al., 2014). Perhaps not surprisingly, the mental content of storybooks fits
children’s interests. Children prefer stories that focus on people over stories that
focus on objects, and they prefer stories with some mental content over those that
are described solely in terms of action (Barnes & Bloom, 2014).
Mental State Terms in General: Longitudinal

Relations
Table 7.4 lists the studies to be reviewed in this section. A comparison with Table
7.3 will reveal that this is a rare literature that includes more longitudinal than
one-point-in-time studies.
Table 7.4 Studies Relating Parental Talk to General Aspects of Theory

of Mind: Longitudinal Relations

participants
Adrian, Spanish 3-to 5- At time 1, false Mental state talk
Clemente, & year-olds, tested belief; at time 2, while reading
Villanueva again 1 year understanding of stories, coded for
(2007) later white lies, irony, mental terms (time
deception, and 1 and time 2)
certainty
Beeghly et al. 13-month- Production of Use of inner state
(1986) olds, tested inner state words words during
again at 20 and at 28 months free play (all
28 months (maternal report) three times) and
storybook reading
(time 3)
Table 7.4 Continued

participants
Dunn, Brown, 33-month-olds, False belief, Talk in interaction
Slomkowski, tested again at affective labeling, with child and
Tesla, & 40 months affective child’s older sib,
Youngblade perspective taking, coded for reference
(1991) talk about feelings to feeling states and
and causality (time talk about causality
2) (time 1)
Ensor & Hughes 2-year-olds, False belief, Mental state talk
(2008) tested again at understanding when child was
ages 3 and 4 of deception, 2 years old, coded
understanding of for cognitions,
emotion desires, and
feelings. Also coded
for connectedness.
Ensor, Devine, 2-year-olds, False belief at age Mental state talk at
Marks, & tested again 3, first-and second- ages 2 and 6, coded
Hughes (2014) at 3, 6, and order false belief for cognitions,
10 years and affective false desires, and feelings
belief at age 6,
Strange Stories at
age 10
Furrow, Moore, 2-year-olds, Utterances coded Same as child
Davidge, & tested again at as cognitive state (times 1 and 2)
Chiasson (1992) age 3 reference (think,
know, remember,
guess, other)
Jenkins et al. 2- and 4-year- Mental state talk, Same as child
(2003) olds (sibs), coded as cognitive, (times 1 and 2)
tested again at desire, or feeling
ages 4 and 6
LaBounty et al. 3½-year-olds, False belief, Mental state talk,
(2008) tested again at emotion labeling coded for thought,
age 5½ and perspective desire, and emotion
taking, terms (time 1)
understanding of
concealed emotions
(time 2)
(continued)
Table 7.4 Continued

participants
Meins, 6-month-olds, Attachment Mental state talk,
Fernyhough, tested again at 12 months, maternal mind-
Wainwright, at 12, 45, and appearance-reality mindedness,
Gupta, Fradley, 48 months at 45 months, false and sensitivity at
& Tuckey belief at 48 months 6 months
(2002)
Moore, Furrow, 2-year-olds, Belief and Production of belief
Chaisson, & tested again at desire terms in and desire terms
Petriquin (1994) ages 3 and 4 conversation with in interaction with
mother. At age 4, child (all three
understanding of times)
“know,” “think,”
and “guess.”
Racine et al. 3-to 5- At time 1, false Creation of story
(2006) year-olds, belief and for wordless
tested again understanding of storybook, with
30 months later emotion. At time division into
2, understanding explanatory
of ambiguity, (mental states
interpretive emphasized) and
diversity, and nonexplanatory
mixed emotions. talk (time 1)
Reese & New Zealand 3- At time 1, Discussion of a
Cleveland year-olds, tested representational one-t ime novel
(2006) again at age 4 change and origins past event (times 1
of knowledge. and 2)
At time 2, false
belief, appearance/
reality, origins of
knowledge.
Ruffman et al. 3-year-olds, False belief, Talk about a series
(2002) tested again at understanding of of pictures, scored
ages 3.4 and 4 desire and emotion, for desire, emotion,
understanding of think, and know
ambiguity (all three times)
Table 7.4 Continued

participants
Ruffman, Slade, 3-year-olds, False belief, Talk about a series
Devitt, & Crowe tested again at 4 understanding of of pictures, scored
(2006) desire and emotion for desire, emotion,
think, and know;
parenting style
(times 1 and 2)
Slaughter, 9-month-olds, Joint attention Mental state
Peterson, & tested again talk, coded for
Carpenter at 12 and perception,
(2008) 15 months cognition, volition,
and disposition (all
three times)
Slaughter, 9-month-olds, Imperative and Mental state
Peterson, & tested again declarative points talk, coded for
Carpenter at 12 and perception,
(2009) 15 months cognition volition,
and disposition (all
three times)
Sung & Hsu 2-year-olds, False belief and Collaborative
(2014) tested again at appearance-reality speech during
age 4 pretend play (time
1)
Symons et al. 2-year-olds, At time 1, mental Mental state
(2006) tested again at state language; at language,
age 5 time 2, false belief sensitivity (time 1)
Taumoepeau & New Zealand Mental state Talk about a series
Ruffman (2006) 15-month-olds, language at both of pictures, scored
tested again at ages, emotion for desire, emotion,
24 months understanding at think, and know
time 2 (times 1 and 2)
Taumoepeau & New Zealand Mental state Talk about a series
Ruffman (2008) 15-month- language at all of pictures, scored
olds, tested ages, emotion for desire, emotion,
again at 24 and understanding at think, and know
33 months times 2 and 3 (all three times)
The value of the longitudinal approach lies, of course, in the fact that it pro-
vides across-time information about the relations among the constructs of inter-
est. Many of the studies in Table 7.4 also provide within-time information, in that
both parental talk and theory of mind were measured at the same time or times.
The within-time analyses confirm the conclusion reported in the previous sec-
tion: significant relations between parental talk and theory of mind in virtually
every case.
What about across-time relations? As we would expect, both the frequency and
the strength of relations tend to be greater when the parent and child measures
come from the same rather than different time points. Nevertheless, across-time
relations are also a characteristic of this literature. Indeed, every study summa-
rized in Table 7.4 reports at least one significant relation between early parental
talk and later child theory of mind. Relations in the other direction do sometimes
occur, that is, a correlation between early theory of mind and later parental talk
(e.g., Ensor et al., 2014). The parent-to-child direction, however, is much more
common than the child-to-parent one.
Third factor explanations are again an issue, and again the great majority
of significant relations remain significant when various third factor alter-
natives are controlled. Note that longitudinal studies offer two possibilities
in this regard that are not found in the one-p oint-i n-t ime studies. It is pos-
sible that an apparent effect of talk at time 1 on development at time 2 is
actually an effect of talk at time 2, given the stability over time in parents’
tendency to use mental state talk. It is also possible that an apparent effect of
talk at time 1 on development at time 2 is actually an effect on development at
time 1, which then carries over and produces superior time 2 performance. Not
all studies include the necessary data to rule out these possibilities; those
that do, however, typically provide evidence for across-time and not just
within-t ime effects.
As Table 7.4 indicates, most studies have followed up their samples over
short time periods (1 or 2 years), and most have not gone beyond the preschool
developments (e.g., false belief) that make up most of the theory-of-m ind lit-
erature. There are exceptions, however. The most extended follow-up comes in
the study by Ensor et al. (2014), a study that provides evidence (as the title of
the article indicates) for effects of talk at age 2 on theory-of-m ind performance
at age 10. The Ensor et al. study is also one of the few attempts (the others being
Adrian et al., 2007; Racine, Carpendale, & Turnbull, 2006; and Richie, Howe,
Ross, & Alexander, 2010) to examine the more advanced forms of theory-of-
mind understanding that emerge only some time after the preschool years. Ten
years ago a review by P. L. Harris, de Rosnay, and Pons (2005) noted the need
for studies of parental talk to begin to take into account more advanced forms
of theory of mind. Most such work remains to be done.
Context
The fullest exploration of possible effects of context comes in research by Howe
et al. (2010; see also Howe & Rinaldi, 2004). These investigators measured talk
between mothers and preschoolers during home observations in which the pre-
schooler’s younger sibling was also a participant. The observations were subse-
quently divided into three contexts: positive interactions, negative interactions,
and neutral interactions. The data from the home observations were compared
with mother–child talk in response to a series of affective pictures (a measure
called the Parent Child Affect Communication Task, or PACT). On both the
home and laboratory measures four mental states were scored for both parent and
child: cognitions, emotions, goals, and preferences.
Two sets of findings emerged. One concerned the frequency of reference to
the different mental states. As expected given the nature of the task, talk about
emotions was most frequent on the PACT for both mother and child. Within the
home observations it was the positive context that proved most conducive to men-
tal state talk. Mothers talked about all four mental states most often in the posi-
tive context, and children talked most about cognitions and goals during positive
interactions.
The second set of findings concerned relations between maternal talk and
child talk. We have already seen that mother–child correlations in mental state
talk are a common finding, and the Howe et al. (2010) study proved no excep-
tion: Of the 16 correlations (4 mental states times 4 contexts), 14 were significant,
and the average r was .56. There was, nevertheless, an effect of context: Mother–
child relations were strongest for talk that occurred in the neutral context. What
both sets of findings suggest is that some contexts (picture book reading, posi-
tive or neutral interactions) are conducive to parents’ didactic purposes and to
expressing and attending to mental states, whereas others (negative interactions)
minimize the likelihood of a productive sharing of thoughts or emotions.
Two other studies provide evidence about context (we will return to the issue
in the section on emotion talk). One is by the same research team just discussed
and involves the same contrast between positive interactions and negative inter-
actions. Richie et al. (2010) examined verbal irony (generally assumed to require
second-order theory of mind) in family conversations between mothers, fathers,
and their two children. Four forms of irony were recorded: hyperbole, understate-
ment, sarcasm, and rhetorical questions. Apart from rhetorical questions, each
of the forms of irony occurred more often in positive than in negative interac-
tions. Because negative interactions were relatively rare, however (16% of the
total interactions), proportion scores were also analyzed, and in this case both
rhetorical questions and understatement proved more frequent in negative than
in positive interactions. Researchers of adult conversations have argued that irony
is used more often to criticize than to compliment (Sperber & Wilson, 1981), and
the Recchia et al. findings with respect to negative contexts suggest that this con-
clusion applies, at least for some forms of irony, to parents’ interactions with their
children.
Like Howe et al. (2010), Jenkins et al. (2003) examined parental talk
directed to sibling dyads, first when the sibling pairs were 2 and 4 years old
and later when the children were 4 and 6 years old. The context at issue was
the interpersonal setting: In half the sessions the mother was the only parent
present, and in half both mother and father were present. This difference made
a difference: The mothers produced more mental state talk in the mother-only
sessions, and they differentiated more between the older and younger child in
the mother-only sessions. Both findings are taken as evidence for an important
effect of context, namely that “when parents are on their own with children
they are more involved with the children and consequently provide a higher
level of stimulation” (p. 916).
The Jenkins et al. (2003) study also speaks to the so-c alled sibling effect
that was discussed in Chapter 2. Recall that the sibling effect refers to the
fact that in some (although not all) studies children with more siblings, per-
haps especially older siblings, have been found to outperform other children
on theory-of-m ind tasks. Jenkins et al. reported that the younger children in
their study received more exposure to mental state talk, especially talk about
cognitions, than did their older siblings. Part of this increased exposure came
from the older siblings’ talk and part came from the mothers’ talk—not only
talk to the younger child but also talk to the older sibling that was overheard
by the younger child. This finding suggests that interactions among siblings
may not be the only basis for the sibling effect; rather what parents do may
also contribute. Early support for this possibility had been reported by Dunn,
Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, and Youngblade (1991), who found that 3-year-
olds’ understanding of false belief was positively related to their mothers’ con-
trolling behavior with the children’s older siblings.
Speaker
The question now is whether it matters who provides the mental state talk. Most
studies offer no information on this question because most studies include just
one speaker: the mother. Fathers do appear in a handful of cases, however, includ-
ing two of the studies just discussed.
Both studies provide limited information about possible mother–father differ-
ences. In Jenkins et al. (2003) fathers were observed only in the mother-father-
child groups, not when they were the only parent interacting with the children. In
addition, the correlational analyses were limited to mother–child relations; thus
there was no information about the possible contribution of fathers to children’s
mental state understanding. The analyses did reveal one mother–father differ-
ence: Mothers produced more mental state talk than fathers when both parents
were interacting with the children.
Although the Recchia et al. (2010) study provides information about both
mother and father talk, it does not report parent–child correlations, and thus it
does not indicate whether fathers’ contributions are in any way different from
mothers.’ The study does, however, identify some mother–father differences in
the use of irony. Mothers used rhetorical questions more often and hyperbole less
often than did fathers. There was also an interaction of speaker and context, in
that mothers used irony equally often in positive and negative contexts, whereas
both fathers and children used it more often in positive contexts. Fathers, as we
saw in Chapter 3, often take on the role of play partner rather than all-a round
socializing agent, and the authors suggest that fathers’ tendency to use playful
forms of irony (e.g., hyperbole but not sarcasm) in positive contexts fits with this
conclusion.
The most informative mother–father comparison to date comes in the study by
LaBounty and colleagues (LaBounty et al., 2008). These investigators observed
both mothers and fathers as they narrated a wordless picture book with “emotion
eliciting situations” to their 3-year-old children. The parents’ speech was coded
for thought, emotion, and desire words, as well as for causal explanatory state-
ments with respect to the various mental states. The children, in turn, responded
to a battery of false belief and emotion understanding tasks on two occasions: first
at age 3 and then again at age 5.
Differences emerged in both the parents’ speech and the apparent effects of the
speech. Mothers used more thought and emotion words than did fathers. Mothers
also used more causal explanatory language with respect to emotion than did
fathers; fathers, however, used more causal explanatory language with respect to
thoughts than did mothers.
Analyses of parent–child relations suggested that mothers and fathers affected
different aspects of their children’s development. Various aspects of mothers’ talk
about emotions related positively to their children’s understanding of emotions at
time 1. As the authors note, this finding fits well with a large body of research that
indicates that mothers are typically the primary socialization agents with respect
to emotional development. False belief performance, in contrast, related to fathers’
mental state talk; in particular, fathers’ explanatory language with respect to
desires related positively to false belief success at both time 1 and time 2. In inter-
preting this finding, the authors cite work (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman, 1995) sug-
gesting that children’s early mastery of desires serves as a building block as they
work to understand thoughts and beliefs—hence the efficacy of fathers’ talk about
desires. The issue of the fit among different mental states is one I return to shortly.
This section has concentrated on mothers and fathers, as befits the book’s focus
on parents’ contribution to their children’s development. I will note, however, that
parents are not the only social agents whose mental state talk can affect children’s
development. Teachers have also been shown to be high in the use of mental state
language (Misailidi, Papoudi, & Brouzos, 2013; Ziv, Smadja, & Aram, 2015);
indeed, in one study teachers used more mental state terms and talked more about
mental causality than did mothers (Ziv, Smadja, & Aram, 2014). In addition, work
by Dunn and colleagues makes clear that both sibling and peer interactions are
rich sources for the exchange of mental state information (e.g., Hughes & Dunn,
1997, 1998; Youngblade & Dunn, 1995). This work also identifies another context
in which mental state talk is frequent: namely, pretend play.
Target
The question now is whether it matters whose mental states are being talked
about. The main contrast under this heading is between speech directed to the
child’s mental states and speech directed to the mental states of others.
To the extent that the own–other contrast matters, it is almost certainly most
important for very young children. As we have seen, parental talk about mental
states for the first 2 or so years of children’s lives concentrates almost exclusively
on the child’s own mental states. Initially, then, it is talk about themselves that
children have to work with. That such talk can be beneficial for various aspects of
early theory-of-m ind development is a consistent finding across several studies
(Beeghly et al., 1986; Meins et al., 2002; Slaughter & Peterson, 2008, 2009).
The main comparative treatment of self and other comes in two studies by
Taumoepeau and Ruffman (2006, 2008). The sample was the same for both
reports: mothers and their toddlers, with data collection at 15 and 24 months
in the first report and a further session at 33 months that was the subject of the
second report. At all three time points mothers described a series of pictures to
their child, a subset of which depicted adults and children displaying a range of
emotions. The maternal talk was coded for both mental state content (emotions,
desires, and cognitions) and the possessor of the mental state (child or other). The
children’s own use of mental state language was assessed at all three time points,
and they responded to tests of emotion understanding at times 2 and 3.
Results of the two studies diverged in interesting ways. When the children
were tested at 24 months, it was the mother’s use of desire terms at 15 months
that proved the best predictor both of the child’s own use of mental state language
and of the child’s emotion understanding. References to the child’s own desires
were especially predictive. When the children were tested at 33 months, it was
the mother’s use of cognitive terms that was the best predictor of both mental
state use and emotion understanding, and this held true both within and across
time periods. Furthermore, at 33 months it was reference to the mental states
of others that proved especially helpful. Adrian et al. (2007) and Howard et al.
(2008), both working with slightly older age groups, also found that references
to the mental states of others were especially helpful, in this case with respect to
understanding of cognitive states.
Taumoepeau and Ruffman explain both of their findings within the frame-
work of Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development. Mothers are
seen as responding sensitively to their children’s interests and abilities. Because
children’s early mental state talk tends to focus on their own desires, so does
mothers’ early mental state talk. Some mothers adopt this focus more strongly
than do others, however, and this concentration on the child’s concerns is initially
helpful. Eventually, however, the focus must expand, and the child must come
to understand other targets besides the self and other mental states in addition
to desires. Some mothers adjust their speech more successfully to their child’s
shifting interests and needs than do others, and it is in these cases that children
progress relatively quickly to the next level of understanding.
Beyond toddlerhood few studies have distinguished the target for mental state
references, a situation that presumably reflects a consensus among researchers
that target effects are unlikely to be found beyond early childhood. It seems rea-
sonable to assume that in the typical case all children will eventually be exposed
to substantial amounts of talk about both their own mental states and the mental
states of others. Both sorts of input may be necessary for theory-of-m ind develop-
ment, which, after all, involves the ability to reason about both self and other. It
may be other aspects of the talk, however, that are responsible for variations in the
speed or quality of such development.
General Versus Specific

Do children learn best about a mental state when the speech input they receive empha-
sizes that mental state? As we have just seen, the answer is not necessarily. In LaBounty
et al. (2008) it was fathers’ talk about desires that related most strongly to their chil-
dren’s mastery of beliefs. Taumoepeau and Ruffman (2006) similarly found that talk
about desires was, at least for a while, the best predictor of emotion understanding.
Similar conclusions have emerged in several other studies. In Symons, Fossum, and
Collins (2006) mothers’ comments about desires when their children were 2 years
old related to the children’s false belief performance at age 5; mothers’ cognitive com-
ments showed no relation. In Ruffman et al. (2002) mothers’ talk about desires was a
stronger predictor of their children’s talk about cognitions than was the mothers’ talk
about cognitions. And in Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski et al. (1991) mothers’ talk about
feelings predicted their children’s later false belief performance.
On the other hand, several other studies have reported more specific
relations between mental state input and theory-of-m ind understanding. In
Slaughter, Peterson, and Mackintosh (2007) mothers’ cognitive talk related to
their children’s false belief performance; talk about perceptions or emotions
showed no relation. In Ensor et al. (2014) mothers’ cognitive talk related to
both false belief understanding and performance on the Strange Stories mea-
sure; talk about desires or emotions showed no relation. In Jenkins et al.
(2003) mothers’ cognitive talk related to their children’s cognitive talk, and
mothers’ emotion talk related to their children’s emotion talk. Symons et al.
(2006) reported a similar pattern: Cognitive talk related to cognitive talk and
desire talk related to desire talk. Although their results were a bit more mixed,
both Adrian et al. (2005) and Moore et al. (1994) reported mostly specific
links between mental state input and children’s eventual understanding.
The picture, then, is not a straightforward one. It seems clear that in some cases
talk about one mental state can help children as they work to master another men-
tal state. In particular, children’s initial forays into the cognitive domain may
build on information about desires, both their own nascent understanding of
desire and their parents’ talk about desire. More generally, the intertwined nature
of mental states makes it quite plausible that talk about one state could often aid
in understanding of another. Beliefs, after all, often follow from perceptions, and
intentional actions often follow from beliefs. Beliefs, however, may not be suffi-
cient to impel a person to action; rather, beliefs may need to work in conjunction
with desires. And desires, in turn, are intimately linked to emotions, given that
fulfilled desires are an important source of positive emotions, whereas unfulfilled
desires have a sadly opposite effect.
Once these points are acknowledged, it is still reasonable to assume that the
most helpful information about a mental state will be talk specifically about that
state. As we have just seen, the bulk of the relevant evidence provides support for
this commonsense assumption. So, as we will see shortly, does the large litera-
ture on the development of emotion understanding. Benefits, to be sure, are not
automatic. The child must be at the right developmental level to make use of the
input. Also, the mental state term alone is unlikely to be sufficient; rather, the
linguistic context in which it appears must be clear enough and engaging enough
to support attention and learning. It is to the quality of the speech input that we
now turn.
Quality
The emphasis to this point has been a quantitative one: How much mental state
talk of various forms are children exposed to? That quantity can make a difference
is a clear conclusion from just about every study reviewed: the more children hear
about mental states, the better their theory-of-m ind development.
Quantity alone, however, is not the full story. This is a point made by every
reviewer who has summarized the talk literature (de Rosnay & Hughes, 2006;
Hughes, 2011; Pavarini et al., 2013; Slaughter & Peterson, 2012). It is also an issue
that a number of contributors to this literature have explicitly addressed.
Table 7.5 Aspects of Mental State Talk That Determine Effectiveness
Aspect Description Sources

Connectedness Alignment of one speaker Ensor & Hughes
to another, as measured by (2008)
the frequency with which
each speaker’s utterances
are semantically related to
the other speaker’s prior
utterance
Appropriateness Extent to which mental Meins et al. (2002);
state comments accurately Symons et al. (2006)
reflect the mental state in
question or accurately link
to related past or future
events
Elaborative discourse Extent to which speech Ontai & Thompson
moves the conversation to (2008)
a new aspect of an event or
adds information about a
particular aspect
Causal explanatory Speech that is intended to LaBounty et al.
language explain mental states, often (2008)
signalled by “because,”
“how,” or “why”
Mentalistic clarifications Responses to children’s Sabbagh & Callanan
utterances that clarify or (1998); Slaughter
emphasize mental states, et al. (2007)
including the possibility of
multiple perspectives
False belief talk Explicit discussion of Slaughter et al.
the fact that beliefs can (2007); Symons et al.
sometimes be false (2005); Turnbull
et al. (2008)
Table 7.5 summarizes the major arguments that have been advanced with
respect to the quality of parental talk. The entries presented are not an exhaus-
tive listing of factors that have been proposed as important; rather, they are the
ones that seem to me clearest and best established in research to date. The entries
are also not necessarily mutually exclusive; various features may typically occur
together, and in some instances the distinctions among entries may be more a
matter of terminology than substance. The latter point applies especially to the
third, fourth, and fifth entries in the table, constructs that, although not identical,
clearly overlap.
I will make just a few points with respect to the entries in Table 7.5. First, in
some studies with a focus on quality the amount of mental state talk has been
found to have no effect; it is only the measure of quality that is predictive of devel-
opment (e.g., Ontai & Thompson, 2008; Slaughter et al., 2007). In most studies,
however, both amount of talk and quality of talk have been reported to make at
least somewhat independent contributions. In some instances, the two measures
prove to be interwoven. Ensor and Hughes (2008), for example, found that mental
state talk was both most frequent and most predictive when it occurred in speech
that was of the connected form.
A second point concerns the within-time versus across-time comparison. Not
all of the constructs listed in the table have been shown to be predictive not only
within time but also across time. The work on explicit discussion of false belief, in
particular, is at present limited to a demonstration of one-point-in-time relations.
It is also limited to discussion of storybooks that have been specifically designed
to encourage talk about false beliefs. It is certainly plausible that parents might
spontaneously discuss false beliefs with their children and that such discussions
might contribute to the understanding not only of false belief but of mental states
in general. At present, however, the evidence for such effects is limited.
The final point is that theory of mind is not the only developmental outcome
for which parental talk might be important. Recent years have seen the emergence
of a rapidly growing literature devoted to what children learn from talk by others
(P. L. Harris, 2012; Robinson & Einav, 2014). A more longstanding literature is
that directed to talk with parents as a source for the emergence of autobiographi-
cal memory in children (Fivush, 2011; Reese, 2010). One finding from the latter
literature resonates with the work on theory of mind: Elaborative discourse by
parents is an especially effective way to promote attention and learning.
Emotion Talk and Emotion Understanding

As Tables 7.3 and 7.4 indicate, many of the studies just summarized included
emotion talk and emotion understanding as part of a larger examination of men-
tal state talk. The present section is devoted to studies whose sole focus was emo-
tion talk and its effects on emotion understanding. Approximately four dozen
studies fit this description—and these are just the subset of emotion talk studies
that have been directed to theory of mind. My goal is to provide a few take-home
points rather than an exhaustive coverage of the literature.
We can begin with the same general question that opened the discussion of
mental states in general: Do variations in parental talk relate to variations in
children’s development? Again, the answer is clearly positive. Not all possible
relations between parents’ talk and children’s understanding are found, and
effect sizes are generally modest when relations do occur. Nevertheless, some
positive effects of parental talk are an outcome of almost every study in the
emotion talk literature. As with work on mental states in general, longitudinal
studies are frequent, and effects are found not only contemporaneously but
also across time. Controls for third factor explanations are also again common,
and again such controls sometimes reduce but seldom remove the significant
effects.
A further point is that effects show some generality at both the independent
and dependent variable end. With respect to the latter, children’s own use of
emotion terms has been shown to relate to their parents’ use of those terms, as
has their performance on a range of measures of emotion understanding. With
respect to parental talk, the storybook method has again been a common method
of eliciting talk, but two other approaches also have contributed substantial (and
concordant) data. One is the memory talk paradigm. Many memory talk stud-
ies have focused explicitly on talk about emotions, and even when this is not the
case, emotions are often a main topic of conversation. The other is in-t he-home
observation. Work by Dunn and associates, in particular (e.g., Brown & Dunn,
1992; Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991), makes clear that talk about emotions is a
frequent focus of family conversations.
Many of the issues discussed in the preceding section apply also to work on
emotion talk. Possible effects of context are again an issue. Several studies have
examined parents’ talk about emotions across some combination of the most
common contexts for measurement: storybook reading, memory talk, and obser-
vations of free play (Kucirkova & Tompkins, 2014; Kuersten-Hogan & McHale,
2000; Laible, 2004; Laible & Song, 2006). The main question examined has been
the consistency of parents’ talk across contexts, and the main finding has been of
modest consistency at best. Thus how much emotion talk parents bring to story-
book reading, for example, does not necessarily tell us what they will do when
discussing past events with their children.
Possible mean differences in emotion talk across contexts have been exam-
ined less often, perhaps because of a realization that any such differences may
depend on the specific form that the measures take (e.g., how emotion-laden
is the storybook content, do the memory talk instructions include a specific
focus on emotions?). In Laible and Song (2006) discussion of positive emotions
was more common during memory talk than during storybook reading, and in
Laible (2004) discussion of both positive and negative emotions was more com-
mon during memory talk. The latter study also found that both the predictors
and the effects of elaborative discourse varied across contexts. The attachment
relationship with the parent related positively to elaborative discourse during

memory talk; there was no relation between attachment and discourse on the
storybook measure. Elaborative discourse during memory talk was a positive
predictor of emotion understanding; elaborative discourse during story telling
showed no relation.
Kucirkova and Tompkins (2014) add some information about effects of con-
text on the target for emotion talk. What they report is perhaps expectable: more
talk about the child’s emotions during memory talk, more talk about the emo-
tions of others during storybook reading and play.
Finally, research by Dunn, Brown, and Beardsall (1991) adds a qualifier
to a conclusion reached earlier. We saw, both earlier in this chapter and in
Chapter 4, that negative, conflict-r idden exchanges are often less conducive
to learning about mental states than are more positive interactions. Dunn
et al. found, however, that conflicts among family members (not just between
mother and child but also between siblings) were a frequent source for dis-
cussion of feelings and that talk during conflicts related positively to later
emotional understanding. The focus of such talk on the causes of emotions
appeared especially helpful.
As is true in the mental state literature in general, only a handful of stud-
ies have examined possible mother–f ather differences in emotion talk. Recall
that LaBounty et al. (2008) found two such differences: Mothers talked more
about emotions than did fathers, including more causal explanatory language,
and mothers’ talk related more strongly to children’s understanding of emo-
tions than did fathers’ talk. Two studies by Aznar and Tenenbaum (2013,
2015) with Spanish parents provide general support for these conclusions.
In both studies mothers used more emotion terms than fathers, and moth-
ers’ talk showed more consistent relations to children’s emotion talk than did
fathers’ talk.
A number of further studies have compared mother and father emotion talk—
not, however, in conjunction with an assessment of theory of mind in their chil-
dren. Obviously, then, such studies do not speak to the main question of interest
here: how such talk affects theory of mind. But they do provide information
about possible mother–father differences in emotion talk. Such differences are
sometimes (e.g., Denham et al., 2010; Fivush, Brotman, Buckner, & Goodman,
2000) but not always (e.g., Adams, Kuebli, Boyle, & Fivush, 1995; Roger et al.,
2012) found. When differences do occur, they are generally in line with the con-
clusions drawn by LaBounty et al.: namely, more emotion talk by mothers than
by fathers.
Differences between mothers and fathers are not the only way in which emo-
tion talk might vary as a function of gender. A considerably larger literature has
addressed the possibility that boys and girls may receive different amounts or dif-
ferent forms of emotion talk. Again, some studies have done so within the context
of theory-of-m ind research (e.g., Cervantes & Callanan, 1998), whereas others
have been directed to other developmental outcomes (e.g., Roger et al., 2012).
The main conclusion from this research was discussed briefly in Chapter 3.
When differences occur, it is typically daughters who receive more emotion talk
than do sons (Adams et al., 1995; Fivush et al., 2000; Kuebli & Fivush, 1992;
Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1996). Talk directed to daughters often includes both
a greater number and a greater variety of emotion terms than does talk directed
to sons, it is more likely to focus on the causes of emotions, and it is more likely
to take an elaborative form. Both mothers and fathers differentiate between the
sexes in this way. Differences are especially pronounced with respect to discus-
sion of negative emotions, especially sadness. Furthermore, over time children’s
talk comes to reflect these differences in parental input, for eventually girls come
to talk more about emotions, especially sadness, than do boys.
I should qualify the conclusions just offered. Not all examinations of the issue
have reported the pattern of results just summarized, even studies within the
program of research by Robyn Fivush and colleagues that is the source for most
of the supportive evidence (see, for example, Fivush, Sales, & Bohanek, 2008;
and Fivush & Wang, 2005). A further point (one that applies to the gender dif-
ferences literature in general) is that the summary is based on studies in which
possible gender differences were an explicit focus of the research. Almost every
study, however, includes both boys and girls, and many reports that do not focus
on gender begin the Results section with preliminary analyses indicating that no
gender effects occurred (e.g., Denham & Auerbach, 1995; Doan & Wang, 2010).
These points do not negate the usual conclusion from this literature—t hat girls
often receive more emotion talk and are more affected by emotion talk than are
boys. But they do suggest that such effects may depend on some combination of
samples, methods, and contexts that is not yet totally clear.
The work on gender differences ties into a general issue in the study of emo-
tions, and that is the role of valence. Emotions can be either positive (happy,
pleased, excited) or negative (sad, angry, afraid). Does it matter whether parents
and children talk about positive or negative emotions?
Lagattuta and Wellman (2002) provide what is probably the most informative
examination of this issue. These investigators tracked the use of emotion words
by children and parents who were included in the CHILDES database (Child
Language Data Exchange System) that I discussed in Chapter 2. The tabula-
tions began when the children were 2 years old and extended until they were 5,
and in total they included 2,119 emotion utterances by the children and 2,358
emotion utterances by the parents. A clear picture emerged, and that was that
talk about negative emotions was especially fertile ground for learning not only
about emotions but about mental states in general. Thus discussions of nega-
tive emotions included more talk about past emotions, the causes of emotions,
and connections between emotions and other mental states than did talk about
positive emotions. Talk about negative emotions also included a larger emotion
vocabulary than did talk about positive emotions, as well as more open-ended
questions and more talk about other people and not only the self. Such differ-
ences had been expected based on the challenges posed by negative emotions. In
the authors’ words, “Because negative emotions are problematic and disruptive
and involve some kind of complication or goal failure, there is a more demanding
impetus to regulate their intensity, direction, and duration. . . . Thus, negative
emotions inspire attempts to understand them and to prevent their reoccur-
rence” (p. 565). (For a fuller discussion of the negative versus positive issue, see
Vaish et al., 2008.)
The work considered to this point—not just under this discussion of emotion
talk but in earlier sections of the chapter as well—has been based on predomi-
nantly Caucasian samples drawn from a small number of Western countries.
As we saw in Chapter 2, theory-of-m ind research in general is no longer limited
to such samples; research in Asia, in particular, has proliferated in recent years
(e.g., Liu, Wellman, Tardif, & Sabbagh, 2008; Naito & Koyama, 2006). Studies of
parental talk are also not limited to Western samples; here, too, there is a substan-
tial body of research with Asian (or in some instances, Asian American) samples
(e.g., Wang, 2013). What is still largely lacking is research directed to the conjunc-
tion of these components—t hat is, the relation between parental talk and theory
of mind examined from a cross-cultural perspective.
The topic of emotion talk and emotion understanding provides one exception
and a few partial exceptions to this statement. The exception is a study by Doan
and Wang (2010). Their sample was 2-and 3-year-old children and their mothers,
roughly half of whom were European American and half of whom were Chinese
immigrants to America. Each mother “read” a wordless picture book to her child,
and all references to mental states (cognitions, desires, and emotions) were tabu-
lated. Also tabulated were behavioral descriptions, that is, references to actions
or potential actions in the story. The children also responded to a test of emotion
understanding on which they were asked to describe situations that could evoke
different emotions (e.g., “What makes people feel sad?”)
Four main findings emerged. First, European American mothers produced
more mental state utterances (means of 29.76 and 10.25) than did Chinese moth-
ers; Chinese mothers, in turn, produced more behavioral descriptions. Second,
European American children outperformed Chinese children on the test of emotion
understanding. Third, within each culture, mental state references by the mother
related positively to children’s performance, and behavioral descriptions related
negatively. Finally, mental state talk partially mediated the cultural difference in
performance—that is, when mental state talk was controlled, the difference between
European American and Chinese children was reduced but did not disappear.
Although they do not include a theory-of-m ind outcome, several studies pro-
vide further information about differences in emotion talk between European
American and Chinese or Chinese American mothers (Fivush & Wang, 2005;
Wang, Doan, & Song, 2010; Wang & Fivush, 2005). The picture is similar to
that reported for mental state terms in general by Doan and Wang (2010). Thus
European American mothers focus more on the causes of emotions than do
Chinese mothers, they adopt a more interactive approach that encourages partici-
pation by the child, and they employ a more elaborative style of speech. Chinese
mothers, in contrast, take a more directive and didactic approach in which the
emphasis is more on proper behavior than on the child’s feelings. When Chinese
mothers talk about negative emotions the predominant emotion is anger; when
European American mothers talk about negative emotions the predominant
emotion is sadness. Although most of the relevant research remains to be done,
it is not difficult to see how such differences in parental talk could both reflect
and perpetuate differences in how members of different cultures think about
emotions.
Atypical Development
One way to study the contribution of some formative factor to development is
to see what happens when the factor is either absent or limited in its application.
This approach can be applied to the issue of mental state talk. What happens when
children either do not receive or cannot fully utilize the typical mental state lan-
guage from their parents?
When might such a situation arise? The most obvious instance is deafness,
especially deaf children who are born to hearing parents (as is true in the great
majority of cases of deafness). Most hearing parents lack the facility in sign
language that is possessed by deaf parents, and the language that their chil-
dren receive is correspondingly limited. Such is especially the case early in
life, before the children start school and before their parents’ signing prowess
improves.
It has long been clear that deaf children who are late to master sign language
are seriously delayed in theory-of-m ind development (Meristo, Hjelmquist, &
Morgan, 2012). In contrast, native signing children—t hat is, deaf children of deaf
parents—t ypically show no delay at all. These findings are one of several sources
of evidence for a conclusion noted in Chapter 2: namely, that language makes an
important contribution to theory of mind.
Two studies of deaf children have focused explicitly on mental state talk. In
Morgan et al. (2014) the participants were 17-to 35-month-old deaf children and
their mothers, all of whom had normal hearing. The mother’s task was to describe
a series of pictures with mental state content to her child, using any combina-
tion of gestures and spoken language that she preferred (all of the children had
either hearing aids or cochlear implants). A same-aged sample of hearing children
and their mothers was included for comparison. Two differences emerged. First,
although the mothers of deaf children referred to desires and emotions at the
same rate as did mothers of hearing children, they referred to cognitions only
about one-t hird as often. Their speech, therefore, was typical of that usually used
with infants and young toddlers. Second, conversations with the deaf children
were much less likely to consist of connected turns in the sense defined by Ensor
and Hughes (2008); that is, one partner’s utterance was semantically related to
the preceding utterance of the partner. Both findings suggest that the mental state
language that deaf children typically receive is impoverished in comparison to
that available to hearing children.
The same conclusion emerged in a study by Moeller and Schick (2006), in
this case with an older (5-to 10-year-old) group of deaf children. In comparison
to mothers of hearing children, the mothers of the deaf children produced both
fewer mental state terms and a less diverse array of mental state terms in speech
to their children. Their children, in turn, performed more poorly on a measure
of false belief than did the comparison group, a difference that occurred despite
the younger age (4 to 5 years) of the hearing children. Finally, there was a posi-
tive relation between mothers’ mental state use and children’s false belief perfor-
mance, a relation that remained significant even when age and language ability
were controlled.
Unlike deaf children, blind children do not lack the typical sensory channel
for language input. Nevertheless, blind children, like deaf children, show on-
the-average delays in both language development and theory of mind (Siegal &
Peterson, 2008). Various nonverbal sources of information (e.g., facial expres-
sions, gestures, environmental objects and events) contribute to both lan-
guage acquisition and mastery of theory of mind, and the absence of these cues
complicates both tasks for blind children. It is interesting to note, therefore,
that the one study of mental state use with a blind sample reported that moth-
ers of blind children produced more mentalistic elaborations than did a com-
parison sample with sighted children (Tadic, Pring, & Dale, 2013), a finding
that the authors interpreted as a compensatory strategy on the mothers’ part.
Furthermore, the blind children’s use of mental state language was positively
related to that of their mothers. How general these findings are remains to be
determined.
In contrast to deaf and blind children, children with autism do not lack any of
the sensory channels that support language learning (although aspects of speech
perception may be impaired—Surian, 2012). Children with autism, however,
show varying degrees of language impairment; indeed, difficulties with language
are a defining feature of autism. As we saw in Chapter 2, children with autism also
show impairments in theory of mind, again to varying degrees. Furthermore, the
two developments are related, for language proficiency is a consistent predictor of
theory-of-m ind performance in samples with autism (Happe, 1995).
To date, only two studies have examined parents’ use of mental state language
with children with autism. Both suggest that parents attempt to adjust their
speech to the developmental level of the child. Kay-R aining Bird and colleagues
(Kay-R aining Bird, Cleave, Curia, & Dunleavy, 2008) reported a case study of
parental speech to a 3-year-old girl diagnosed with autism, a child who was still
at the one-word stage of language production. The parents’ speech mirrored
that typically used with younger children—t hus a low rate of mental state talk,
more references to desires and emotions than to cognitions, and few attempts
to provide causal explanations for mental states. Working with an older (4-to 9-
year-old) autism group, Slaughter et al. (2007) found that parental clarifications
with regard to cognitive states—an aspect of speech that they had previously
determined to be helpful—occurred less often among parents of children with
autism than was the case for parents of typically developing children. As in earlier
research, cognitive clarifications related positively to performance by the typi-
cally developing group. For the children with autism, however, cognitive clarifica-
tions showed no benefit; it was clarifications with respect to desire and emotion
that proved predictive of performance. This finding suggests that children with
autism can benefit from mental state talk; the talk, however, needs to be at the
appropriate developmental level. Such is always the case, of course, but finding
the right level may pose a greater challenge when the child’s development departs
from the expected course.
Conclusions
As I noted at the outset of this chapter, the literature on mental state talk presents
perhaps the clearest and most consistent set of findings under the heading of par-
enting and theory of mind. Experience with mental state talk relates positively
to a number of aspects of theory-of-m ind development. Although the relations
are correlational, across-time data strongly suggest that the causal direction is
primarily from talk to understanding rather than the reverse. As we will see in
Chapter 9, training studies also provide support for this conclusion.
In most studies it is amount of mental state talk that is measured, and it is
therefore amount of talk that is predictive of children’s development. But sheer
amount is not necessarily the only or the most important aspect of talk about
mental states. What may be more important is how the information about mental
states is conveyed. Parental talk, at least in most instances, is not a monologue;
rather it occurs as part of a conversation, and it must be appropriately directed
to the conversational partner, namely the child. This means that the talk must be
appropriate for the child’s developmental level, a task that may be more difficult
with some children than with others. It must also be responsive to immediate
cues from the child. A basic point in this regard is that what the parent says must
be accurate; in particular, if the parent is commenting on the child’s mental state,

she must have accurately discerned what that state is. This is a point that we will
return to in Chapter 8. Some parents read their child more successfully than do
others, and parental knowledge is in general a good thing.
Parental talk is also most effective when it takes a connected form; that is, the
talk follows out of and responds appropriately to what the child has just said. One
form of connectedness is response to questions posed by the child, questions that
may be either explicit or, sometimes, simply implied. Whether prompted by a
question or not, talk is most helpful when it is explanatory—t hat is, when it goes
beyond simply labeling a mental state to say something about where that state
comes from or what effects it has. Theory of mind involves the ability to reason
about the causes and the consequences of mental states; it is not surprising, there-
fore, that talk about causes and consequences is helpful. Finally, parent–child talk
occurs in the context of a long-term, emotionally charged relationship, and the
nature of that relationship can make a difference. In general, positive, support-
ive parenting increases both the likelihood that parent and child will talk and the
likelihood that each partner in the conversation will be attentive and responsive
to the contributions of the other.
The preceding discussion addresses the factors that determine how effective a
mental state utterance is likely to be. But it does not answer the question of exactly
how a parent’s talk about mental states translates into a child’s knowledge about
mental states—t hat is, what exactly is there about mental state talk that is help-
ful? There is almost certainly no single answer to this question, just as there is no
single answer to the question of how language in general affects theory of mind.
Three general positions have been prominent in discussions of the issue, each
stressing a different aspect of language.
One position, developed by de Villiers and de Villiers (e.g., de Villiers & de
Villiers, 2000), is that it is the syntax of the utterance that is important. Specifically,
de Villiers and de Villiers emphasized sentential complements—t hat is, construc-
tions of the form “Maxi thinks that the chocolate is in the green cupboard.” In
such constructions one phrase (“Maxi thinks”) is asserted as true, but the truth
value of the second phrase is open—Maxi may or may not be correct in what he
thinks. A central task of theory of mind is to come to realize that what people
think (or say or guess or remember) is not necessarily true, and sentential comple-
ments provide the linguistic form for expressing this fact. Of course, not all parent
mental state utterances take a sentential complement form. But those that do may
be especially informative.
A second position is most closely associated with Paul Harris (e.g., Harris,
1999). This position stresses the pragmatics of mental state talk, that is, the
functions served by language. One function is to convey the perspective of
the speaker and any other participant with respect to the proposition being
stated. Thus “Maxi thinks that the chocolate is in the green cupboard” tells
us Maxi’s belief about the chocolate. If we add “But Mother thinks that it’s in
the blue cupboard,” the utterance tells us not only what Mother’s belief is but
also that her belief differs from Maxi’s. Realizing that people can have different
perspectives on the same situation is fundamental to theory of mind. As Harris
emphasizes, mental state talk is not the only way in which parents can help
children to appreciate such differences in perspective. Still, it is one natural
and effective way to do so.
The third general position emphasizes the semantics or meaning of the talk.
The basic idea is that children could not develop the ability to reason explic-
itly about thoughts and emotions and desires without experience with how
words such as “think” and “feel” and “hope” are used. As Thompson (2006a,
p. 4) puts it, “Words provide semantic referents for elusive psychological or
natural phenomena that otherwise might be inchoate or unclear in the child’s
prelinguistic mental representations.” Researchers disagree with respect
to the extent to which mental state talk builds on and transforms existing
knowledge (as the passage from Thompson suggests) as opposed to creating
that knowledge in the first place—in social constructivist accounts both the
process of learning and the knowledge obtained are seen as inherently social
(see Montgomery, 2002, 2005). Whatever the bases, however, there is general
agreement that mental state talk plays an important role in the emergence of
an explicit, conscious, and accessible theory of mind. The work on parental
talk therefore speaks to one of the major issues in contemporary theory-of-
mind research: how the implicit knowledge possessed by infants becomes the
explicit knowledge demonstrated by older children.
8
Parents’ Beliefs
Chapter 3 touched on the topic of parents’ beliefs—what beliefs parents hold

about their children, where the beliefs come from, what effects the beliefs have. As
noted then, a focus on beliefs reflects a growing cognitive emphasis in parenting
research, a concern not just with what parents do but also with what parents think.
This chapter addresses the question of what parents think about theory of
mind. As with parenting research in general, an interest in parents’ beliefs is a
fairly recent addition to the literature on parenting and theory of mind. As we will
see, however, research to date has yielded a number of intriguing findings with
respect to parents’ thoughts and their effects, as well as a number of needed direc-
tions for future research. The goal of this chapter is to convey both what we know
and what we still need to learn.
The organization of the chapter is as follows. I begin with some historical fram-
ing, a quick and selective overview of the general literature on parents’ beliefs
about children. The overview will serve both to summarize some general con-
clusions from this literature and to identify issues that will be returned to in the
context of theory of mind. Some of these issues, as we will see, remain largely
unexplored in the theory-of-m ind research to date.
The second section of the chapter is devoted to the construct of mind-
mindedness, a construct introduced by Elizabeth Meins (e.g., Meins, 1997, 2012).
The notion of mind-m indedness was touched on in earlier chapters, for the mind-
mindedness literature overlaps with work on both attachment and mental state
talk. The present chapter takes up the topic of mind-m indedness more fully.
Not all research on parental cognitions falls under the heading of mind-
mindedness. The third section of the chapter considers a potpourri of other
approaches to parental thinking about theory of mind. Included will be the first
standardized tests to assess a broad range of parental beliefs about theory of mind.
We have seen in earlier chapters that work on emotion understanding is often
substantial enough to merit its own coverage. The topic of parents’ beliefs pro-
vides another example of this point. The fourth section of the chapter discusses
what parents believe about their children’s emotions and how such beliefs relate
to what children understand about emotions. The chapter then concludes with
201
a summing up and pointing ahead—t hus the promised attempt to convey both
what we know and what we still need to learn.
The General Parents’ Beliefs Literature

Table 8.1 provides a sampling of the topics that have been addressed under the
heading of parents’ beliefs. The sampling is a selective one—dozens of at least
somewhat distinct topics appear in the beliefs literature, and the number of pub-
lications is by now in the thousands. Among the sources for fuller accounts than
the brief summary provided here are Goodnow (2002), Hirsjarvi and Perala-
Littunen (2001), Rubin and Chung (2006), and Sigel and McGillicuddy-De Lisi
(2002).
I begin with the issues addressed in such research. Holden (2010) identifies
four, which he labels content, quality, sources, and effects.
Table 8.1 Examples of Research on Parents’ Beliefs
Topic Example
Academic abilities Yee & Eccles (1988)
Aggression Hastings & Rubin (1999)
Health and illness Pebley, Hurtado, & Goldman (1999)
Heredity-environment Mugny & Carugati (1989)
Homework Cooper, Lindsay, Nye, & Greathouse (1998)
Household tasks Goodnow (2004)
Infant development Keels (2009)
Intelligence Kirkcaldy, Noack, Furnham, & Siefen (2007)
Language development Ball & Lewis (2014)
Learning Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam (2013)
Parental authority Smetana & Daddis (2002)
Parental self-efficacy Schofield, Conger, & Neppi (2014)
Parental teaching Musun-M iller & Blevins-K nabbe (1998)
Preferences Miller, Davis, Wilde, & Brown (1993)
Pretend play Haight, Parke, & Black (1997)
Punishment Reid & Valsiner (1986)
Reading Boomstra, van Dijk, Jorna, & van Geert (2013)
Social skills Rubin & Mills (1992)
TV viewing Vaala (2014)
Pa r e n t s' B e l i e f s 203
Content has to do with what the beliefs are about. It is therefore a necessary
component of any study; whatever else a study does, it must focus on some specific
aspect of parental thinking. Several general divisions are relevant. One is whether
to ask about specific outcomes of development, such as IQ or temperament, or
about more general processes of development, such as how children learn or the
balance of nature and nurture. Whether the focus is on outcomes or processes, a
further decision concerns the topical domain: in particular, whether to ask about
cognitive development (as in the IQ example) or about social development (as in
the temperament example) or about both. Finally, decisions must also be made
with respect to the specific target for the parent’s judgments: whether the ques-
tions will concern the parent’s own child or children in general or, again, both.
As we will see, the own versus other comparison has proved informative in the
general literature, but thus far it has yet to appear in the work on theory of mind.
By quality, Holden (2010, p. 69) refers to “the structure, intensity, and accu-
racy of the beliefs.” Thus the question now, as the term “quality” implies, is how
accurately the parent thinks about children. When specific developmental out-
comes are the target for judgment there may be objective standards for making
this determination, either comparisons with developmental norms in the case of
children in general or comparisons with the child’s performance when the judg-
ments concern the parent’s own child. When developmental processes are at issue
the determination of quality becomes less certain, and the resulting conclusions
may be more descriptive than evaluative. Still, it is possible to assess how well
the parent’s beliefs fit with current scientific thinking about some issue (e.g.,
McGillicuddy-De Lisi 1992), or to rate the overall level or sophistication of the
parent’s thought (e.g., Sameroff & Feil, 1985).
Clearly, there can be no single summary statement with respect to the qual-
ity of parental thinking—fi ndings vary across samples, domains, issues, and
measurements. I will settle here for three very general conclusions. First, there
are marked individual differences among parents in the quality of their think-
ing, whether the focus is on specific developmental achievements or more general
questions such as the nature of the child or explanations for development. Most
samples show appreciable variability, and the differences are even greater when
distinct groups are compared. Second, although the differences are neither large
nor always found, parents are at least sometimes more accurate or more sophisti-
cated in their thinking than are nonparents. Finally, parents are also more posi-
tive in their thinking than are nonparents, especially when judging their own
children. Parents tend to overestimate what their children can do, they tend to
offer positive rather than negative attributions for their children’s behavior (e.g.,
attributing success to ability and failure to bad luck), and they judge that desirable
attributes are more likely to prove stable than are undesirable ones.
The sources issue concerns the question of where parents’ beliefs come from,
both the sorts of individual differences just noted and any commonalities that
may be observed in parental thought. A basic distinction here is between spe-

cific parenting experience as a source of information and more general social or
cultural sources of belief. That specific experience can be important is shown by
the occasional differences between parents and nonparents (e.g., Stevens, 1984),
as well as occasional mother–father differences (e.g., Bird & Berman, 1985) and
occasional effects of number of children (e.g., Himelstein, Graham, & Weiner,
1991). Once this point is acknowledged, a qualifier implied by the “occasional”
must be added, and that is that effects of experience as a parent have often been
difficult to demonstrate. What often emerge as more important than specific
parenting experience are more general experiences as a member of a particular
social or cultural group. Thus differences in beliefs as a function of socioeco-
nomic status, ethnicity, or culture are common, and such differences are often
more marked than is the variability within a group. In the words of Goodnow
and Collins (1990), parents’ ideas “appear less self-constructed than handed-
down or ready-made” (p. 78).
The final issue identified by Holden (2010) concerns the effects of beliefs. This
is actually a two-part question: effects of beliefs on parent behavior and effects of
beliefs on child outcomes.
The first element of this question is a particular form of a longstanding issue in
psychology: How do people’s beliefs relate to the way they behave? This is an issue
not only because of its importance but also because of its intractability—it has
often proved difficult to identify clear links between beliefs and behavior. This is
not to suggest that no links exist—just that they are often weaker or less obvious
or more complicated than we might have assumed. A reasonable conclusion is
that most behaviors are multiply determined, beliefs are typically just one of the
determinants, and the specific beliefs under study may not always be the impor-
tant ones for the behavior in question.
The same conclusion applies to the topic of parents’ beliefs. Again, it is clear
that beliefs do relate to behavior; this is probably the modal outcome across a
large number of examinations of the issue. Parents’ beliefs about how children
learn, for example, relate to their strategies for teaching children (Sigel, 1992).
Mothers’ beliefs about their role as teachers relate to their involvement in
their children’s schooling (Grolnick, Benjet, Kurowski, & Apostoleris, 1997).
Mothers’ beliefs about physical punishment predict how likely they are to
use punishment themselves (Durrant, Broberg, & Rose-K rasner, 1999). And
these, of course, are just a handful of examples. But there is no shortage of neg-
ative examples as well. As in the general literature, expected belief–behavior
relations are only sometimes found, and effect sizes tend to be small when rela-
tions do emerge.
Goodnow (1988) makes a further point that is worth noting. We typically think
of beliefs as the causal agent in any belief–behavior relation. In some instances,
however, the causal direction may be the reverse—t hat is, we may act first and
form a justifying belief for the action only later. A parent, for example, may spank
her child in a moment of anger and later reason, “I spanked him, so he must have
known better.”
The other part of the effects question concerns the effects of parents’ beliefs on
children’s development. Here, too, results are mixed, with expected links some-
times but not always appearing. In balance, however, the belief–outcome relation
probably emerges more often in research than does the belief–behavior relation
(Murphey, 1992; Sigel & McGill cuddy-De Lisi, 2002). We saw one example in
Chapter 3 in the finding that children’s beliefs about their academic abilities often
come to mirror the beliefs that their parents hold. More generally, parent–child
concordance in a variety of domains provides one example of belief–outcome
relations. Other research provides evidence of links between the quality of paren-
tal thinking and the quality of child outcomes. In general, parents who are more
accurate in their thinking or more optimistic in their thinking or more sophis-
ticated in their thinking have children who do relatively well in development.
This conclusion holds across a range of outcomes in both the cognitive and social
domains.
A focus on the belief–outcome relation does not mean that beliefs somehow
exert effects on children in the absence of any parental behavior that mediates the
effects. Some influential beliefs, however, may be expressed in ways other than
direct interaction with the child; the parent’s structuring of the child’s physi-
cal and social environment is an example in this category. Other beliefs may be
expressed only through a history of cumulative interaction with the child that
encompasses many discrete and perhaps subtle behaviors. And some beliefs, such
as the importance of doing well in school, may be conveyed to the child directly
and explicitly. In such cases knowing how the parent thinks may be more pre-
dictive of the child’s development than knowing about any specific set of paren-
tal behaviors. Miller (1988) and Murphey (1992) provide further discussions of
this point.
Mind-M indedness
Definition and Measurement
Meins and colleagues define mind-m indedness as “caregivers’ proclivity to treat
their young children as individuals with minds of their own” (Meins, Fernyhough,
Arnott, Leekam, & de Rosnay, 2013, p. 1778). As we will see, the concept applies
more broadly than this definition suggests; still, the caretaker–child context is
certainly its most important manifestation.
Operationally, the most frequent measure of mind-m indedness has come
from mental state comments that mothers direct to their infants while engaged
in free play. The mental states coded are those that we have seen are common in
research on mental state language: desires and preferences, cognitions, emotions,

epistemic states (although not perceptions). Details about how to apply the cod-
ing system are spelled out in a coding manual that is available online (Meins &
Fernyhough, 2010— http://w ww.academia.edu/1300377/M ind-m indedness_
coding_manual).
The coding system has undergone two changes across the course of the
research program to date. One change is substantive: Whereas originally men-
tal state comments were the sole focus of interest, there is now a division into
two sorts of comments: appropriate comments that accurately reflect the infant’s
mental state, and inappropriate comments that (as judged by a trained observer)
fail to do so. There is thus an emphasis on the accuracy of the parent’s thinking.
The other change is in terminology: Whereas comments in the second category
were originally referred to as “inappropriate,” the current term is “non-attuned.”
Interestingly, appropriate comments and non-attuned comments turn out to be
uncorrelated, which means that they can (and, as we will see, sometimes do)
make separate contributions to developmental outcomes.
The other common approach to measurement, one that has typically been
used with older (3-to 5-year-old) children, has been to elicit a description of the
child from the parent. Again the interest is in the use of mental state language,
and the scoring system is for the most part identical to that used for speech to
infants. There is, however, one important difference, and that is that no distinc-
tion is made between appropriate comments and non-attuned comments. This
difference follows from the fact that there is no criterion for determining accuracy
when the only information about the child comes from the parent’s description.
Two other methods of measuring mind-m indedness appear in a handful of
studies. One assesses the parent’s tendency to attribute meaning to an infant’s or
toddler’s early nonstandard utterances, the rationale being that such attributions
reflect a belief that the utterances are not merely random noises but rather have a
mentalistic underpinning. The other is based on the parent’s responsiveness and
appropriate involvement in interaction with the child, for example, a mother’s
tendency to focus on an object to which the infant is attending or to encourage
independent actions from the infant.
An addendum to the basic scoring system is found in some recent studies, and
that is to score the valence (positive or negative) of the parent’s comments (e.g.,
Demers, Bernier, Tarabulsy, & Provost, 2010a; Walker, Wheatcroft, & Camic,
2012). Especially in research with clinical samples, information about valence can
be a valuable supplement to the basic mind-m indedness assessment.
Clearly, an important question is how well the various measures of mind-
mindedness relate to each other. The answer is that they relate fairly well, although
evidence to date is still somewhat limited. Studies that have included two measures
at the same time point have reported moderate (rs in the .40s) and generally signifi-
cant correlations between the measures (Lundy, 2013; Meins et al., 2003). Across
time, measures taken during infancy have generally been found to relate to mea-
sures taken during the preschool period, again with correlations of moderate size
(Meins & Fernyhough, 1999; Meins et al., 2003). Only one study has traced stability
of the same measure over time. Meins and colleagues examined mothers’ mentalis-
tic comments directed to their infants at the age of 3 months and 7 months (Meins,
Fernyhough, Arnott, Turner, & Leekam, 2011). Both appropriate and non-attuned
comments proved to be related, with correlations of .53 and .37, respectively.
Relations to Theory of Mind

Table 8.2 shows the studies to be considered in this section. The high propor-
tion of longitudinal examinations is a point to note. Note also, though, that the
Table 8.2 Studies Relating Mind-M indedness to Theory of Mind

participants
de Rosnay, 5-year-olds False belief, Mind-m indedness,
Pons, Harris, & affective false measured from mental
Morrell (2004) belief state comments during
descriptions of the child
Dunphy-L elii, 10-to 12- Understanding Mind-m indedness,
LaBounty, month-old of intention, measured from mental
Lane, & infants joint attention state comments during
Wellman free play; quality of
(2014) interaction
Ereky-Stevens 10-month-old 1st-and 2nd- Mind-m indedness,
(2008) infants studied order false measured from mental
again at 4½ belief, emotion state comments during
years understanding free play at 10 months
Laranjo, Infants Attachment, Mind-m indedness,
Bernier, Meins, tested at 12.9, divergent measured from mental
& Carlson 15.6, and desires, state comments during
(2010) 26.4 months perspective free play at 12 months
taking
Laranjo et al. Infants tested Attachment, Mind-m indedness,
(2014) at 12.9, 15.6, false belief, measured from mental
26.4 months, level 2 state comments during
and perspective free play at 12 months
48.9 months taking
(continued)
Table 8.2 Continued

participants
Licata et al. 7-month-old Understanding Mind-m indedness,
(2014) infants of intention measured from mental
state comments during
free play; emotional
availability
Lundy (2013) 4-year-olds False belief, Mind-m indedness,
affective false measured from two
belief sources: proportion of
mental state attributes
when describing the child,
and sensitivity to child
feedback during joint
problem solving
Meins & 11-to 13- Affective Mind-m indedness,
Fernyhough month-olds, false belief, measured from two
(1999) followed to linguistic sources: attribution of
age 5 acquisitional meaning to nonstandard
style utterances in infancy,
and proportion of mental
attributes when describing
the child at age 3
Meins, 8-month-olds, Symbolic play Mind-m indedness,
Fernyhough, followed up and mental measured from mental
Arnott, Turner, at 26 and state language state comments during
& Leekham 51 months at 26 months; free play at 8 months;
(2013) diverse belief, sensitivity at 8 months
knowledge
formation, and
false belief at
51 months
Meins, 11-to 13- Attachment, Mind-m indedness,
Fernyhough, month-olds, false belief at measured from proportion
Russell, & followed up at age 4, affective of mental attributes when
Clark-Carter ages 3, 4, and 5 false belief and describing the child at age
(1998) knowledge 3; tutoring sensitivity
formation at
age 5
Table 8.2 Continued

participants
Meins et al. 6-month-olds, Appearance– Mind-m indedness at
(2003) followed up reality and 6 months, measured from
at 45, 48, and unexpected two sources: mental state
55 months contents at comments during free play
45 months, and appropriate response
unexpected to child’s actions; mind-
location at mindedness at 48 months,
48 months, measured from mental
stream of state attributes when
consciousness describing the child;
at 55 months sensitivity at 6 months
Meins et al. 6-month-olds, Appearance– Mind-m indedness,
(2002) followed up reality and measured from mental
at 45 and unexpected state comments during
48 months contents at free play at 6 months;
45 months, sensitivity at 6 months
unexpected
location at
48 months,
attachment at
12 months
number of reports outstrips the number of samples, for in several instances differ-
ent publications are based on the same sample at different ages.
As with the topic of mental state talk in Chapter 7, it is easy to state the general
conclusion from this research: Mind-m indedness relates positively to theory of
mind. Parents who are relatively high in mind-m indedness have children who are
relatively advanced in theory of mind.
There are exceptions. Two were noted in Chapter 6. Both Dunphy-Lelii et al.
(2014) and Licata et al. (2014) examined mind-m indedness as a possible con-
tributor to infants’ understanding of intentionality, and neither study found any
relation between the two measures. At present these are the only attempts to
relate mind-m indedness to developments in infancy. The Meins group has often
assessed mind-m indedness in parents of infants, but they have yet to examine
any contemporaneous theory-of-m ind outcomes (although they have exam-
ined attachment). Recall, however, that Roberts et al. (2013) reported a relation
between speech directed to infants at 6 months and joint attention at 12 months.
Neither their method of eliciting speech nor their scoring system matched those
used in mind-m indedness research; still, their results provide suggestive evidence
for an early effect of mind-m indedness.
The other exception to the pattern of positive outcomes is a study by Ereky-
Stevens (2008) in which mind-m indedness assessed when infants were 10 months
old showed no relation to either false belief or emotion understanding at age 4. As
Ereky-Stevens notes in her Discussion, however, both her procedure and her scor-
ing system differed in some ways from the approach used by the Meins group;
thus further research is necessary to resolve the discrepancy in results.
These exceptions aside, mind-m indedness consistently relates to theory of
mind. Relations have been shown both concurrently, through measures taken
during the preschool period, and prospectively, through links between measures
taken in infancy and later theory of mind. Relations have been shown for both
of the most common methods of measuring mind-m indedness: speech directed
to the baby in infancy and descriptions of the child during the preschool period.
Finally, relations have been shown for a variety of theory-of-m ind outcomes: false
belief, affective false belief, appearance–reality, origins of knowledge, perspective
taking, and understanding of desire.
The data just summarized are correlational, and hence they cannot estab-
lish cause and effect. Most studies, however, include controls for third-factor
alternatives—most obviously, child language—and effects remain even with the
controls in place. In addition, the fact that mind-m indedness assessed as early
as 6 months is predictive of later theory of mind greatly reduces the plausibility
of any child-to-parent effect. Six-month-olds are not producing mental state lan-
guage of their own to which the parent can respond. As suggested in Chapter 5,
they may be doing other things that affect parental response and eventual theory-
of-m ind development, but no such early child-to-parent effects have yet been
demonstrated. The more likely causal direction is from parent to child.
The discussion to this point has addressed one of the issues with respect to
parents’ beliefs: relations between beliefs and child outcomes. I turn now to the
obvious next question: What are the parental behaviors that follow from a mind-
mindedness orientation and that nurture the development of the child’s theory
of mind?
The most obvious possibility is a behavior that is often part of the assessment
of mind-m indedness: talk about mental states. We saw in Chapter 7 that mental
state talk not only shows a clear relation to theory of mind but also almost cer-
tainly makes a causal contribution to theory of mind. In most instances, it is true,
the focus of such research has been on talk that occurs beyond the infancy period
that is the locus for most mind-m indedness assessments. But there is no expecta-
tion in the mind-m indedness work that the effects of talk are limited to the time
period during which talk is typically assessed, namely infancy. Rather, an early
propensity on the parent’s part to engage in such talk is presumably a marker for a
continued propensity to do so. And as we saw in Chapter 7, individual differences

in mental state talk are in fact fairly stable over time. So, as we have seen in this
chapter, are different indices of mind-m indedness.
That mental state talk contributes to the effects of mind-m indedness seems
clear. This conclusion still leaves two questions unanswered. One is how talk
produces its effects. The other is whether mental state talk is the sole basis for
the predictive power of mind-m indedness—whether, in short, mind-m indedness
reduces to mental state talk.
The first question was a central issue considered in Chapter 7. It is also one
that Meins and colleagues have addressed on numerous occasions (Meins, 1997,
2012; Meins, Fernyhough, et al., 2013; Meins et al., 2002; Meins et al., 2003).
I think that it is fair to say that the issue remains an ongoing challenge for the
research team; various models have been proposed, each with some empirical
support, but no fully satisfactory solution has yet emerged. In general, the sug-
gested answers encompass two of the three bases for the efficacy of talk that were
discussed in Chapter 7. Meins and colleagues suggest that talk may sensitize chil-
dren to the possibility of different perspectives, a proposal that finds some sup-
port in the fact that early perspective taking relates (with some qualifications)
to both mind-m indedness and later theory of mind (Laranjo et al., 2010; Meins,
Fernyhough, et al., 2013). They also suggest that talk may be necessary to bring to
explicit awareness infants’ and toddlers’ emerging understanding of mental states.
Initially, the child’s own mental state talk was proposed as a mediator between
parental talk and eventual understanding, but this model was called into ques-
tion by the failure to find a relation between mind-m indedness and children’s talk
(Meins, Fernyhough, et al., 2013). One alternative proposal, which still requires
further testing, has a basis in Vygotskian theory: Parental talk contributes to the
development of speech for self, which in turn contributes to the development of
theory of mind (Fernyhough & Meins, 2009; Meins, 2012).
However mental state talk exerts its effects, is such talk the sole basis for the
relation between mind-m indedness and theory of mind? The answer, at least on
my reading, is no. Mental state talk is both a marker for and an important expres-
sion of mind-m indedness, but it is not the only way in which mind-m indedness
is expressed. As we have seen, only one of the methods of assessing the construct
makes use of mental state talk directed to the child; furthermore, it does so at a
time when the child is not yet capable of processing the semantic content of the
input, suggesting that talk may be, at least initially, more a marker than a causal
factor. In addition, the other “online” measure, appropriate scaffolding during
problem solving, incorporates a number of behaviors other than mental state talk
by which parents can respond appropriately to their child’s mental states.
The more general parenting literature is also relevant. Mind-m indedness has
been shown to relate to a number of aspects of parenting that are known to affect
children’s development, including the development of theory of mind. The most
frequently studied correlate is sensitivity, and the typical finding is that parents
who are high in mind-m indedness are also high in sensitivity (e.g., Demers,
Bernier, Tarabulsy, & Provost, 2010b; Meins et al., 2002). Mind-m indedness also
relates positively to emotional availability (Licata et al., 2014), to sensitivity while
feeding the infant (Farrow & Blissett, 2014), to mirroring of the infant’s behav-
iors during the Still-Face Paradigm (Bigelow, Power, Pulmer, & Gerrior, 2015),
and to lower levels of hostility in parent–child interactions (Lok & McMahon,
2006; McMahon & Meins, 2012). In short, mind-m indedness goes along with,
and almost certainly contributes to, a number of development-enhancing paren-
tal practices. A recent summary by Meins and colleagues expresses some of the
ways in which early mind-m indedness might find later expression beyond its ini-
tial appearance in infancy:
It seems reasonable to predict that mothers who tend to comment appro-

priately on their infants’ internal states during the 1st year of life will be
better able later in development to assess their children’s basic ability on
tasks, collaborate with them in achieving goals, and structure interac-
tions in such a way [as] to enhance children’s sense of their own compe-
tence. (Meins, Fernyhough, et al., 2013, p. 1789)
Sources of Mind-M indedness

The discussion to this point has concerned the nature and effects of mind-
mindedness. Still to be considered is the question of sources. Where do individual
differences in mind-m indedness come from?
The main evidence on this point comes from comparisons of groups that vary
in the amount or the type of their experience with children. Three studies have
compared mothers and fathers (Arnott & Meins, 2007; Lundy, 2003, 2013). The
results suggest more similarities than differences. Neither of the Lundy studies
found any mother–father differences in total number of mind-related comments;
in Arnott and Meins (2007) spouses did not differ in appropriate comments, but
fathers made more non-attuned comments. Two of the reports (Arnott & Meins;
Lundy, 2013) provide information about concordance between spouses, and in
both cases the mind-m indedness scores turned out to be moderately related.
Finally, in the one study to examine theory-of-m ind outcomes, mind-m indedness
was equally predictive for mothers and fathers (Lundy, 2013).
No mind-m indedness study to date has used age of children as an index of
parental experience. One study has considered number of children through
a comparison of primiparous and multiparous mothers (Meins, Fernyhough,
Arnott, Vittorini, et al., 2011). These groups of mothers did not differ in either
appropriate or non-attuned comments. Two studies have compared adolescent
mothers with older mothers (Demers et al, 2010a, 2010b). In this case clear dif-
ferences emerged: The adolescents produced fewer mental state comments than
did the older mothers, as well as lower proportions of both appropriate comments
and positive comments (indeed, almost no positive comments at all in Demers
et al., 2010b). As the authors note, the group differences could reflect either life
experiences or current circumstances or some combination of those two factors.
Several studies have examined mind-m indedness in samples in which either
the mother or the child was diagnosed with a clinical disorder (Pawlby et al.,
2010; Schacht, Hammond, Marks, Wood, & Conroy, 2013; Walker et al., 2012).
The Pawlby et al. study was discussed in Chapter 4. As we saw there, depressed
mothers were marginally less likely than a comparison sample to direct appropri-
ate mental state comments to their infants; mothers with schizophrenia, interest-
ingly, did not differ from the comparison group. In the Schacht et al. (2013) study
the focus was on mothers with borderline personality disorder. These mothers
used fewer mental state attributes in describing their children than did a com-
parison group, and their children performed more poorly on a battery of theory-
of-m ind tasks than did the comparison sample. Finally, the study by Walker et al.
(2012) explored departures from the normative case at both the parent and child
end: A subset of the parents had reported depressive symptoms in the clinical
range, and a subset of the children had been referred for clinical services. Mind-
mindedness was lower in the parents of the children referred for clinical services;
depression showed no effects. As the authors note, the lower mind-m indedness in
the clinical group could reflect either or both of two causal directions: Low mind-
mindedness on the parent’s part contributes to children’s problems, or the chal-
lenge of rearing children with problems contributes to low mind-m indedness.
The Walker et al. (2012) study addresses the question of whether the expe-
riential bases for differences in mind-m indedness lie primarily in the parent (as
indexed in their study by depression) or primarily in the child (as indexed by
clinical status). Two other studies have also taken up this question. In Meins,
Fernyhough, Arnott, Turner, et al. (2011) the parent variables were obstetric his-
tory (whether the conception was planned, perceptions of pregnancy, memories
of first contact with child) and depression; the child variable was temperament.
Obstetric history showed various relations to mind-m indedness; neither depres-
sion nor child temperament had any effects. In Demers et al. (2010a) the paren-
tal variables included parenting stress and coherence on the Adult Attachment
Interview, and the child variable was again temperament. In this case all three
measures showed some relation, in expected directions, to mind-m indedness.
The conclusion from the three studies just summarized seems expectable.
Individual differences in mind-m indedness can have various sources. In some
instances aspects of parental history or current parental status may be impor-
tant, in some instances characteristics of the child may be important, and in some
(probably most) instances both parent and child factors may contribute.
Two further studies are at the moment stand-a lone contributions to the ques-
tion of sources of mind-m indedness. Meins, Fernyhough, and Harris-Waller
(2014) addressed the question of whether mind-m indedness is a trait-l ike quality
or whether it is specific to the relationship in question. Across four studies par-
ticipants offered descriptions for a variety of targets, some of whom were part of a
close relationship (e.g., romantic partners, close friends) and some of whom were
not (e.g., historical figures, works of art). There was some correlation in the mind-
mindedness of the descriptions when close relationships were involved, but there
was no relation across the more distant targets. The conclusion was that mind-
mindedness is not a trait that people apply equally to anyone they consider; rather
it is, at least mostly, specific to the relationship in question.
Finally, Kirk and colleagues (Kirk, Howlen, Pine, & Fletcher, 2013) taught a
subsample of the mothers in their study to supplement their use of spoken lan-
guage with a gestural system of communication (so-called baby sign). In contrast
to some reports, baby sign had no effect on the children’s language development;
it did have effects, however, on the mothers who learned to sign. Although these
mothers did not differ from the comparison sample in overall mind-m indedness,
they did differ in some of the components of the construct—they were more
responsive to nonverbal cues from their infants, and they encouraged more inde-
pendent actions from the infants. Apparently, the opportunity to convey and to
look for meaning in interactions with the infant heightened the probability of
thinking of the infant as a mental agent.
All of the evidence discussed to this point has concerned personal experience
as a basis for mind-m indedness. We saw in the general section on parents’ beliefs
that social or cultural forms of information often outweigh personal experience as
a source for what parents think. Might the same hold true for mind-m indedness?
No one knows. To date, almost all of the published work on the concept has
been limited to Western samples. The only exceptions to my knowledge are two
studies carried out in Japan, only the abstracts of which are available in English
(Shinohara, 2006, 2011). The available information suggests that the mind-
mindedness concept was adaptable to the Japanese culture and that maternal
mind-m indedness related positively to children’s theory of mind, just as is the
case in Western samples. The Western–Japan contrast, however, clearly does
not capture the full range of the world’s cultures, in some of which people are
reported to talk seldom if at all about mental states (Lillard, 1998). It would be
interesting to explore whether some form of mind-m indedness nevertheless plays
a role in such settings.
Other Outcomes
Although the focus here is on theory of mind, I will briefly note several other
developmental outcomes for which mind-m indedness has proved predictive. The
main one, certainly, is attachment. A number of studies in the Meins research
program demonstrate a positive relation between mind-m indedness and security

of attachment (e.g., Meins et al., 2012; Meins et al., 2001). The mind-m indedness
construct was developed, in fact, in the context of attachment research and as an
attempt to recapture the notion of maternal sensitivity as it had been examined in
the original Ainsworth research. See Meins (2013) for further discussion.
A handful of other outcomes have been linked to mind-m indedness. In general,
relatively high mind-m indedness is associated with positive outcomes in develop-
ment, and relatively low mind-m indedness is associated with negative outcomes.
Thus Laranjo and Bernier (2013) reported a positive relation between appropri-
ate mental state comments (especially comments about cognition) and children’s
expressive language, and Meins et al. (2013) reported a positive relation between
appropriate comments and children’s receptive language. The links to security
of attachment and theory of mind are, of course, other entries in the positive cat-
egory. In the other direction, relatively low mind-m indedness has been shown
to relate to both externalizing and internalizing problems in development, with
effects especially marked in low SES samples (Meins, Centifanti, Fernyhough, &
Fishburn, 2013; Walker et al., 2012).
Other Approaches to Parents’ Beliefs

One finding from the general literature on parents’ beliefs—certainly not a sur-
prising finding—is that development goes best when parents have accurately
judged their children’s attributes and abilities. As we have just seen, the notion
of accuracy is central to the mind-m indedness concept, for it is accuracy that
distinguishes appropriate comments from non-attuned ones. Here, too, paren-
tal accuracy is associated with positive developmental outcomes—in particular,
enhanced theory of mind.
I begin this section with two other approaches to the question of parental accu-
racy with respect to theory of mind. Both, as we will see, are directed to older children
and more advanced forms of theory of mind than is the work on mind-mindedness.
Two studies by Sharp and colleagues (Ha, Sharp, & Goodyear, 2011; Sharp,
Fonagy, & Goodyear, 2006) have examined parents’ (mostly mothers’) ability
to judge their children’s responses to various problems in social understand-
ing. In both studies the child’s task was to make attributions for peers’ probable
responses to situations that might cause embarrassment or distress for the child
(e.g., sitting alone on the playground without a playmate). The response format
was multiple-choice, with choice among response options that were constructed
to vary in appropriateness and quality. The parent’s task was to predict her child’s
probable responses. This approach mirrors that found in a number of studies in
the general parents’ beliefs literature, in which children respond to some battery
of tasks and parents then attempt to guess how their children responded (e.g.,
Miller, Manhal, & Mee, 1991).
The findings of the two studies also mirrored those in the more general lit-
erature. Parents showed moderate but above-chance levels of accuracy in judging
their children; they correctly identified the child’s choices on slightly less than
half of the scenarios (one third would be the chance rate), and their assessment
of the child’s overall attributional style correlated significantly with the child’s
actual style. The parents’ accuracy in judging their children in turn related to
developmental outcomes of two sorts. First, it related to the children’s attribu-
tional performance; relatively low parental accuracy was associated with an unre-
alistic and overly positive attributional style, the least adaptive of the attributional
styles. Second, poor parental accuracy related to the children’s psychosocial
adjustment—specifically, to a relatively high level of conduct problems and psy-
chopathological symptoms.
As Sharp et al. (2006) note, their results suggest an intergenerational transmis-
sion of theory of mind: Mothers who are relatively poor at their social-cognitive
task have children who are relatively poor at their social-cognitive task. A simi-
lar pattern emerged in a study by Sabbagh and Seamans (2008): Parents’ perfor-
mance on the Eyes Test (a measure of advanced theory of mind) correlated with
their 3-year-old children’s performance on a battery of theory-of-m ind tasks. As
both sets of authors acknowledge, the parent–child similarity does not necessarily
indicate an effect of parenting; shared genes provide an alternative explanation.
To date, the research necessary to identify the bases for parent–child similarity in
theory of mind remains to be done.
The second example under the accuracy heading has a pragmatic as well as
a theoretical underpinning. In recent years several teams of researchers have
developed parent-report measures whose purpose is to identify individual dif-
ferences in theory of mind (Hutchins, Prelock, & Bonazinga, 2012; Peterson,
Garnett, Kelly, & Attwood, 2009; Tahiroglu et al., 2014). Of course, any child
measure of theory-of-m ind performance yields individual differences, and
such differences, as we have seen, have been shown to relate to both a variety
of antecedents (including parenting) and a variety of developmental outcomes.
Performance measures, however, are necessarily limited in the scope of the
information they can provide—typically only a few and sometimes a single
theory-of-m ind ability, assessed in a single way in a single context. A parent-
report measure could conceivably provide a much broader sampling of chil-
dren’s abilities—a ssuming, of course, that parents can accurately judge what
their children can and cannot do.
As an example of this approach, I take the research by Tahiroglu et al. (2014).
These investigators report four studies designed to determine whether parents
can be accurate judges of their children’s theory of mind. Across studies the
researchers tried out a wide array of theory-of-m ind items with successive sam-
ples of parents, progressively narrowing and refining the instrument to its final
form. The resulting measure (labeled the Children’s Social Understanding Scale,
or CSUS) includes 42 items, a subset of which is shown in Table 8.3. The parent
rates his or her child’s probable standing on each item on a 4-point scale ranging
from “definitely untrue of my child” to “definitely true of my child.”
Table 8.3 Example of Items from the Children’s Social Understanding

Scale (CSUS)
Scale Item
Belief Understands that telling lies can mislead other people.
Talks about people’s mistaken beliefs (e.g., “He thought it was a dog,
but it was really a cat”)
Knowledge Realizes that experts are more knowledgeable than others in their
specialty (e.g., doctors know more than others about treating
illness).
Uses words that express uncertainty (e.g., “We might go to the
park.”).
Perception Talks about the difference between the way things look and how
they really are (e.g., “It looks like a snake, but it’s really a lizard”).
Thinks that you can still see an object even if you’re looking in the
opposite direction. (reverse scored)
Desire Talks about the difference between what people want and what they
actually get (e.g., “She wanted a puppy, but she got a kitty”).
Talks about differences in what people like or want (e.g., “You like
coffee, but I like juice”).
Intention Talks about the difference between intentions and outcomes (e.g.,
“He tried to open the door, but it was locked”).
Understands that hurting others on purpose is worse than hurting
others accidentally.
Emotion When given an undesirable gift, pretends to like it so as not to hurt
the other person’s feelings.
Has difficulty figuring out how you feel from your tone of voice or
from your facial expressions of emotions (e.g., has trouble telling
the difference between an angry and a sad voice or face). (reverse
scored)
Note. From “The Children’s Social Understanding Scale: Construction and Validation of a
Parent-R eport Measure for Assessing Individual Differences in Children’s Theories of Mind,”
by D. Tahiroglu, L. J. Moses, S. M. Carlson, C. E. V. Mahy, E. L. Olofson, & M. A. Sabbagh, 2014,
Developmental Psychology, 50, p. 2497. Copyright 2014 by the American Psychological Association.
Reprinted with permission.
Several criteria guided the selection of items. One was breadth of coverage; as
can be seen, the items are not limited to a single sort of understanding but rather
span six different forms of mental state knowledge. A second criterion was reli-
ability, and the test in fact shows satisfactory reliability of both the internal con-
sistency and test–retest forms. A final criterion was validity—that is, evidence
that the test really measures what it is intended to measure, namely an accurate
picture of children’s theory-of-m ind abilities. As a measure of such validity, the
children of a subset of the parents responded to a battery of theory-of-m ind tasks,
and correlations were calculated between their performance and their parents’
CSUS scores. If parents can accurately judge their children, we would expect
positive correlations between the two measures, and such in fact was the case.
Across three studies the correlations were .31, .42, and .43—t hus above-chance
and moderately good accuracy, but also, clearly, far from perfect accuracy.
Because of the recency of its development, the CSUS has yet to be used in the
sort of individual-d ifferences research for which it is intended (for one limited
exception, see Sage & Baldwin, 2015). There are also a number of interesting ques-
tions to be addressed if we consider the test simply as a measure of what parents
know about their children. It would be interesting to know, for example, whether
parents are more accurate with respect to some kinds of knowledge than they
are with respect to other kinds. The sources question is clearly of interest—why
are some parents more accurate in judging their children than are other parents?
And, of course, the effects question is of interest. Do more accurate parents have
more competent children? And if so, what are the parental behaviors that mediate
the relation between parental knowledge and child outcomes?
As we saw, accuracy is not the only aspect of parental thinking that has
emerged as important in the general parents’ beliefs literature. The sophistica-
tion of the parent’s reasoning has also been shown to relate positively to children’s
development. The main example of this point in the theory-of-m ind literature is
the Hutchins et al. (2009) study discussed briefly in Chapter 7. These research-
ers used an instrument called the Ways of Knowing Interview (Belenky, Clinchy,
Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986) to assess epistemological beliefs—that is, beliefs
about the nature of knowledge—in a sample of mothers. Sample items from the
interview include “Can you say that some answers are better than others?” and
“How do you know what’s right or true?” Responses to such questions are coded
into five increasingly complex levels of reasoning, ranging from Silent Knower
(knowledge is independent of human action, and the self is a relatively powerless
thinker) to Constructed Knower (knowledge and truth are human constructions
that are dynamic and evolving). The level of the mother’s reasoning turned out to
relate to her use of mental state language with her child; as epistemological com-
plexity increased, mental state language also increased, and there was a shift from
the use of language primarily to direct child behavior to the use of language to
encourage child reflection. The children’s mental state language, in turn, related
to both maternal measures, increasing as the mother’s use of mental state language
increased, and increasing as the complexity of the mother’s reasoning increased.
I conclude this section by briefly noting several other approaches to the ques-
tion of what parents think about their children’s mental world. The discussion is
brief because to date there have been no attempts to relate any of these measures
to theory-of-m ind outcomes in the child.
Two approaches are addressed to infancy and what mothers believe about
their infant’s theory of mind. Both approaches overlap with the work on mind-
mindedness but also depart from it in some potentially informative ways.
Degotardi, Torr, and Cross (2008) employed the grounded theory methodology
from qualitative psychology to identify the extent to which mothers’ descriptions
of their infants went beyond overt behaviors to ascribe underlying psychological
states and processes. The results indicated that mothers did attribute psychologi-
cal states and processes of various sorts to their infants, but also that there were
definite individual differences in the tendency to do so. In contrast to the ver-
bal approach employed by Degotardi et al. (and also by Meins and colleagues),
the emphasis in Shai and Belsky’s (2011a, 2011b) parental embodied mentalizing
approach is nonverbal: a focus on bodily movements produced by both infant and
mother and on the ability of each member of the dyad to interpret and respond to
the kinesthetic cues of the other. In the authors’ words, “in the dyadic embodied
interactive process, each participant responds to the kinesthetically manifested
mental state of the other; thus, meeting of parent and infant bodies reflects the
meeting of their minds” (Shai & Belsky, 2011a, p. 176). This approach has the vir-
tue of identifying ways other than language through which a parent can express
beliefs about the infant, as well as identifying parental cues to which the nonver-
bal infant can respond and from which he or she can learn.
Several other approaches to how parents think about their children’s inner
states bear a definite resemblance to the Meins conceptualization of mind-
mindedness (Fonagy et al., 1991; Oppenheim & Koren-K arie, 2002; Rosenblum,
McDonough, Sameroff, & Muzik, 2008). Indeed, the work on reflective function
by Fonagy and colleagues was a forerunner of the mind-m indedness approach.
Theoretically, however, these approaches have a psychodynamic grounding not
found in the mind-m indedness conceptualization, and empirically they have con-
centrated on attachment and other aspects of social development, including in
some instances psychopathological outcomes. Sharp and Fonagy (2008) provide
a helpful overview of similarities and differences among the different approaches.
Emotion Beliefs and Emotion Understanding

Each of the studies to be considered in this section has at least three compo-
nents: an assessment of parents’ beliefs about children’s emotions, an assessment
of what the parents’ children understand about emotions, and an examination

of the relation between the two measures. Some studies also provide informa-
tion about the sources for parents’ beliefs, and some provide information about
the parental behaviors that mediate between parents’ beliefs and children’s
understanding.
The work to be considered here is only a small subset of the research that falls
under the heading of parents’ beliefs about children’s emotions. Some studies
in the broader literature focus on outcomes other than emotion understanding,
both other aspects of emotional development and other psychosocial outcomes
more generally (e.g., Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996). Others concentrate on
links between parental beliefs and parental behaviors, with no attempt to relate
either measure to child outcomes (e.g., Nelson, Leerkes, O’Brien, Calkins, &
Marcovitch, 2012). Both Katz, Maliken, and Stettler (2012) and Parker et al.
(2012) provide fuller overviews of the general literature than I attempt here.
Let me say a word first about methods. Although a variety of approaches have
been used to measure what parents believe about children’s emotions, most of the
data come from standardized instruments designed for the purpose. There is, in
fact, a plethora of such instruments; among them are the Meta-Emotion Interview
(Gottman et al., 1996); Parents’ Beliefs About Negative Emotions Questionnaire
(Halberstadt, Dunsmore, McElwain, Eaton, & McCool, 2001); Maternal
Emotional Styles Questionnaire (Lagace-Seguin & Coplan, 2005); Parents’
Beliefs About Feelings Questionnaire (Dunsmore & Karn, 2001); Emotion-
Related Parenting Styles Self- Test (Hakim- Larson, Parker, Lee, Goodwin,
& Voelker, 2006); Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Short Form (Paterson
et al., 2013); and Parents’ Beliefs About Children’s Emotions Questionnaire
(Halberstadt et al., 2013). Table 8.4 provides a sample of items from the last of
these measures.
As would be expected, there is considerable overlap in content among the mea-
sures just listed. In addition, several have the same theoretical basis: the parental
meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP) approach to emotions and emotional develop-
ment formulated by Gottman, Katz, and Hooven, (1997; Gottman et al., 1996).
Gottman and colleagues defines parental meta-emotion philosophy as “an orga-
nized set of feelings and thoughts about one’s own emotions and one’s children’s
emotions” (Gottman et al., 1996, p. 243). The concept is thus broad—not just
thoughts about emotions but also emotions about emotions (as the term “meta-
emotion” implies), and not just thoughts and feelings about the self but also
thoughts and feelings about one’s children. Since its formulation, the PMEP con-
cept has inspired a large body of research directed to identifying individual dif-
ferences in parental philosophy and to relating such differences to both parent
behaviors and child outcomes (Katz et al., 2012).
The main question at issue here is whether what parents believe about their chil-
dren’s emotions—whether assessed via the PMEP approach or otherwise—relates
Table 8.4 Examples of Items from the Parents’ Beliefs About Children’s

Emotions Questionnaire
Scale Item
Negative consequences Too much joy can make it hard for a child to
understand others.
Children who feel emotions strongly are likely to face a
lot of trouble in life.
Value/acceptance It is useful for children to feel angry sometimes.
Being angry can motivate children to change or fix
something in their lives.
Manipulation Children use emotions to manipulate others.
Children often cry just to get attention.
Control Children can control their emotions.
Children can control what they show on their faces.
Parental knowledge Parents don’t have to know about all their children’s
feelings.
Parents should encourage their child to tell them
everything they are feeling.
Autonomy It is usually best to let a child work through being sad
on his or her own.
When children are angry, it is best to just let them work
it through on their own.
Respect Making fun of children’s behavior is never a good idea.
Parents should not show contempt toward their
children.
Stability Children’s emotions tend to be long-lasting.
Children’s emotion styles tend to stay the same over
time.
Note. From “Development and Validation of the Parents’ Beliefs about Children’s Emotions
Questionnaire,” by A. G. Halberstadt, J. C. Dunsmore, A. Bryant, Jr., A. E. Parker, K. S. Beale, &
J. A. Thompson, 2013, Psychological Assessment, 25, pp. 1200–1201. Copyright 2013 by the American
Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.
to what their children understand about emotions. The answer is yes. For exam-
ple, a belief that parents should guide their children’s emotions is associated with
relatively poor emotion recognition by the child (Castro, Halberstadt, Lozada, &
Craig, 2015; Dunsmore, Her, Halberstadt, & Perez-R ivera, 2009). A belief in the
importance of socializing the use of emotion language is associated with relatively
good emotion understanding by the child (Dunsmore & Karn, 2001, 2004). In
many instances, moreover, parental behaviors show expected relations to both
parental beliefs and child outcomes. For example, a belief in the importance of
socializing emotion language relates positively to the parent’s expressiveness in
interaction with the child, and relations to child understanding are especially
strong when both the belief in socializing language and parental expressiveness
are high (Dunsmore & Kern, 2001). A belief in guiding the child’s emotions
relates positively to labeling of emotions, and a belief that emotions can be prob-
lematic or dangerous relates negatively to explanations of emotions (Perez-R ivera
& Dunsmore, 2011). The belief that emotions can be problematic or dangerous
also relates positively to parents’ masking of their own emotions in interaction
with the child (Dunsmore et al., 2009).
Once these various findings are noted, a qualifier must be added. A familiar
message throughout this book is that negative outcomes are often mixed in with
positive ones, and this point certainly applies to the present topic—indeed, it
applies more strongly than was the case either for the research considered earlier
in this chapter or for the research on parental talk considered in Chapter 7. Most
studies under the heading of beliefs about emotions employ multiple measures of
both parents’ beliefs and children’s understanding, and a typical finding is that
one or two of the possible relations between beliefs and understanding emerge as
significant but many others do not. A point made in the discussion of the general
parents’ beliefs literature clearly applies here. Both parental behaviors and child
outcomes are multiply determined, and the particular parental beliefs selected
for study may account for only a small proportion of the variance that we wish to
explain.
In the remainder of this section I single out a few specific points from the emo-
tions beliefs literature that seem worthy of note. The first ties back to a finding dis-
cussed earlier in this chapter. We have seen a couple of instances of parent–child
concordance in theory-of-m ind ability. The study by Castro et al. (2015) adds a
third: parents’ skill at recognizing emotions related positively to their children’s
skill at recognizing emotions.
Most studies of beliefs about emotions, like most theory-of-m ind research in
general, have been with samples of White families from Western countries. But
there are exceptions. Parker et al. (2012) compared beliefs about emotions in three
ethnic groups: European American, African American, and Lumbee American
Indian. Although some differences emerged, perhaps more striking were the
similarities in beliefs with regard to such questions as the role of emotion in the
home and appropriate ways to express negative emotions. In a study by Perez-
Rivera and Dunsmore (2011) the participants were Hispanic American mothers
(drawn from several countries of origin), and the variable of interest was degree
of acculturation to Anglo culture. Relatively strong acculturation was associated
with a lower belief that emotions can be dangerous and with heightened emotion
understanding by the children. Conversely, relatively strong enculturation with

Hispanic culture related to a stronger belief in guiding children’s emotions and to
lower emotion understanding by the children.
The Parker et al. study is noteworthy not only for its sample but also for its
methodology. Most studies of parents’ beliefs about emotions have used standard-
ized instruments like the example shown in Table 8.4, which means that parents
respond to options offered by the researcher. As in the study by Degotardi et al.
(2008) discussed earlier, Parker and colleagues borrowed methods from qualita-
tive psychology—in this case not only the grounded theory approach but also the
use of focus groups. The data for their study came from extensive interviews in
small-g roup settings with members of the three cultural groups. In the authors’
words, the use of such an open-ended, exploratory approach made it possible “to
delve more deeply into the parents’ responses and reveal beliefs that might not
have emerged with other methods” (p. 27). And indeed, in addition to confirm-
ing the importance of previously studied dimensions of parents’ beliefs about
emotions, the interviews revealed two new dimensions: the relational nature of
emotions (emotions are embedded within relationships and not just a trait-like
quality of individuals) and the changeability of emotions (emotions may fluctu-
ate with immediate circumstances and may show long-term change as the child
changes with development).
Like the other research considered in this section, the goal of a study by
Havighurst and colleagues was to identify links between parents’ beliefs and
children’s understanding (Havighurst, Wilson, Harley, Prior, & Kehoe, 2010).
Unlike the other studies, however, their approach was not correlational but
rather experimental: Half of their parent participants received a series of training
sessions designed to improve both their knowledge of children’s emotions and
parental practices related to emotions. This study will be considered more fully
in Chapter 9 when training studies in general are discussed; I settle here for sim-
ply noting that the training did have some success, as shown by improvements in
both parental knowledge and child emotion understanding.
The final study to be considered brings us back to the topic of parental accu-
racy (Karstad, Kvello, Wichstom, & Berg-Nielsen, 2014). Measures such as the
one illustrated in Table 8.4 certainly identify individual differences in parents’
thinking about emotions, and they also identify forms of thought that are more
or less conducive to promoting children’s understanding of emotions. But such
measures do not tell us how accurately parents can judge their children’s emo-
tions. Indeed, as can be seen from a glance at the table, the items in this particular
measure are not even directed explicitly to the respondent’s own children (some-
thing that is true of some although not all of the other instruments listed earlier).
Karstad and colleagues took the approach to the study of accuracy that is
common in the general beliefs literature: namely, administer the measure of
interest to a sample of children and then ask parents to guess their children’s
likely responses. The children in this case were 4-year-olds, and the measure
was the Test of Emotion Comprehension (Pons & Harris, 2000). The results
will not surprise anyone familiar with the older literature on parental accuracy.
Parents were above chance but just barely so in estimating their children’s per-
formance; the correlation between parent estimate and actual score was .14,
and parents were above chance on only three of the nine dimensions included in
the measure. The dominant parental error was overestimation; 91% of parents
overestimated their children’s performance, and the total score estimated by
the parents was almost twice the actual total earned by the children. Finally,
parental accuracy and child performance were significantly, and substantially,
related: a correlation of .68.
What does such a correlation mean? There are at least three possible expla-
nations. The most interesting, certainly, is that parental accuracy is a good
thing: Parents who know their children well can structure the child’s environ-
ment in development-enhancing ways. A second possibility is that the causal
direction is the reverse: Children who are relatively advanced, in this case
advanced in emotion understanding, are easier to judge than are children who
lag behind in development. Finally, a third possibility is that the correlation is
artifactual: When almost all parents overestimate what their children can do, par-
ents whose children do well will necessarily be more accurate than parents whose
children do poorly. Miller (1988) provides a fuller discussion of the interpretation
of parental accuracy.
Conclusions
As the opening section of this chapter indicated, research on parents’ beliefs
about theory of mind falls within a large and longstanding literature directed to
parents’ beliefs about various aspects of their children’s development. That such
a grounding exists is not always evident in the recent work; although there are
exceptions (e.g., Dunsmore & Karn, 2001; Degotardi et al., 2008; Parker et al.,
2012), many theory-of-m ind reports give no indication that their efforts to probe
parents’ thinking had any relevant predecessors. One goal of this chapter has
been to provide some integration of old and new.
That the work on theory of mind adds to the general literature on parents’
beliefs is without question. Simply knowing what parents think about an impor-
tant and previously little studied aspect of children’s development is clearly of
value. Beyond simply the extension in content, however, the research on theory of
mind provides some of the clearest evidence in the literature of relations between
what parents think and how children develop. The studies of mind-m indedness
are especially noteworthy in this regard. The evidence, to be sure, is correlational;
as we saw, however, various arguments support the conclusion that the causal link
is primarily from parent to child—t hat parental beliefs do make a difference in

children’s development.
Another aspect of the work on mind-m indedness is also worth noting; it is
a point that applies as well to some of the related approaches discussed in the
Other Approaches to Parents’ Beliefs section. One limitation in the general
literature on parents’ beliefs is that we know little about how parents sponta-
neously think about children, given that the great majority of studies pose spe-
cific questions to which the parents must respond. We saw that the Parker et al.
(2012) study of beliefs about emotions is an exception, given their open-ended,
focus-g roup approach. Research on mind-m indedness is another exception. The
primary source of evidence in such research is not response to some researcher-
defined set of issues; rather it is either parents’ speech to their infants or their
descriptions of their children. These data, it is true, are still interpreted through
the researcher’s lens; nevertheless, we can be reasonably confident that we are
getting at how parents naturally think, not how some research context has con-
strained them to think.
The discussion to this point has concerned two of the general issues in the
study of parents’ beliefs: the content of the beliefs and the effects of beliefs on
children’s development. We certainly have learned some things as well about the
other question under the effects heading: how beliefs lead to the parental behav-
iors that provide the link between what parents believe and how children develop.
Mind-m indedness, for example, heightens the probability of mental state talk,
and mental state talk contributes to the development of theory of mind. A belief in
the importance of socializing emotions relates to parent’s expressiveness within
the family, and expressiveness provides cues from which children can learn about
emotions. This said, there clearly is much still to learn about beliefs–behavior
links, a point that applies, of course, not just to the topic of parents’ beliefs but to
the psychology literature in general.
There also is much still to learn about the question of sources—where do par-
ents’ beliefs about their children’s theory of mind come from, and why do parents
differ in the beliefs they hold? As suggested earlier, more work on possible social
or cultural sources of belief is especially needed, given the clear importance of
such factors in the general beliefs literature. Note that the question of sources
is of pragmatic as well as theoretical importance, for altering beliefs in a posi-
tive direction may be one way to improve both parental practices and children’s
development.
The final issue to be discussed concerns the quality of parents’ beliefs.
Work on mind-m indedness is one source of evidence that quality matters, for
it is only appropriate and not nonattuned mental state comments that relate
positively to children’s development (although it is interesting to note that the
determination of accuracy applies to just one of the two main ways of assessing
mind-m indedness). As we have seen, a handful of other studies have provided
some evidence both for variations in accuracy across parents and relations
between parents’ accuracy and children’s development. Research with the
recently developed parent-report measures, including the CSUS, should add
some valuable information in this regard, for such measures present an excep-
tionally broad sampling of theory-of-m ind abilities for parents to judge. And,
of course, the utility of such measures for their intended purpose depends on
a still to be answered question: Can parents accurately judge their children’s
theory of mind?
9
Experimental Approaches
Chapter 3 made a basic point about parenting research, a point that has recurred
in various contexts in each of the succeeding chapters. The point was that parent-
ing research is, with rare exceptions, correlational research, in the sense that we
measure two things (parental practices, child outcomes) but do not experimen-
tally manipulate either factor. Because of the absence of experimental control,
cause-and-effect conclusions from such research are at best tentative. We may
know that variable A and variable B relate, but we cannot know for certain why
they do.
Experimental research provides the needed complement to the correlational
approach. If we can experimentally manipulate the hypothesized causal factor—
let us say variable A—t hen we know where variations in B come from: They result
because of the variations in A.
Of course, if the experimental approach were always readily applicable, all
studies would be experimental in design. Some topics, however, are very difficult
to study experimentally, and parenting ranks near the top of any such list. It is for
this reason that virtually all of the research considered in the book to this point
has been correlational.
This chapter addresses experimental approaches to the question of where
theory of mind comes from. As will be seen, only a handful of the studies to be
considered include parents and thus provide a direct test of parents’ contribution
to their children’s theory of mind. The reason for discussing these studies, even
in the absence of parental involvement, is that their experimental design makes
possible a demonstration that certain forms of social experience can nurture the
development of theory of mind. Parents, of course, are not the only ones who can
provide such experiences; indeed, in the studies reviewed it is usually research-
ers who do so. But for most children, especially early in life, parents are the most
important social agents, and these studies therefore tell us some of the ways in
which parents may be important.
This chapter is divided into four sections. The first two sections review
attempts to train theory of mind. The first of these sections addresses theory of
mind in general, and the second focuses on emotion understanding.
227
The sections on training are followed by discussion of a closely related

approach: microgenetic studies of the development of theory of mind. As we will
see, the microgenetic literature on theory of mind is to date a small one. The same
cannot be said of the final kind of evidence to be discussed: studies of children’s
ability to learn from others (work often discussed under the heading of “trust and
skepticism”). In last half dozen or so years the learning-f rom-others studies have
emerged as one of the most active topics in the study of early cognitive develop-
ment. The implications of these studies for the development of theory of mind,
including the role of parents, have yet to be fully developed, and it is this aspect of
the work on which I concentrate.
Training Studies: Theory of Mind in General

As noted in Chapter 2, the theory-of-m ind literature shows many parallels to the
earlier Piagetian literature. Until fairly recently, the subject of training studies
was an exception to this statement. Attempts to train Piagetian concepts, espe-
cially conservation, proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s, the period during which
the Piagetian approach in general dominated the study of cognitive develop-
ment. In contrast, only a handful of training studies appeared in the first decade
or so of the theory-of-m ind era, and the pace accelerated only slightly during
the next decade. More recently, however, attempts to train theory of mind have
mushroomed. Indeed, the research literature is now large enough to justify two
meta-a nalyses (Sprung, Munch, Harris, Ebesutani, & Hofmann, 2015; Sprung,
Wilson, Harris, Ebesutani, & Hofmann, 2015), analyses from which I draw at
various points.
Before discussing what the theory-of-m ind training studies have shown, it may
be a useful—and also cautionary—exercise to consider what we learned from the
much larger Piagetian training literature. Several general conclusions are tenable
(D. Field, 1987; Miller, 1998). First, it is certainly possible to train conservation
and other Piagetian abilities; after a few initial failures or partial successes, dozens
of successful studies were eventually published. Second, the success of training
often depends on the rigor of the criteria; when generalization across tasks or per-
sistence over time is required, success typically declines. Third—and as Piagetian
theory would predict—t here is clearly a readiness factor to training; unless chil-
dren are close enough to mastering the knowledge naturally, training is unlikely
to be successful. On the other hand, the readiness constraints are not as great
as many would have predicted, for in some studies children as young as 4 were
successfully trained on concrete-operational concepts. Finally, a wide variety of
training procedures proved successful, some with grounding in Piagetian theory
(e.g., training in reversibility) but some with quite different theoretical underpin-
nings (e.g., operant conditioning, verbal rule training). There apparently is no
Experimental Approaches 229
single route to mastery of Piagetian concepts—at least not when the concepts are
acquired in an experimental setting.
The reference to “an experimental setting” brings up the main reservation with
respect to what training studies tell us, and that is the issue of external validity.
However children naturally master conservation or other Piagetian concepts, it is
not through having an adult explicitly teach the knowledge to them. To varying
degrees, all training manipulations depart from the real-l ife situations of interest.
Such studies, therefore, tell us what can happen. They do not necessarily tell us
what does happen.
As I will argue, external validity is also an important issue in evaluating train-
ing studies of theory of mind. Still, there are two differences between the Piagetian
and theory-of-m ind literatures that suggest that external validity may be a lesser
concern in the latter case. First, unlike conservation and most other Piagetian
concepts, theory of mind is inherently social in nature; it is social knowledge, and
it is necessarily acquired in social settings. A training study is also a social setting,
and it therefore may come closer to the real-l ife situations of interest than does an
attempt to train conservation or class inclusion.
The second difference concerns the rationale for the specific form that train-
ing takes; that is, how do we decide what kinds of experiences to build into the
training? In the Piagetian studies the rationale was largely theoretical—thus
reversibility or cognitive conflict for training from a Piagetian perspective, or
modeling or reinforcement when social learning theory provided the starting
point. Theoretical considerations also play a role in theory-of-m ind training
efforts; the theory theory approach, for example, suggests somewhat different for-
mative experiences than does the sociocultural approach. Much more than in the
Piagetian literature, however, theory-of-m ind training studies also have an empir-
ical grounding—a grounding, in fact, in the various research studies that have
been discussed across the last several chapters. In contrast to the situation during
the Piaget era, we have quite a bit of evidence with respect to possible experiential
bases for theory of mind, including a considerable amount of naturalistic, in-t he-
home evidence. This empirical grounding is doubly valuable: It informs the con-
struction of training procedures, and it provides important converging evidence
when a procedure proves effective in the laboratory setting.
Table 9.1 shows the studies to be considered in this section. My coverage is
limited to published studies; the two reviews by Sprung and colleagues (Sprung,
Munch, et al., 2015; Sprung, Wilson, et al., 2015) include unpublished disser-
tations as well. My coverage is also limited to work with typically developing
samples. There is also a sizable training literature directed to special popula-
tions of various sorts. Children with autism are the most frequently studied such
group (e.g., Begeer et al. 2011; Hadwin, Baron-Cohen, Howlin, & Hill, 1996).
Other populations that have been studied include deaf children (e.g., Wellman
& Peterson (2013), children with learning disabilities (e.g., Ashcroft, Jervis, &
Table 9.1 Training Studies of Theory of Mind
Study Participants Measures Training method

Allen & Kinsey 3- and False belief, Experience with
(2013) 4-year-olds appearance– pretend play
reality, emotion
recognition
Appleton & Reddy 3-year-olds False belief Observation of
(1996) children experiencing
a false belief, followed
by discussion and
explanation
Benson, Sabbagh, 3-year-olds False belief, False belief trials
Carlson, & Zelazo appearance– followed by feedback
(2013) reality, and explanation
deceptive
pointing,
Wellman & Liu
battery
Carmiol & Vinden 3- to Understanding Observation of
(2013) 5- year-olds of ambiguity in adequate or inadequate
communication messages, followed
by feedback and
explanation
Clements, Rustin, 3-year-olds False belief False belief trials
& McCallum followed by
(2000) either feedback or
explanation
Dockett (1998) 4-year-olds False belief, Experiences of shared
appearance– pretend play
reality
Flavell, Green, & 3- and Appearance– Appearance–reality
Flavell (1986) 4-year-olds reality trials followed
by feedback and
explanation
Gola (2012) 3- and Wellman & Liu Observation of videos
4-year-olds battery showing false beliefs
followed by surprise
and various forms of
mental state comments
Table 9.1 Continued

Guajardo & 3- and False belief, Discussion of
Watson (2002) 4-year-olds appearance– storybooks with mental
reality, state references
deception
Hale & Tager- 3- and False belief, Two conditions: false
Flusberg (2003) 4-year-olds sentential belief trials followed
complements by feedback and
explanation; practice
and feedback in using
sentential complements
Iao, Leekam, 3- to False belief, False belief trials
Perner, & 5-year-olds false signs, or false sign trials
McConachie appearance– followed by feedback
(2011) reality and explanation
Kloo & Perner 3- and False belief False belief or card
(2003) 4-year-olds and executive sorting problems
function followed by feedback
(Dimensional and explanation
Change Card
Sort)
Knoll & Charman 3- and False belief False belief trials
(2000) 4-year-olds followed by feedback
and discussion;
training in level 2
perspective taking
(Exp. 2)
Lecce, Bianco, Italian 5-and False belief, False belief trials
Demicheli, & 6-year- olds second-order followed by feedback
Cavallini (2014) theory-of-m ind and explanation
battery
Lecce, Bianco, Italian Strange Stories Small group
Devine, et al. 9-year-olds discussions, with
(2014) feedback and
explanations, of stories
like the Strange Stories.
Also training in mental
verb use.
(continued)
Table 9.1 Continued

Lohmann & 3-year-olds False belief Discussion of
Tomasello (2003) deceptive objects
under one of four
conditions: discourse
about deception
and use of sentential
complements,
discourse about
deception without use
of complements, use of
complements without
focus on deception,
focus on deception
with minimal language
Lu, Su, & Wang Chinese False belief Storybook reading
(2008) 3- and followed by talk about
4-year-olds story characters
Melot & Angeard 3- and False belief, Either false belief or
(2003) 4-year-olds appearance– appearance–reality
reality trials followed
by feedback and
explanation
Melot & Houde 3-year-olds Appearance– Picture-matching task
(1998) reality with feedback and
explanation
Meltzoff & Brooks 12-month- Gaze following Experience with
(2008) olds (Exp. 1), blindfold (Exp. 1),
18-month- experience with trick
olds (Exp. 2) blindfold (Exp. 2)
Mo, Su, Sabbagh, Chinese False belief, Practice with either
& Jiaming (2014) 3- and sentential sentential complements
4-year-olds complements or false representations,
followed by feedback
Table 9.1 Continued

Ornaghi, Italian 3-and False belief, Storybook reading,
Brockmeier, & 4-year-olds emotion followed by language
Gavazzi (2011) understanding, games emphasizing
meta- mental state terms
cognitive verb
understanding
Peskin & 4-year-olds False belief, Storybook reading
Astington (2004) metacognitive with metacognitive
verb terms either explicit or
production and implicit
understanding
Pillow, Mash, 4- and Interpretive Restricted view trials
Aloian, & Hill 5-year-olds diversity followed by feedback
(2002) and discussion
Qu, Pen, Chee, & 5- and False belief, Experience with
Chen (2015) 6-year-olds affective false pretend play
belief, origins of
knowledge
Rakoczy, 3-year-olds False belief, Experience with and
Tomasello, & appearance– observation of pretend
Striano (2006) reality, activities
understanding
of pretense
Rostan et al. Spanish False belief, Three
(2014) 3-year-olds appearance– conditions: labeling
reality, of deceptive objects,
sentential use of sentential
complements complements with
deceptive objects,
use of sentential
complements with
nondeceptive objects
(continued)
Table 9.1 Continued

Sellabona et al. Spanish False belief, Either discourse about
(2013) 3-year-olds appearance– or labeling of deceptive
reality, objects without
sentential use of mental state
complements terms or sentential
complements, or use of
sentential complements
with nondeceptive
objects
Slaughter (1998) 3- and False belief, false False belief trials
4-year-olds pictures followed by feedback
Slaughter & 3- and False belief, Series of trials (belief,
Gopnik (1996) 4-year-olds appearance– desire, or perception)
reality, origins with contradiction of
of knowledge, initial judgment and
subjective feedback
probability
Taumoepeau & 3-year-olds False belief, Mothers trained in
Reese (2013) appearance– elaborative memory
reality, origins of talk
knowledge
Taylor & Hort 3- to 5-year- Appearance– Experience (both
(1990) olds (Exp. 1), reality observing and acting)
2- to 4-year- with appearance–
olds (Exp. 2) reality tasks followed
by feedback
Roberts, 1999), children with anxiety disorders (e.g., Fox et al., 2012), children
with pervasive developmental disorder (e.g., Solomon, Goodlin-Jones, & Anders,
2004), and adopted and foster children (e.g., Colonnesi et al., 2013).
Some General Conclusions

The first and most general conclusion is that training works. Not in every case—
there are a handful of unsuccessful studies (Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1986; Melot
& Houde, 1998; M. Taylor & Hort, 1990). In the great majority of instances,
however, attempts to train theory of mind have achieved at least some success,
and in some instances they have achieved marked success. This conclusion is
demonstrated in either or both of two ways: significant improvements in perfor-
mance from pretest to posttest, or significant differences in performance between
trained participants and control group participants.
That training works is a conclusion also reached in the meta-analysis by Sprung
and colleagues (Sprung, Wilson, et al., 2015). As in any meta-analysis, they go on
to address two further questions. One concerns effect size—g iven that training
works, how great are the effects? The answer varies across studies, but the pooled
effect size across the studies included in the review, based on Hedges’ g statistic,
was .79, a value that is generally considered to reflect a moderately large effect.
The second question concerns factors that influence the probability or the
strength of success—what are referred to as moderator variables in meta-analyses.
Several of the potential moderators that were examined by Sprung, Wilson, et al.
(2015) turned out to have no effect, including age, gender, posttest delay, publica-
tion status, and year of publication (I return to the variable of age shortly). Sprung
and colleagues found that two factors did have an effect. The impact of training
increased with the number of training sessions, and it increased with the length of
each session. These findings make intuitive sense—t he more experience children
have with the training, the greater the effects.
Once this conclusion is noted, a further point must be added. In some
instances what seems to be rather minimal training has resulted in significant
improvement in theory-of-m ind performance (Clements, Rustin, & McCallum,
2000; Slaughter, 1998). In the Clements et al. study, for example, the training
consisted of a single false belief problem followed by feedback and explanation,
and the training in the Slaughter study was limited to a pair of trials followed
by feedback. In such cases the training may function at least in part as a form of
revised diagnosis—t hat is, a technique to draw out knowledge that in some sense
was already “in there.” In any case, success under such circumstances suggests
that the children were probably fairly close to mastering the knowledge naturally.
I return to the notion of readiness shortly.
A further methodological point is relevant here. Simply getting children to give
the correct answer on problems that have been directly trained is hardly compel-
ling evidence for the success of training. To varying degrees, almost all training
studies look for some degree of generalization across tasks and some maintenance
of effects over time. In the Clements et al. (2000) study, for example, the posttest
was administered a week after the training, and different materials and different
scenarios were used for the posttest false belief problems. As Table 9.1 indicates,
other studies have tested for broader generalization—not just different forms of
one concept but different concepts. Some studies have also imposed greater delays
before the final posttest. At present, the longest period is approximately 7 months
in a study by Ornaghi and colleagues (Ornaghi, Gavazzi, Cherubin, Conte, &
Piralli, 2015). In general, results hold up well across the time periods examined.
Recall, in fact, that one conclusion from the Sprung, Wilson, et al. (2015) meta-
analysis was that length of posttest delay had no effect on success of training.
The variable of generalization is more complicated than that of maintenance
over time and therefore requires a bit more discussion. That success needs to
extend beyond tasks that were directly trained is a criterion that is both widely
agreed to and widely met in the training literature. Clearly, if we want to argue that
a child has mastered false belief, we should be able to show that this knowledge is
demonstrated on a range of false belief problems. But what about generalization
to other concepts? Should a child who has mastered false belief be expected to
also show a newfound ability to solve appearance–reality problems or to take the
perspective of another? The problem with imposing such a criterion is that vari-
ous theory-of-m ind accomplishments are far from perfectly correlated in natural
development. It is quite possible, for example, for a child to have a genuine under-
standing of false belief yet fail other basic preschool tasks. And this means that it
is quite possible to have genuine training of one concept without generalization
to other concepts.
Once this point is made, it is still interesting to know how much general-
ization occurs, and still reasonable to argue that the most successful studies
are those that produce broad rather than narrow effects. Studies vary in this
regard. Generalization is by no means guaranteed, for in some instances it is
only the trained concept that shows improvement (e.g., Knoll & Charman,
2000; Rakoczy, Tomasello, & Striano, 2006). In most studies, however, the
effects have proved to be at least somewhat broader. Perhaps the most impres-
sive demonstration of relatively broad effects comes in a study by Slaughter
and Gopnik (1996). These investigators showed that training in false belief
resulted in improvements in false belief. They also showed, however, that
training in perception and desire resulted in equivalent improvements in
false belief—a pattern of results that was subsequently replicated in a study
by Hulsken (2001, as cited by Kloo & Perner, 2008). Slaughter and Gopnik
interpret their results as support for the theory theory: Because different
forms of theory-of-m ind knowledge are interrelated in a coherent theoretical
structure, advances in one form of knowledge lead to advances in other forms
as well. As I have already said, I do not believe that such strong coherence is
a necessary prediction of the theory theory, given the less than perfect cor-
relations among theory-of-m ind concepts that characterize natural develop-
ment. Still, the impressive coherence demonstrated by Slaughter and Gopnik
is probably more easily explained by the theory theory than by any other theo-
retical position.
Although the conclusions to this point reflect important issues in the training
literature, they are really just a prelude to the questions of greatest interest with
respect to training of theory of mind. There are three such questions: who can be
trained, what can be trained, and how can it be trained?
Readiness
The Who question is the question of readiness. Do children have to be at a certain
developmental level for training to work? In a general sense the literature suggests
that they must be, for no study to date has succeeded in instilling any theory-
of-m ind accomplishment well in advance of the expected age for its emergence.
On the other hand, no study has really attempted to do so; as the Participants
column in Table 9.1 indicates, samples are invariably drawn from age groups that
are known to be close to mastering the concept to be trained. So we do not really
know, for example, whether it is possible to train false belief in 2-year-olds.
Even with the restrictions in sampling, all studies report individual differ-
ences, in that the training works better for some children than for others. What
factors might contribute to these differences? The most obvious factor is age. We
would expect a 4-year-old to be more ready to master false belief than a 3-year-
old, and we would expect a relatively old 3-year-old to be more trainable than a
child who has just turned 3. As we saw, one conclusion from the Sprung, Wilson,
et al. (2015) meta-analysis was that age had no effect on success of training. This
conclusion, however, was based on across-study comparisons, an approach that
is not optimal for the examination of age differences (as, indeed, these authors
acknowledge in their other meta-analysis—Sprung, Munch, et al., 2015). An
across-study approach is not optimal because it is likely to confound too many
factors. In particular, the trained concept is likely to vary; what we attempt to
train in 8-year-olds will be different from what would have been trained at age 4,
and different still from what would make sense at age 12.
What is needed, then, is a within-study examination in which concept and
method of training are held constant and age varies. Not all studies with a range
of ages provide such an examination, and results from those that do are mixed. In
some instances age has proved unrelated to success of training (Allen & Kinsey,
2013; Gola, 2012; Iao et al., 2011). More commonly, however, age does relate to
success and it does so in the expected direction: namely, older children are more
trainable than are younger ones (Appleton & Reddy, 1996; Lu, Su, & Wang, 2008;
Pillow, Mash, Aloian, & Hill, 2002; Slaughter & Gopnik, 1996). This conclusion
does not mean that the youngest children in these studies show no success—just
that they show less success than their older counterparts.
Apart from age, what other factors might signal readiness for training? I have
noted at various points that both executive function and language relate positively
to theory of mind; hence we might expect that children’s standing on those factors
will be predictive. Results to date are mixed. In two instances measures of execu-
tive function have proved unrelated to the success of training, in one case for basic
preschool developments (Qu, Pen, Chee, & Chen, 2015) and in the other for under-
standing of nonliteral utterances as assessed by the Happe (1994) Strange Stories
measure (Lecce, Bianco, Devine, Hughes, & Banerjee, 2014). In a third study the
results were more positive. Benson and colleagues showed that children’s perfor-
mance on a battery of executive function tasks related positively and strongly to
their ability to benefit from training in false belief (Benson, Sabbagh, Carlson, &
Zelazo, 2013). Finally, Taumoepeau and Reese (2013) showed that measures of
language ability could also be predictive, although in this case the relation went
in the opposite direction; children whose language skills were relatively low were
the ones who were most likely to benefit from the language-oriented training. The
contrasting findings between the last two studies suggest that the role of these
contributors will vary with the nature of the training—whether the contributor is
a strength to be built on (as in Benson et al.) or a weakness to be overcome (as in
Taumoepeau & Reese).
Perhaps the clearest indication of readiness would come from evidence for
an early, partial grasp of the concept to be trained. Children who possess some
starting-point knowledge should be more trainable than children who lack such
a starting point. We saw in Chapter 2 that research suggests that children may
possess an implicit understanding of false belief well before the full, conscious,
explicit understanding that characterizes the preschool years. Clements et al.
(2000) used the anticipatory looking measure described in Chapter 2 to test for
such implicit knowledge in their sample of 3-year-olds, none of whom had yet
mastered the standard false belief test. A subset of the children did indeed look
toward the original location of the displaced object, even though they could not
yet predict that the protagonist would search there. Subsequently, it was these
children who benefited most from the training. This finding is exactly what
would be expected if early implicit knowledge paves the way for eventual explicit
understanding.
Trained Concept
As Table 9.1 shows, false belief has been by far the most popular topic in the train-
ing study literature, just as false belief has been the most popular topic in the
theory-of-m ind literature in general. Almost two dozen studies have attempted to
train false belief, and the great majority have succeeded. As we have just seen, the
degree of success can depend on a number of factors; still, there is no doubt that
false belief can be trained. As we will see shortly, the same conclusion applies to
emotion understanding.
The situation is less clear for another often studied development, the
appearance–reality distinction. Some of the earliest training studies were directed
to appearance–reality, and none reported any success in budging children from
their perceptually oriented responses (Flavell et al., 1986; Melot & Houde, 1998;
Taylor & Hort, 1990). These failures occurred despite the use of training proce-
dures that seem similar to procedures that have worked for false belief—t hat is,
practice with the task accompanied by feedback and explanations. Perhaps the
fact that the appearance–reality distinction can take on so many forms poses a
challenge not found with false belief. In any case, the distinction turns out to be
by no means unteachable, for a number of successful training attempts eventu-
ally appeared (Allen & Kinsey, 2013; Dockett, 1998; Melot & Angeard, 2003).
Training in other concepts has also been shown to produce some gains in
appearance–reality as well (Melot & Angeard, 2003; Slaughter & Gopnik, 1996).
Most training studies, like most theory-of-m ind research in general, have been
directed to the preschool period. Table 9.1 shows the handful of exceptions. Both
Pillow et al. (2002) and Lecce, Bianco, Devine, et al. (2014) reported some suc-
cess in training the more advanced forms of theory of mind that follow out of
the accomplishments of the preschool years. In the other direction, Meltzoff and
Brooks (2008) were successful in teaching aspects of gaze following to 12-and
18-month-old infants. At present, theirs is the only study (to my knowledge) to
apply a training method to typically developing infants. As noted in Chapter 6,
however, intervention programs for infants and toddlers with autism constitute a
fairly large literature (White et al., 2011).
Training Method
Two general approaches to training theory of mind, each with a number of vari-
ants, account for most of the training study literature. One is built around experi-
ence with the task itself, which in most instances has meant experience with false
belief. Typically, the starting point is a standard assessment trial, either one to
which the child responds or one for which the child sees someone else’s response.
Exactly what follows varies across studies, but the essence of the approach is some
mixture of explicit feedback, discussion, and explanation. Thus children have a
chance to learn that their original response was incorrect, to learn what the cor-
rect response is, and to learn why the correct response is what it is.
The second general approach emphasizes language. Of course, language is
necessarily involved in the approach just described—feedback, discussion, and
explanation all occur via language. In the second approach, however, it is the
form of the language to which children are exposed that is assumed to be critical.
All three of the possible linguistic contributors to theory of mind discussed in
Chapter 7 have been explored: the semantic aspect as represented in the use of
mental state terms, the pragmatic aspect as represented by discourse about differ-
ent perspectives, and the syntactic aspect as represented by the use of sentential
complements. In everyday speech these aspects often co-occur, making it difficult
to pull apart the contributions of each. Although it is not easy to do so, training
studies offer some opportunity to isolate factors that are typically confounded in
the natural setting.
The language-based forms of training have a basis in the well-established cor-
relation between linguistic ability and theory of mind. The other well-established
correlation, that between executive function and theory of mind, is at present

represented in just a single training study (Kloo & Perner, 2003). This study
showed, as have others (e.g., Diamond, 2012; Thorell, Lindquist, Nutley, Bohlin,
& Klingberg, 2009), that executive function could be successfully trained, and it
also showed that training in executive function led to improvements in theory of
mind as well.
The final approach represented in the literature to date is training in pretend
play (Allen & Kinsey, 2013); Dockett, 1998; Qu et al., 2015; Rakoczy et al., 2006).
This approach has its basis in the long-standing argument that engagement in pre-
tense both reflects and contributes to theory-of-m ind abilities (e.g., Leslie, 1987).
Although most discussions assume the intertwining of the two developments
(see, e.g., Wellman, 2014), I should note that a recent review questions how solid
the evidence is for a link between pretend play and theory of mind (Lillard et al.,
2013). And the four training studies present a mixed picture: in one, positive
effects on both false belief and appearance–reality (Dockett, 1998); in another,
positive effects on a composite measure of theory of mind (Qu et al., 2015); in
a third, effects on appearance–reality but not on false belief (Allen & Kinsey,
2013); and in the fourth, successful training of pretense but no effects on either
false belief or appearance–reality (Rakoczy et al., 2006).
Let us return to the two most often used approaches: direct experience with
the task, and linguistic input of various sorts. Once we know that either approach
can result in successful training of theory of mind, what more do we need to
know? I will address three further questions.
One question is whether either approach works better than the other. On
the basis of evidence to date, the answer is no. The modal outcome with both
approaches is successful training, and the few within-study comparisons do not
show any clear advantage of one approach compared to the other. The same con-
clusion holds for the different aspects of language that have been examined—
none has emerged as either uniquely important or clearly necessary. The latter
conclusion mirrors that from correlational studies of language and theory of
mind (Milligan et al., 2007).
A second question concerns what these studies tell us about theories of theory
of mind. We have already seen that the four major theoretical positions are both
general enough and self-protective enough to resist easy disconfirmation. None,
certainly, is challenged by the finding that experience, including experimentally
provided experience, can affect the rate of theory-of-m ind development. Once this
point is made, the fact that multiple forms of social experience can affect devel-
opment could be argued to fit most naturally with the sociocultural approach,
the definitional core of which is the social embedding of theory-of-m ind develop-
ment. The contributions of various forms of language are also clearly compatible
with the sociocultural approach, as is the evidence that an adult’s scaffolding of
the child’s learning through explanation and discussion can promote develop-
ment. Again, however, such a conclusion does not mean that the other theories
cannot also accommodate such findings. The theory theory, for example, argues
that children revise their early, imperfect theories as they encounter evidence that
contradicts those theories, and almost any successful training procedure could
be argued to provide such disconfirming evidence. Similarly, despite its biologi-
cal emphasis, any modular account includes a role for experience as a trigger for
change, and training can be argued to provide such a trigger. Hale and Tager-
Flusberg (2003) in fact conclude that the successful training results in their study
might be best explained by Leslie’s (2000) modular theory.
A final question concerns external validity—how plausibly do different train-
ing procedures map onto what might actually happen in the real-world settings
in which development takes place? Of special interest for present purposes, of
course, is how plausibly they relate to ways in which parents might contribute to
their children’s development.
The language-based forms of training clearly rank high on this dimension. Not
only is it plausible that parents, among others, might provide the kinds of linguis-
tic input examined in the training literature; Chapter 7 makes it clear that they
very often do—and that such input relates positively to their children’s theory of
mind. It is true that the experimental demonstrations depart in various ways from
what is likely in the home setting: in the concentration of the input, in the separa-
tion of different aspects of language, in the explicit focus on false belief or other
theory-of-m ind outcomes. As is almost always the case, experimental control is
bought at the price of some artificiality. Still, the experimental studies build on
a complementary naturalistic literature, and the experimental approach and the
naturalistic/correlational approach provide a clear convergence of evidence: Both
indicate the importance of language.
Less clear is the external validity of training approaches that focus directly
on experience with the task to be mastered. Talk about beliefs and other epis-
temic states certainly occurs in the home, as we saw in Chapter 7. So, no doubt,
do various instances in which children encounter evidence that challenges their
beliefs, perhaps sometimes accompanied by further evidence that points them
in a new direction. Still, extended discussions of various forms of false belief or
appearance–reality, accompanied by explicit correction and instruction, are not
a likely occurrence. The training literature would benefit from more discussion of
whether demonstrations of what can occur really tell us what does occur.
I conclude this section by singling out several studies whose results provide
some further suggestions about how experience in general and parents in particu-
lar may contribute to theory of mind.
We saw evidence in Chapter 7 that children may learn about the mental world
not only from talk directed to themselves but also from talk directed to others
that they overhear. A study by Gola (2012) offers experimental support for this
possibility. The 3-and 4-year-olds in her study watched videos in which a charac-
ter experienced a false belief, followed by mental state comments of various sorts.
In some instances the comments were directed to another story character, and in
some instances they were directed to the child. Although the child-d irected com-
ments had some effect, the greatest gains occurred when the talk was from one
character to another, and thus from conversation that the child overheard rather
than participated in.
Like several other researchers, Peskin and Astington (2004) used storybooks to
present a concentrated dose of mental state input to their participants. Two condi-
tions were contrasted. In one condition the mental state content was made explicit
through frequent use of mental state terms; in the other condition the content
remained implicit—thus clearly present in the story, but without accompanying
mental state language. We might expect that spelling out the mental state infor-
mation would be helpful for children. In fact, the two conditions led to equivalent
improvement in the prediction phase of the false belief posttest, and the implicit
condition resulted in a greater ability to provide explanations for the correct false
belief predictions. Apparently, having to infer the relevant mental states them-
selves, as opposed to having the information provided to them, helped children to
consolidate the knowledge and make it their own. This finding serves as a helpful
reminder that children play an active role in theory-of-mind development, a point
that may be easy to forget when the focus is on adults teaching things to children.
Finally, the research by Taumoepeau and Reese (2013) is a unique entry among
the studies considered in this section: a study in which the target of the interven-
tion was not the child but the child’s mother. When the child participants were
toddlers, the mothers in the study were trained in the use of elaborative speech
while engaged in memory talk with their children. Subsequently, the children who
had been exposed to such talk outperformed a control group on a theory-of-m ind
battery, although the effect, as we saw earlier in the discussion of Readiness, held
only for children who were relatively low in language ability. In a sense, of course,
this finding simply replicates what is found in the naturalistic-correlational litera-
ture, in which elaborative speech by mothers has been shown to relate positively
to children’s theory of mind. The experimental design, however, allows us to be
more certain about causality. In the naturalistic case, mothers may be responding
to rather than creating differences in their children. Or there may be some third
factor that accounts for the mother–child relation. In the Taumoepeau and Reese
study the experimental control makes the causality clear: The mother’s speech
causes theory-of-m ind advances in the child.
Training Studies: Emotion Understanding

Table 9.2 shows the studies to be considered in this section.
A comparison of Tables 9.1 and 9.2 suggests several, related differences
between the work on emotion understanding and the studies considered in the
initial section of the chapter. The goal of the studies presented in Table 9.1 was
Table 9.2 Training Studies of Emotion Understanding

Bennett & 6- and Understanding of Discussion of
Hiscock (1993) 7-year-olds mixed emotions situations that might
elicit mixed emotions
Bierman et al. 3- and Assessment PATHS (Promoting
(2008) 4-year-olds of Children’s Alternative Thinking
Emotion Skills, Strategies curriculum):
Emotion classroom-based
Recognition program intended
Questionnaire to teach expression,
understanding, and
regulation of emotions.
Also supplemental
activities for parents.
Domitrovich, 3- and Recognition PATHS: classroom-
Cortes, & 4-year-olds of Emotion based program
Greenberg Concepts intended to
(2007) (Kusche Affective teach expression,
Interview), understanding, and
Assessment regulation of emotions
of Children’s
Emotions Scales,
Denham Puppet
Interview
Grazzani & Italian 3-to Test of Emotion Storybook reading,
Ornaghi (2011) 5-year-olds Comprehension, followed by language
meta- games emphasizing
cognitive verb emotion terms
comprehension
Greenberg, Second and Emotion PATHS: classroom-
Kusche, Cook, third graders understanding based program
& Quamma (Kusche Affective intended to
(1995) Interview) teach expression,
understanding, and
regulation of emotions
(continued)
Table 9.2 Continued
Havighurst et al. 4- and Subtests of the Parent-d irected, six-
(2010) 5-year-olds Emotions Skills week, group-format
Task program designed
to teach appropriate
response to emotions.
Izard, 3- and Emotion Classroom-based
Trentacosta, 4-year-olds labeling, emotion lessons directed to
King, & Mostow recognition, understanding and
(2004) receptive emotion regulation of emotions
vocabulary
Ornaghi, Italian 6-and Test of Emotion Scenarios with
Brockmeier, & 7- year-olds Comprehension, emotional situations
Gavazzi (2014) Emotional followed by
Lexicon Test, discussions concerning
second-order false the nature, causes, and
belief regulation of emotions
Ornaghi, Italian 4-and Test of Emotion Same as Ornaghi et al.
Gavazzi, 5-year olds Comprehension, (2014)
Cherubin, false belief
Conte, & Piralli
(2015)
Peng, Johnson, 4- to Understanding of Generation and
Pollack, 7-year-olds mixed emotions discussion of examples
Glasspool, & of emotionally charged
Harris (1992) conflictual situations
Pons, Harris, & 9-year-olds Emotion School Matters In
Doudin (2002) understanding Lifeskills Education
(Test of Emotion (SMILE): classroom-
Comprehension) wide intervention,
one of whose goals is
to promote emotion
understanding
Salmon et al. New Zealand Emotion Reading of storybooks
(2013) 3- and recognition, with emphasis on
4-year-olds production of emotions and emotion
emotion terms, terms
understanding
of causes of
emotions
Table 9.2 Continued
Tenenbaum, 5- to Test of Emotion Vignettes with mixed
Alfieri, Brooks, 8-year-olds Comprehension or hidden emotions,
& Dunne (2008) followed by either
self-generated
or experimenter
explanations
Van Bergen, Australian 3- Emotion Mothers trained in
Salmon, Dadds, to 5-year-olds recognition, elaborative memory
& Allen (2009) emotion talk and also talk about
perspective emotions
taking,
understanding
of causes of
emotions
scientific: to identify experiences and processes that lead to the development of

theory of mind. Each of the studies in Table 9.2 also has a scientific goal, in this
case to identify the experiences and processes that lead to emotion understand-
ing. Many, however, also have a pragmatic goal: namely, to improve the lives of
the children who are the subjects of the intervention, and, assuming success in
this endeavor, to apply what has been learned more broadly and thus improve the
lives of children more generally. The entries by Bierman et al. (2008); Domitrovich,
Cortes, and Greenberg (2007); Greenberg, Kusche, Cook, and Quamma (1995);
Havighurst et al., 2010); and Izard, Trentacosta, King, and Mostow (2004) are
all examples in this category. These pragmatically oriented efforts, I should note,
were not included in the Sprung, Munch, et al. (2015) meta-analysis.
Because of their pragmatic goals, the studies just identified tend to be large along
several dimensions. One way is in the samples tested; the Bierman et al. (2008)
study, for example, drew participants from 44 Head Start classrooms. Another
is in the outcome measures, which typically include not just the emotion under-
standing measures on which I concentrate but also a range of other cognitive
and social outcomes. In terms of duration, such interventions extend well
beyond a single laboratory session, often staying in place throughout a school
year. Finally, the posttests to probe for lasting effects are often long-term ones,
with delays as long as 6 months in some cases (Havighurst et al., 2010). Indeed,
even some of the smaller-scale studies in this literature include 6-month follow-
ups (Ornaghi, Brockmeier, & Grazzani, 2014; Van Bergen, Salmon, Dadds, &
Allen, 2009).
What do the emotion training studies show? Again, the first and most general
conclusion is that training works—each of the studies in Table 9.2 reports posi-
tive effects on at least some of its outcome measures. Often the positive results
are mixed with negative ones, for most studies assess multiple forms of emotion
understanding, and not every form always proves responsive to training. But the
general trainability of emotion understanding is clear. Furthermore, the durabil-
ity of effects is also clear, for in several instances effects are still evident months
after the conclusion of the training.
That training works is also a conclusion in the Sprung, Munch, et al. (2015)
meta-analysis. Their estimates of effect size vary some across different aspects of
emotion understanding; the modal value, however, is around .60, which indicates
a moderately strong effect. Conclusions about moderator variables also vary some
across different outcome measures. In some instances lengthier sessions lead to
stronger results, which, as we saw, is the case in the general theory-of-m ind train-
ing literature. The effects of the setting for training (individual vs. group) vary
with the outcome in question: greater effects for reflective aspects of emotion
(understanding of mixed emotions, of moral emotions, and of emotion regula-
tion) from training in individual settings, greater effects for expressive aspects of
emotions (emotion recognition, understanding of the causes of emotions) from
training in group settings.
Abstracting the critical elements of training is difficult with the large interven-
tion studies, given their extended, multipart nature. The training methods in the
smaller-scale studies include two of the general approaches discussed in the previ-
ous section: linguistic input rich in mental state terms, in this case emotion terms;
and concentrated discussion, often with feedback and explanation, of situations
that require the target knowledge, which in this case is some form of emotion
understanding. As in the general training literature, both approaches have proved
successful, and there is no indication to date that one works better than the other.
The variable of readiness for training has received limited attention in this
literature. Age has been examined in a handful of studies, although not with
consistent results. Peng and colleagues reported a strong age effect, with more
successful training at ages 6 and 7 than at ages 4 and 5 (Peng, Johnson, Pollock,
Glasspool, & Harris, 1992). Grazzani and Ornaghi (2011) reported a mixed effect
of age: greater effects of training for older than for younger children on the mea-
sure of metacognitive verb comprehension, but more gains by younger than older
on the Test of Emotion Comprehension. Finally, Tenenbaum and colleagues
reported no effects of age in their sample of 5-to 8-year-olds (Tenenbaum, Alfieri,
Brooks, & Dunne, 2008).
Three studies have made parents (mostly or exclusively mothers) part of
the intervention, in one case as a supplement to a classroom-based program
(Bierman et al., 2008) and in two cases as the focus of training (Havighurst
et al., 2010; Van Bergen et al., 2009). In the Havighurst et al. (2010) study
parents showed various improvements in their emotion socialization practices

as a result of the six-week training program; they were less dismissive and more
empathic, for example, and they used more emotion labels and engaged in
more emotion coaching. Their children, in turn, showed greater gains in emo-
tion knowledge across the course of the study than did a control sample. Like
the Taumoepeau and Reese study discussed earlier, Van Bergen et al. (2009)
trained mothers in the use of an elaborative style when reminiscing with their
children; in this case the training also encouraged a focus on emotional con-
tent. Mothers showed an increase in the use of an elaborative style as a result of
the training, and their children increased in both emotion talk and understand-
ing of the causes of emotion.
Microgenetic Studies
Microgenetic research is a form of longitudinal research. As proponents of the
approach emphasize, however, a microgenetic study differs in important ways
from a typical longitudinal study. A strength of longitudinal research is that it
provides a direct measure of change. Most longitudinal studies, however, are lim-
ited to documenting the results or products of change. That is, they tell us what the
individual is like at time 1 and time 2 and time 3. But they do not tell us how the
changes from 1 to 2 to 3 come about, and they do not tell us about any intermedi-
ate states between 1 and 3 that are not represented in the times of measurement.
Microgenetic studies are intended to address these limitations. The essence of
the microgenetic approach is repeated, high-density observations of the behaviors
being studied across a period when change is occurring. In contrast to a standard
longitudinal study, the observations are more frequent and therefore more closely
spaced, and there is an emphasis on capturing not just levels of performance but
processes of change. In the words of Amsterlaw and Wellman (2006), “an optimal
microgenetic environment is one that both regularly assesses children’s chang-
ing competence on a given task and also provides experiences likely to foster the
changes of interest” (p. 141).
Robert Siegler (2006), one of the leading advocates of the microgenetic
approach, identifies five issues related to cognitive change for which microgenetic
techniques can be informative. Such techniques can inform us about the path of
cognitive change: the sequences and levels through which children move in acquir-
ing new knowledge. They can provide information about the rate of change: how
quickly or slowly children master different forms of knowledge. They speak to the
issue of breadth of change: when children acquire a new competency, how nar-
rowly or broadly they apply it. They are relevant to the question of possible vari-
ability in the pattern of change: Do all children follow the same route in mastering
a new concept? Finally—and most relevant to current interests—m icrogenetic
methods can provide information about the sources of change: the experiences
and processes through which children acquire new knowledge.
As I noted at the start of the chapter, microgenetic studies of theory of mind
constitute a small literature, consisting at present of six studies (Amsterlaw
& Wellman, 2006; Flynn, 2006; Flynn, O’Malley, & Wood, 2004; Guajardo,
Peterson, & Marshall, 2013; Rhodes & Wellman, 2013; Wahl, 2001). All have
concentrated on the preschool period and the development of false belief.
I take the Amsterlaw and Wellman (2006) study as an example. Their partici-
pants were 3-and 4-year-olds, all of whom had failed pretest measures of false
belief. Each child took part in 12 microgenetic sessions, two sessions per week
spread across 6 weeks. During each session the child responded to two false
belief problems, with different problems used across sessions. All of the problems
involved judging the belief of a story character in a typical false belief scenario—
thus where the character would look for a displaced object or what he or she
would think was in a misleading container. Following the child’s answer (which,
at the start, was almost always wrong), the experimenter demonstrated how the
character would in fact respond, a response that always reflected the behavior of
someone with a false belief (for example, a search in the original location rather
than the new location for the displaced object). The children thus received what
the researchers refer to as “implicit feedback”—not a direct contradiction of
their answers but evidence nevertheless that the answers were wrong. In the final
phase of the procedure the child was asked to explain why the story character had
thought or behaved in the way described.
The microgenetic experience resulted in a marked improvement in false belief
understanding, a move from 21% correct on the pretest to 71% correct by the end
of the study. A control group that was simply pretested and posttested showed
no change from pre-to posttest. Improvement for the microgenetic group was
evident not only on the kinds of problems presented during the sessions but also
on a form of false belief (the self question on the contests task) that had never
been presented. The improvement across sessions was gradual rather than abrupt,
and fluctuations and temporary regressions in performance were common. Thus
there was often a transitional period between when children were first correct on a
particular kind of problem and when they were consistently correct. Other micro-
genetic studies of false belief have reported the same pattern (Flynn et al., 2004).
In explaining their results, Amsterlaw and Wellman (2006) stress the impor-
tance of the explanations that the children provided in response to the implicit
feedback. As the authors note, a good deal of evidence is compatible with a for-
mative role for explanations in cognitive development (see also Siegler & Lin,
2010, and Wellman, 2011). We saw in Chapter 7 that mental state talk that is
high in explanations can be especially helpful for theory-of-m ind development,
and we saw earlier in this chapter that explanations can be a helpful component
of attempts to train children. Although most such explanations are provided by
adults, the Amsterlaw and Wellman results indicate that children may be able to
generate helpful explanations themselves. Support for this conclusion is found in
another microgenetic study. Indeed, Guajardo et al. (2013) reported that a condi-
tion in which children provided explanations themselves led to more change than
one in which they received explanations from the experimenter.
Not all of the children in Amsterlaw and Wellman’s (2006) microgenetic con-
dition improved, and none of the pretest or demographic information in the study
predicted which children would be the ones to show improvement. A subsequent
study by Rhodes and Wellman (2013) provides more information on these issues.
In addition to a microgenetic component, their study administered the Wellman
and Liu (2004) theory-of-m ind battery as a pretest (see Table 2.3). Although all
of the children failed the false belief component of the battery, some were able to
succeed on the developmentally simpler knowledge access task. Understanding
of knowledge access proved to be a strong predictor of progress in response to
the microgenetic experience: Children who passed the access task had more
than twice as many correct responses on the false belief posttest as did those
who failed. I will add that a similar finding emerged in a theory-of-m ind train-
ing study with deaf children; again, response to the Wellman and Liu battery was
a strong predictor of developmental advance (Wellman & Peterson, 2013). The
general conclusion here applies to both training studies and microgenetic stud-
ies: For new experiences to be beneficial, children must be developmentally ready
to profit from the experiences.
In general, the results from other microgenetic studies appear compatible with
Amsterlaw and Wellman’s (2006) emphasis on implicit feedback accompanied
by self-generated explanations. Although experience with the task alone some-
times results in improvement, effects are not as strong or as consistent as those
that occur when explanations are generated (Flynn, 2006; Flynn et al., 2004).
Feedback alone in the absence of explanations also produces limited progress at
best (Guajardo et al., 2013; Wahl, 2001).
How do the conclusions from microgenetic research compare with those from
training studies? There clearly are similarities. Most generally, both research lit-
eratures demonstrate that theory-of-m ind development is affected by experience,
and more specifically, both literatures indicate that feedback and explanations are
among the kinds of experience that can nurture development. The microgenetic
studies, however, possess two related strengths in comparison to training stud-
ies. First, their emphasis on the child’s active role in learning provides a valuable
corrective to the focus on adult teaching that is built into to the training study
approach. Second, microgenetic studies could be argued to be higher in exter-
nal validity, given that we know, contra the training approach, that children do
not master theory-of-m ind concepts by having adults deliberately and repeatedly
teach the knowledge to them. This, in fact, is an argument that Amsterlaw and
Wellman (2006) make in support of the microgenetic approach.
However strongly we may emphasize the child’s active role, theory of mind
cannot develop in a social vacuum—t here must be a social environment within
which other people furnish the child with information about mental states. What
do microgenetic studies tell us about how parents might contribute? Clearly,
the message is not that parents contribute by repeatedly presenting false belief
problems to their children—m icrogenetic studies have their own issues of exter-
nal validity. Still, it is possible to argue—as Henry Wellman has in fact argued
in various places (Amsterlaw & Wellman, 2006; Wellman, 2011, 2014)—that
the processes identified in such studies have plausible links to experiences that
parents make available to their children. Parents (to varying degrees) provide
feedback, both explicit and implicit, with respect to their child’s reasoning
about mental states, in some instances in conversations with the child, in some
instances through overheard conversations with the child’s siblings or others, and
in some instances through behaviors that the child observes. Parents also furnish
explanations concerning the nature, causes, and effects of mental states, in some
instances spontaneously and in some instances in response to questions from
the child, and they pose questions that offer children an opportunity to generate
their own explanations. Parents are not the only source for such experiences—
siblings, peers, teachers, and storybooks also contribute. But in the early years,
when so much of theory-of-m ind development occurs, parents may be especially
important.
Learning from Others
As I noted at the start of this chapter, the literature under this heading is a large
and rapidly growing one. Fuller discussions than I provide can be found in several
sources, including P. L. Harris (2012); Robinson and Einav (2014); and Stephens,
Suarez, and Koenig (2015). A chapter by Gelman (2009) provides a more general
overview of social contributors to cognitive development.
Paul Harris is the progenitor of this line of research, and he has presented the
rationale for such study in a number of places (e.g., P. L. Harris, 2007, 2012). The
rationale is, at least in retrospect, a seemingly obvious and presumably uncon-
troversial one. It is that children learn not only through their own independent
experiences and actions on the world, the emphasis during the Piagetian era of
developmental study; they learn also from what other people tell or show them.
Indeed, there are many things that can be learned only from information that
other people provide, because they involve knowledge for which direct, first-
hand experience is simply not available. This point applies to any historical fact
that predates the individual’s lifetime, it applies to many of the conclusions of
science (e.g., that germs exist, that the world is round), and it applies to religious
and other supernatural beliefs. In the words of Paul Harris (2007), we need
others “to understand the historical past, the microscopic, or the metaphysical”
(p. 135).
An emphasis on learning from others does not mean that children passively
absorb whatever information comes their way. The Piagetian belief in the active
child remains very much a part of this research literature. Children must be
ready to assimilate any new information that they encounter, and they are active
and selective in what they attend to and what they retain (Sobel & Kushnir,
2013). Indeed, this emphasis is captured in the common label for this body of
research: “Trust and Skepticism.” Children do not blindly accept whatever they
are told; rather, they are selective in what information they trust and what they
reject. A basic question underlying this research is what governs this selectivity.
Methods and Findings

I take one of the first such studies as an example of how this research is typically
done. Koenig and Harris (2005) presented their 3-and 4-year-old participants
with two adult women, each of whom provided labels for a set of common objects
(ball, cup, book). One of the women was consistently accurate in her labeling;
the other, however, was wrong in every case (e.g., she labeled the book a “shoe”).
This initial phase was followed by a second presentation of objects, but in this
case unfamiliar ones that the children had never encountered before. Both of the
women were still present, and the children were asked which woman they would
select to tell them the names of the new objects. Regardless of the choice, both
women went on to provide contrasting labels for each of the objects, in this case
novel labels that the child had never heard before (e.g., a woven object was labeled
a “mido” by one woman and a “toma” by the other). The children were then asked
which woman they believed had provided the correct names.
Although they showed some ability to distinguish between the two informants,
the 3-year-olds were not above chance in their choices of either whom to ask or
whom to believe. Four-year-olds, however, showed a clear differentiation: They
selected the more reliable informant as the source for learning something new,
and they placed their trust in the answers that she provided rather than those of
her consistently erring counterpart.
The Koenig and Harris (2005) study is just one of a large number of studies to
show that preschool children can use differential accuracy or expertise to make
sensible choices between possible informants. Although effects are clearest by
age 4, in some studies 3-year-olds also distinguish between more and less reliable
sources of information. Indeed, in some studies infants have been shown to do so.
In one study, for example, infants first saw an adult who looked into a container
and responded with excitement (Poulin-Dubois, Brooker, & Polonia, (2011). In
one case (the reliable adult condition) the container held a toy; in the other case
(the unreliable adult condition) the container was empty. When subsequently
given a chance to imitate a novel action performed by the adult, infants showed
much more imitation of the reliable informant.
What factors govern children’s selectivity? Koenig and Stephens (2014) indi-
cate that two are primary. One is the factor already discussed: the accuracy or
expertise of the informant. The other is what they label benevolence: the warmth
or friendliness exhibited by the informant. Children place more trust in benevo-
lent informants than in those whose behavior is less positive. Even infants show a
preference for the more benevolent of two potential informants (Hamlin, Wynn,
& Bloom, 2007).
Although accuracy and benevolence may be the most important determinants
of trust, they are hardly the only factors that have been studied, or that have been
shown to affect how children respond to would-be informants. Table 9.3 lists
some of the other determinants that have been explored, each of which has been
shown to have some effect on children’s response.
What sorts of learning are demonstrated in these studies? By far the most com-
mon outcome measure is the outcome examined in the Koenig and Harris (2005)
study: learning of object labels. This emphasis is understandable, given the clear
dependence of language learning on input from others. Table 9.4 lists some of the
other outcomes that appear in the literature.
As Koenig and Stephens (2014) note, the entries in Table 9.4 divide into two
categories. Most are forms of semantic knowledge, which is the label for generally
held, conventional forms of knowledge about the world. The names for objects fall
in this category; so too (to take two other examples from Table 9.4) does knowl-
edge of object functions or body parts. In contrast, episodic knowledge refers to spe-
cific facts that are tied to a particular time and place. Object identity and object
location, at least as examined in these studies, are forms of episodic knowledge.
The semantic–episodic distinction has implications for how expertise is stud-
ied. In the case of semantic knowledge, expertise is a general characteristic of the
informant, a characteristic that is conveyed to the child either through the infor-
mant’s behavior (as in the object labeling studies) or through a description pro-
vided by the experimenter (e.g., a person “who works with many different kinds of
animals, who knows a lot about animals that we don’t know about”—Boseovski &
Thurman, 2014, p. 828). In the case of episodic knowledge, expertise is not a gen-
eral characteristic but rather is situation-specific; one informant has been shown
to have information not available to the other. If, for example, one informant looks
inside a box and the other does not, then it makes sense to believe what the first
one says about the contents of the box. These studies make clear that children as
young as preschool age can make use of either kind of information. Furthermore,
if the situation requires, they can differentiate between the two types, using either
general-characteristic or situation-specific information as appropriate (Brosseau-
Liard & Birch, (2011).
Table 9.3 Examples of Contrasts between Informants Included in the
Learning-f rom-Others Literature
Contrast Source
Accuracy/expertise Landrum & Mills (2015)
Benevolence Lane, Wellman, & Gelman (2013)
Confidence Birch, Akmal, & Frampton (2010)
Consensus Corriveau & Harris (2010)
Honesty Li, Heyman, Xu, & Lee (2014)
Age VanderBorght & Jaswal (2009)
Gender Taylor (2013)
Familiarity Corriveau & Harris (2009)
Group membership Chen, Corriveau, & Harris (2013)
Accent Kinzler, Corriveau, & Harris (2010)
Attractiveness Bascandziev & Harris (2014)
Strength Fusaro, Corriveau, & Harris (2011)
Physical disability, obesity Jeffer & Ma (2015)
Table 9.4 Examples of Topics Included in the Learning-f rom-Others Literature
Topic Source
Object labels Koenig & Harris (2005)
Object functions Birch, Vauthier, & Bloom (2008)
Object identity Robinson, Haigh, & Nurmsoo (2008)
Object location Jaswal, Croft, Setia, & Cole (2010)
Causal actions Birch, Akmal, & Frampton (2010)
Tool use DiYanni, Nini, Rheel, & Livelli (2012)
Problem solving Cluver, Heyman, & Carver (2013)
Perceptual estimation Corriveau & Harris (2010)
Body parts Luu, de Rosnay, & Harris (2013)
Toys VanderBorght & Jaswal (2009)
Strangers Boseovski (2012)
Strange animals Boseovski & Thurman (2014)
Theory of Mind
How does this work relate to theory of mind? Basically, selection among infor-
mants is theory of mind—t he child is using knowledge or beliefs about people
to make decisions about how to respond to them. In Wellman’s (2014) words,
learning from others “is saturated with theory-of-m ind features and understand-
ing” (p. 260). Of course, this point leaves open the question of whether the beliefs
being used are appropriate or not. Investing trust in the more attractive or less
obese of two informants does not suggest much understanding of the characteris-
tics that underlie the behaviors of interest. In most instances, however, children’s
selectivity shows a more impressive use of their theory-of-m ind knowledge. Such
is certainly the case in the most consistent finding from this literature: placement
of greater trust in the more knowledgeable or expert of two sources.
If selection among informants reflects theory of mind, we would expect to find
relations between selectivity and standard theory-of-m ind measures. Although
such is not always the case (e.g., Pasquini, Corriveau, Koenig, & Harris, 2007;
Robinson & Nurmsoo, 2009), it usually is (e.g., Brosseau-Liard, Penney, &
Poulin-Dubois, 2015; DiYanni, Nini, Rheel, & Livelli, 2012; Lucas, Lewis, Pala,
Wong, & Berridge, 2013). In particular, children with the requisite theory-of-
mind knowledge may be able to go beyond simply noting an informant’s accuracy
or inaccuracy to infer the reasons for being right or wrong. They may, for example,
place more credence in an informant whose correct responses are self-generated
rather than in one who needs help, and they may forgive inaccuracy in an infor-
mant who had insufficient information to work with but not one whose errors are
internal rather than external in origin (Robinson, Nurmsoo, & Einav, 2014).
The contrast just noted between the two erring informants brings up another
way in which the learning-from-other studies relate to—and also add to—the
general theory-of-m ind literature. It concerns the distinction between situational
and individual bases for mental state attributions, a distinction first proposed for
the perspective-taking literature by Higgins (1981). In some instances the attri-
butes of a target that must be judged, as well as differences between targets, are
situational in origin. Such is the case, for example, if one target has received ade-
quate information for some judgment whereas the other has received inadequate
or misleading information. In other instances the attributes of a target that must
be judged, as well as differences between targets, are individual in origin. Such is
the case, for example, if one target consistently provides correct labels for objects
whereas a second target, placed in the identical situation, is consistently incor-
rect. Here the differences between targets are brought to the situation rather than
created by it.
Theory-of-m ind research has been heavily skewed toward the situational
determinants of mental states (Miller, 2000). The false belief task is the clearest
but far from the only example of this point. In a standard false belief task it makes
no difference whose belief is being examined—anyone, faced with the particu-

lar situation, should form a false belief (just as anyone, given adequate informa-
tion, should form a true belief). Children’s ability to make such judgments tells us
nothing about whether they know anything about possible differences between
children and adults, or between boys and girls, or between experts and novices, or
between parents and teachers—in short, tells us nothing about their understand-
ing of how the individual dimension affects knowledge and belief. The learning-
from-others studies provide a welcome broadening of the scope for children’s
theory-of-m ind efforts.
The discussion to this point has concerned theory of mind as a contributor
to learning from others. What about the reverse causal direction: learning from
others as a contributor to theory of mind? Much of this book, of course, has had
to do with exactly this question. To date, however, the learning-from-others
literature is largely silent on the subject. As Table 9.4 shows, the focus in this
research has been on learning about the physical world; indeed, more than half
of the studies have been directed to a single aspect of the physical world, namely
object labels. There are two exceptions. Boseovski (2012) showed that 3-to 7-
year-olds learned aspects of an adult’s personality—specifically, whether “nice”
or “mean”—from descriptions provided by others, and that they were most
influenced by an informant who had previously been established as reliable.
In Kim and Harris (2014) information about a target’s mental states (dreams,
preferences, desires, knowledge) was provided by two informants, one of whom
acquired the information through normal communication channels and one of
whom used mind-reading skills to access the mental content. Five and 6-year-
olds preferred the mind reader as a source of information, both with respect to
mental states and with respect to learning object labels. This study tells us some
interesting things about children’s belief in what the authors label “extraordinary
minds,” but its relevance for theory-of-m ind learning is not clear, given that there
are in fact no mind readers from whom children can learn.
Parents
This literature is also largely silent on the role of parents. To my knowledge, only
a single study has included a parent as one of the possible informants. Corriveau
et al. (2009) began by assessing attachment in a sample of 15-month-olds, an
assessment that identified three typical attachment types: secure attachment,
avoidant attachment, and ambivalent attachment. When the children reached
the age of 4 they participated in a selective learning study, with object labels
and object functions as the content, in which the mother of each child served
as one informant and a stranger served as the other. Children from all three
attachment groups placed more trust in their mother’s claims than in those
of the stranger; the difference for the avoidant group, however, fell short of
significance, and the difference for the ambivalent group was actually greater
than that for securely attached children. A year later the children participated
in another selective learning study with mother and stranger; in this case, how-
ever, the mother systematically provided less plausible object labels than did
the stranger. When plausibility was pitted against familiarity, children with
both secure attachments and avoidant attachments opted for plausibility and
thus the stranger; the ambivalently attached children, however, still placed
more trust in the mother. What these findings suggest is that children tend
to trust their mothers more than other female adults; this trust is not abso-
lute, however, and it varies to some extent with attachment status. Children
with ambivalent attachments may be overly dependent on the mother and thus
overly ready to believe whatever she says.
Serving as informants is not the only way in which parents might contribute to
what their children learn from others. Children vary in how often they seek help
from others and in how appropriately selective they are when they do seek help,
and aspects of parenting can contribute to these differences (Luce, Callanan, &
Smilovic, 2013; Puustinen, Lyyra, Metsapelto, & Pulkkinen, 2008). Luce et al.
(2013), for example, found that children whose parents stressed evidence when
reasoning about scientific problems were themselves more sensitive to the impor-
tance of evidence when encountering and evaluating new information.
Although they do not figure importantly in the work being reviewed now,
parents do appear in three other related literatures. One is the social referenc-
ing literature discussed in Chapter 6. As we saw there, conclusions about the
mother as a preferred source for social referencing vary with the context. When
emotional reassurance is one of the goals of the referencing attempt, then moth-
ers are usually the preferred source. When simply learning about something
novel is the goal, then infants, just like older children, apparently prefer the more
expert of two sources. Recall that this was the conclusion from the studies by
Stenberg and associates (Schmitow & Stenberg, 2013; Stenberg, 2009; Stenberg
& Hagekull, 2007).
A second set of studies in which parents appear is an older literature that,
despite its clear relevance, has gone largely unmentioned in the work on trust and
skepticism. As the label suggests, research on information seeking is directed to
children’s ability to seek out appropriate sources of information when faced with
some task to solve. The most comprehensive program of such research, by Bar-
Tal and associates (Bar-Tal, Raviv, Raviv, & Brosh, 1991; Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv,
& Houminer, 1990; Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv, & Peleg, 1990), has examined both
different domains in which children seek information (e.g., school work, science,
social relations, personal feelings, values) and different informants among whom
they choose (e.g., parents, teachers, siblings, friends). The most general conclu-
sion from the research is that children as young as age 5 make differentiated judg-
ments in the sense that their preference for different sources varies sensibly with
the content area in question. Furthermore, for most children parents are gener-
ally valued sources across all content areas, including the intellectual domains.
Although children offer a variety of explanations in support of selection of a par-
ticular source, the most commonly offered explanation is knowledge: The source
has expertise for the topic in question.
A final literature is that directed to children’s questions. As any parent of a
young child knows, children ask many questions—in one study of in-t he-home
observations, children between the ages of 2 and 5 asked an average of one to
three questions per minute (Chouinard, 2007). Although such questions can have
many goals, a high proportion are requests for some sort of information (and not,
for example, attention seeking or requests for objects), and a high proportion of
the information-seeking attempts are requests for explanations. Although expla-
nations of various sorts may be sought, by preschool age the most commonly
sought explanations are those for human actions, which, of course, is a prototypi-
cal theory-of-m ind topic (Hickling & Wellman, 2001). Children, moreover, are
persistent in their questioning, for if a satisfactory response is not forthcoming
the “why’s” often continue until one is produced. Finally, although questions can
be directed to various recipients, by far the most common targets, especially in
the early years, are the child’s parents. As both Chapter 7 and the present chap-
ter have shown, parent–child discussions about mental states, especially discus-
sions that focus on explanations, are fertile ground for developmental advance.
The work on questions makes clear that children are often the instigators of such
discussions.
How might the three research literatures just discussed add to the conclusions
from the work on learning from others? Clearly, the experimental control that
characterizes the learning-from-others studies, coupled with the ingenuity of
many talented researchers, has made possible a number of interesting discoveries
about what and whom children believe or disbelieve. These discoveries, however,
have been tied to a narrow range of distinctly artificial laboratory procedures.
At this point in the research endeavor it may be time to begin to focus more on
how the various conclusions play out in real life (a point made by others who have
assessed this work—Dore, Lillard, & Jaswal, 2014; Lucas & Lewis, 2010). One
way to do so would be more research that includes the informants from whom
children actually learn—t hus not experimenters but parents, teachers, siblings,
peers. Another way to do so would be more attempts to identify real-l ife analogues
to what has been shown in the laboratory. The work on children’s questions is a
promising start in this direction.
Conclusions
This section begins with a bit more about a theme that has run throughout this
chapter, the construct of external validity. It then moves on to suggest several
directions for future research.
The question of external validity is the question of the movement from can to
does. The strength of the experimental approach is the establishment of cause-and-
effect relations—in the present case, the identification of a number of kinds of
experience that can promote theory of mind. The weakness of the approach is the
artificiality that laboratory control often entails and the consequent uncertainty
about whether any of these experiences actually does promote theory of mind.
This trade-off is, of course, a familiar one of which any researcher is well aware.
Nevertheless, familiar though the issue may be, it would be helpful to see more
explicit discussion of the question of external validity in the literatures reviewed
here. Two arguments can be offered in response to the artificiality criticism.
One is the converging-evidence argument: a demonstration that experimental
evidence and naturalistic-correlational evidence converge on the same conclu-
sion. As we have seen, such an argument can be made to some extent for each of
the literatures reviewed here, although more persuasively in some cases than in
others. The other is the use of laboratory procedures that map plausibly onto the
real-l ife situations of interest—procedures that, in short, are not artificial. Again,
studies vary in how close they come to this goal. Storybook reading as a way to
teach theory of mind certainly ranks high; repeated false belief trials followed by
explicit feedback, probably less so. Most of the learning-f rom-others studies also
fall in the less-so category.
The point just made about minimizing artificiality constitutes one suggestion
for future research. I will add three others.
The first suggestion is for more microgenetic study. Whereas two of the litera-
tures considered here are large and growing ones, the microgenetic literature is
still limited to a handful of studies. The microgenetic studies to date, moreover,
could be argued to be differentially successful with respect to the five goals identi-
fied by Siegler (2006). On the one hand, such studies have certainly informed us
about the path that children follow when mastering false belief, about variability
as they move along that path, and about the breadth of the resulting achievement.
On the other hand, they arguably have told us less about the sources of change,
including the role of social agents such as parents.
A second suggestion is one that I will return to in Chapter 10, for it applies
to many of the topics considered throughout this book—indeed, applies to
the theory-of-m ind literature in general. It concerns the need for more study
of developments beyond those that are essentially complete by age 5. Earlier
I singled out the few training studies that have focused on older children and
more advanced developments. Mills (2013) is a good source with respect to

the small number of learning-f rom-others studies that have been directed to
older samples.
The final suggestion is for more incorporation of parents into the various
experimental paradigms. This suggestion could, of course, be seen as special
pleading in a book devoted to the contribution of parents. The fact is, however,
that parents are almost certainly major contributors to most children’s theory-of-
mind development, and it would be valuable to have more attempts to make them
part of the experimental literature. Simply substituting parents for experiment-
ers in an otherwise unchanged procedure may be of limited value. What may be
more informative is to build experimental efforts on what are known to be natu-
rally occurring instances of parent–child interaction. Storybook reading is one
obvious example. The training studies devoted to mother–child memory talk are
another. The examples to date in the latter category also illustrate another pos-
sibility: to direct the intervention not to children but to the children’s parents.
Demonstrating that a change in the parent leads to a change in the child is clear
evidence of a causal role for parenting. As some of the larger parent-intervention
projects demonstrate, such efforts are not only of scientific interest; they may also
have considerable applied value.
10
Conclusions
This chapter addresses two general questions. The first section of the chapter
offers a summary of what we know about parenting and theory of mind. The sec-
ond section addresses what we still need to know.
How Important Are Parents?

One thing we know is that parents are not all-important for any aspect of their
children’s development, and this conclusion extends, of course, to theory of mind.
Experience of any sort is not all-important, because there clearly is a biologi-
cal underpinning for theory-of-m ind development. Some theorists, as we have
seen, believe that the biological underpinning is quite strong, taking the form of
innately given, encapsulated modules. Even for those (a majority) who do not sub-
scribe to such a strongly nativistic account, there must be some biological starting
point upon which experience operates.
The preceding argument applies to commonalities in development. Biological
factors also contribute to individual differences in theory of mind. That they con-
tribute to atypical forms of development, most obviously autism, has long been
clear. How strongly they contribute to individual differences within the typical
range is not clear from the limited, and partly contradictory, evidence garnered to
date (Hughes & Cutting, 1999; Hughes et al., 2005). The first of the two Hughes
studies reports a fairly substantial contribution of the genes, whereas the second
(the larger, and likely stronger, of the two studies) suggests a relatively small role
for genetics compared to various environmental factors. The fact that the sample
was older in the second study may account for part of the difference in results. In
any case, a general conclusion from research in behavior genetics is that virtually
every aspect of psychological development shows some effect of the genes. It is
doubtful that theory of mind is an exception.
Just as experience is not all-i mportant, so parents are not all-i mportant within
the category of experience. It has long been clear that interactions with siblings
and peers contribute to theory-of-m ind development. More recent evidence
261
indicates that other family members, teachers, and mass media also contribute.
It is good to remember as well that research has concentrated on the early child-
hood years, the time during which the influence of parents is likely to be greatest.
As children grow older, other social agents may well assume a more important
role. At present, however, this possibility remains speculative, given the dearth of
research with older children (a point to which I will return).
Once these various qualifiers are acknowledged, the general conclusion
about parenting and theory of mind is clear: Parents are important. Hundreds
of studies have reported positive relations between parental practices and chil-
dren’s theory of mind. The relations, moreover, are in the great majority of cases
expectable ones—t hat is, practices that we would expect, on either conceptual
or empirical grounds, to be favorable turn out in fact to be favorable. Although
most of the research is correlational, several further forms of evidence strongly
suggest that at least part of the causal basis is from parental practices to child
outcomes. Thus relations typically remain when various third-factor alternatives
are statistically controlled. Longitudinal studies (which are a frequent part of
the literature) consistently find that parenting earlier in development relates to
child outcomes later in development. Finally, in many instances experimental
studies provide converging evidence, in that potentially causal factors identified
in correlational study prove in fact to be causal when they are experimentally
manipulated.
How Are Parents Important?

The answer to this question has to be “in multiple ways,” ways that are often
hard to disentangle, for various contributors overlap and often work together. In
what follows I return briefly to four of the general categories discussed in earlier
chapters.
General Aspects of Parenting

In the general parenting literature, the most influential work under this heading is
that directed to the Baumrind styles of parenting. Two general conclusions emerge
from the Baumrind studies along with related research by others. A first is that
there are in fact identifiable differences among parents in their overall approach
to the task of parenting. The second is that some approaches to parenting work
out better than do others. In particular, the superiority of the authoritative style
is a well-established finding across a range of ages, samples, and developmental
outcomes. Although most of this research has concerned the control domain of
socialization (Table 3.5), evidence suggests that aspects of cognitive development
are also best supported by authoritative parenting.
Conclusions 263
Evidence also suggests that theory of mind is among the aspects of cognitive
development for which authoritative parenting is optimal. This was the conclu-
sion reached in the review of the relevant evidence in Chapter 4. As we saw there,
however, at present the support for such a conclusion is limited in two respects.
The first concerns measurement. A full, Baumrind-style assessment is rare in this
literature; rather, most studies have settled for abbreviated versions of the origi-
nal approach (thus the “definitional drift” referred to in Chapter 4). The second
limitation (which may well be related to the first) is that positive results are often
accompanied by numerous exceptions and qualifications.
More clearly established than the importance of overall style of parenting
is the importance of some of the dimensions or aspects of parenting that are
components of each of the styles. Results for the control dimension, to be sure,
are not totally consistent. The benefits of certain forms of firm control that are
found when behavioral compliance is the issue are at present less clear for theory
of mind. The detrimental effects of other forms of control, however, do appear
in at least most studies that have looked for them. In particular, strong control
in the absence of warmth and reasoning—which, of course, is the definition
of the authoritarian style—is associated with relatively poor theory-of-m ind
development.
More positively, three aspects of parenting are associated with relatively good
theory-of-m ind development. One is parental warmth. The value of a warm, sup-
portive relationship may be the most clearly established finding in the general
parenting literature; thus the work on theory of mind simply adds to the breadth
of this conclusion. The benefits of warmth are almost certainly multiply deter-
mined. Among other bases, a warm relationship increases the likelihood that par-
ent and child will spend time together, it makes it more likely that the child will be
attentive to messages from the parent, it enhances the parent’s effectiveness as a
model from whom the child can take on behaviors, and it increases the likelihood
that the child will be motivated to comply with and learn from the parent.
A second aspect of parenting that relates positively to theory of mind is rea-
soning. Again, the findings from theory-of-m ind research mirror those from the
more general parenting literature, in which reasoning of a variety of forms has
been shown to enhance the effectiveness of parenting with respect to a variety of
developmental outcomes. In the case of theory of mind, some of the effects of a
relatively high use of reasoning may be direct, in that parents who favor reason-
ing with the child may be especially likely to offer explanations for the causes and
effects of mental states. Some of the effects may be indirect, in that children who
have become accustomed to receiving reasons may be especially likely to seek
out explanations when faced with something they do not understand. As we saw
in Chapter 9, theory of mind is a common context for young children’s question
asking. And if the child’s parents value reasoning, then helpful answers are likely
to be forthcoming.
A third aspect of parenting that relates positively to theory of mind is sen-

sitivity. Sensitivity, it should be noted, can be a hard notion to pin down in the
literature; the concept has been operationally defined in various ways, and in
some uses it can be difficult to distinguish from warmth. Warmth is undoubtedly
part of what is necessary for sensitivity, but it is not sufficient (if it were, every
permissive parent would also be sensitive). What need to be added are both the
willingness and the ability to read signals from the child and to respond in ways
that are appropriate to the child’s needs. This is the form of sensitivity, or sensi-
tive responsiveness, originally identified by Ainsworth and colleagues (Ainsworth
et al., 1978), and it is the aspect of parenting that it is the best predictor of a secure
attachment relationship. Sensitivity in this sense is also a predictor of relatively
good theory of mind. As we saw in Chapter 5, part of the basis for this relation,
although probably not all, may stem from the fact that sensitivity promotes secure
attachment, and secure attachment enhances the likelihood of experiences from
which the child can learn about the mental world.
Talk
Not all theory-of-m ind development is dependent on language. As Chapter 6
made clear, learning about the mental world begins very early in life, well before
infants either understand language or produce language themselves. It is a task for
which they are clearly biologically prepared, although how strongly prepared is, as
we have seen, a matter of debate. Whatever the biological starting point, infants
also need information about the social world in order to learn about people, and
initially this information takes various nonverbal forms. Parental speech may
heighten the probability of attention to the relevant information, especially when
the speech is in the form of motherese. And by the second year of life the semantic
content of the speech may begin to play a role. Initially, however, theory of mind
is a nonverbal development.
It does not remain nonverbal for very long. Once we move beyond infancy,
language is clearly necessary for theory of mind. Part of the argument for this
conclusion is logical: It is difficult to see how children could ever come to reason
explicitly about invisible mental states, let alone talk about such states, without
language to represent those states. Part of the argument is empirical. Language
and theory of mind are closely entwined across the years when both are develop-
ing. Children’s ability to reason about mental states develops in close conjunc-
tion with their ability to talk about mental states. Individual differences among
children in linguistic ability relate to and often precede individual differences in
theory of mind. When language is absent or impaired (as is the case, for exam-
ple, in deaf children of hearing parents), theory of mind is also impaired. Finally,
experimentally induced improvements in relevant aspects of language—a com-
mon element in many training studies—lead to improvements in theory of mind.
Conclusions 265
It is under the heading of Talk that we find the clearest evidence for parents’
contribution to their children’s development of theory of mind. Parents vary in
both how often they talk about mental states and the ways in which they talk
about them, and such variations relate to a variety of aspects of their children’s
theory of mind. In general, the more talk children hear about mental states, the
more they talk about mental states themselves and the more quickly they master
various theory-of-m ind milestones. Not surprisingly, it is talk about a particular
mental state that is often most helpful for learning about that state—thus talk
about desires for coming to understand desires, talk about beliefs for coming to
understand beliefs, and so forth. In some instances, however, mental state talk of
any form can be helpful, a result that presumably reflects the interrelated nature
of mental states. A child with a nascent understanding of desire, for example,
may be helped by mother’s indication that brother “wants his toy” to realize that
brother believes that the toy is where he is now searching.
Not only the amount but the nature of mental state talk is important. In gen-
eral, talk is most helpful when it is appropriately directed to the child’s current
interests and understanding. It is most helpful, therefore, when the parent has
accurately judged what the child knows or wants to know. Talk is also most helpful
when it takes a connected form, that is, the utterances of each speaker are seman-
tically related to what the other speaker has just said. One form of connectedness
comes in response to child questions, a frequent occurrence, for children play an
active role in the learning process. In such cases it is obviously important not only
to be responsive but to be appropriately responsive, that is, to provide an answer
that speaks to what the child wants to know. Not all questions take an explicit
form, and it is therefore also important to be sensitive to questions that are only
implicit or to teaching opportunities more generally. Finally, talk is most helpful
when it does not simply mention mental states but elaborates in an informative
way with respect to the mental content being discussed. A focus on the causes and
effects of mental states is likely to be especially valuable.
Parents’ Beliefs
Each of the preceding sections prefigured the points to be discussed next. Parental
sensitivity is a positive aspect of parenting, but sensitivity can be achieved only
if the parent can accurately judge the child’s needs and interests. Parental talk
can help children learn about the mental world, but talk is most helpful when the
parent has accurately judged what the child understands and what the child still
needs to know. In short, knowledge of the child is an important component of
parenting and therefore an important contributor to theory of mind.
It is the work on mind-m indedness that provides the clearest evidence to date
for the importance of parents’ thinking about children. Relatively high mind-
mindedness—t hat is, a tendency to think about the child in mentalistic terms—is
associated with positive theory- of-m ind development. Especially beneficial

(although not all studies provide evidence on this point) is appropriate mind-
mindedness—that is, not just thoughts about the child but accurate thoughts
about the child. Conversely, inaccurate or non-attuned thinking is associated
with relatively poor theory of mind.
Work on emotion understanding constitutes the largest research literature
directed to parents’ thinking about theory of mind. This work presents a less con-
sistent picture than do the studies of mind-m indedness. Establishing relations
among parents’ beliefs, parents’ behaviors, and child outcomes is a challenge in
the general parents’ beliefs literature, and the difficulties are certainly evident in
the work on emotion understanding. Still, several general conclusions do emerge.
First, it seems clear that parents do hold beliefs about their children’s emotions;
indeed, emotions may well be the most frequent targets for parents’ thoughts
about their children’s mental lives. It is clear as well that these beliefs vary in qual-
ity; some are more accurate or more sophisticated or more appropriately directed
to the immediate target than are others. Although there is not a one-to-one rela-
tion between beliefs and behavior (a safe conclusion for any topic), parents’ social-
izing behaviors often do show sensible relations to the beliefs they hold. A belief
in the importance of guiding the child’s emotions, for example, is associated with
a heightened probability of providing labels for emotions. Finally, although the
relations are again hardly perfect, parents’ beliefs show expectable links to child
outcomes, with more accurate or more sophisticated beliefs associated with bet-
ter emotion understanding.
Indirect Contributors
Not all parental contributors involve the direct effects of parenting practices on
the development of theory of mind. Parents can also affect theory of mind by the
contribution they make to other aspects of their children’s development, aspects
that in turn feed into either the development or the expression of theory-of-m ind
abilities.
The most obvious example is language. The emphasis in both Chapter 7 and in
this chapter’s section on Talk has been on mental state terms. Mental state terms,
however, are by no means the only aspect of language that is relevant to theory of
mind. Individual differences in a variety of aspects of language relate to individual
differences in theory of mind. Recall that the Milligan et al. meta-analysis (2007)
discussed in Chapter 2 found that all five aspects of language that they examined
were significant predictors of theory of mind. Parents, of course, are not the only
contributors to such differences in language ability. They typically are major con-
tributors, however, and hence one way in which parents affect theory of mind is
through their effects on the child’s language.
Conclusions 267
The other well established contributor to theory of mind is executive function.

Individual differences in executive function have a variety of sources, including
genetic differences among children (Friedman et al., 2008). As we saw, however,
recent research indicates that parents are among the sources: Certain forms of
parenting are more likely than others to promote the development of executive
functioning. Hence another way in which parents affect theory of mind is through
their effects on the child’s executive functioning.
Language and executive function are not the only possible mediators between
parental practices and children’s theory of mind. As noted in Chapter 3, parents
contribute to their children’s success with peers, and interactions with peers, in
turn, contribute to theory of mind. Recent research indicates that temperament
also contributes to theory of mind (Lane et al., 2013). Like executive function,
temperament is multiply determined, including an important biological basis.
Parenting, however, is one of the determinants of children’s temperament, and
hence another way in which parents affect theory of mind is through their effects
on the child’s temperament. Finally, Chapter 5 was devoted to still another pos-
sible mediator: the attachment relationship. Security of attachment relates posi-
tively to theory of mind, and parents, of course, are the major determinants of the
nature of the attachment relationship.
Implications for Theories
To the extent that choice among theories of theory of mind proves to be empiri-
cally resolvable, it seems doubtful that research on parenting will play a deciding
role. Every theoretical position allows a role for social experience, and every posi-
tion is general enough to accommodate findings about the importance of experi-
ence, including the findings from studies of parenting. Once this point is made,
my own evaluation is that two positions fit most comfortably with the evidence
reviewed throughout this book. Indeed, with a handful of exceptions, only two
theoretical positions even receive mention in the parenting literature.
One, certainly, is the sociocultural approach. The central tenet of this approach
is the inherent embedding of theory of mind within the social world; thus the
importance of social experience, including parenting, is a clear prediction of the
approach. Beyond this general expectation, many of the more specific conclu-
sions from parenting research are clearly compatible with at least some versions
of sociocultural theorizing—t he importance of close relationships, for example,
or the effectiveness of certain kinds of linguistic input, or the value of working
within the child’s zone of proximal development.
The other position that seems to me to fit most comfortably with existing evi-
dence is the theory theory. Although the specific findings from parenting research
are not (I would say) clearly predicted by the theory theory, most are certainly
compatible with the theory’s emphasis on disconfirming or incongruent evidence
as a source of cognitive change. Furthermore, an account of change must specify

not only relevant experience but also what is done with that experience, and in
this respect theory theory is arguably stronger than any of its competitors, includ-
ing sociocultural approaches. We need to know, for example, when the child is
ready to benefit from new experience, and in what direction change will occur,
and how great the change is likely to be, and what further advances a particular
change will make possible—a ll points addressed most fully by the theory the-
ory. A recent book by Henry Wellman (2014), Making Minds: How Theory of Mind
Develops, is a thorough and up-to-date source for the theory theory approach to
cognitive change.
Implications for Parenting
Despite its two-part title, this is a book more about theory of mind than about par-
enting. The emphasis throughout has been on what the studies of parenting tell us
about the nature and development of theory of mind. This, not coincidentally, is
also the emphasis in most of the research reviewed. And this research, again not
coincidentally, has been carried out mainly by researchers whose primary back-
ground and primary interests are in theory of mind rather than in parenting.
Still, the increments in existing knowledge have not all been in one direction.
How does research on parenting and theory of mind add to what we know about
parenting? The most obvious way is by the addition of an important cognitive
outcome to a literature that has always been heavily skewed to aspects of chil-
dren’s social development. The addition, moreover, is a substantial one, consisting
of several hundred studies directed to various aspects of parenting and various
aspects of theory of mind. Indeed, with the possible exception of IQ , theory of
mind may be by now the most thoroughly explored cognitive outcome in the
parenting literature. This work has made possible an examination of the extent
to which factors known to be important for children’s social development (e.g.,
styles of childrearing, the attachment relationship) also contribute to theory of
mind. It has revealed the importance of factors (in particular, various aspects of
parental talk) that had previously received limited attention in the general par-
enting literature. And it has provided some of the clearest evidence in the parent-
ing literature for relations between what parents believe and how their children
develop.
Despite their cognitive focus, the studies of parenting and theory of
mind also add to what we know about the traditional target for childrearing
research: namely, the contributions of parenting to children’s social devel-
opment. They do so because children’s theory-of-m ind skills are one deter-
minant of how they fare in their social endeavors. Recall the partial list of
such cognitive-social links provided by the Astington (2003) quotation in
Chapter 2: communicative abilities, imaginative abilities, ability to resolve
Conclusions 269
conflicts and to maintain harmony and intimacy in friendships, contentedness

in school, empathy, and popularity. Thus one way in which parents affect their
children’s success in the social world is by nurturing the theory-of-m ind skills
that contribute to such success.
What Do We Still Need to Know?

Suggestions for future research have appeared in various places throughout this
book. Here I bring together and elaborate on what seem to me to be some of the
most important topics.
More About Fathers
The first suggestion is an obvious one. Conclusions about parenting will be lim-
ited as long as only one of the parents appears in the research literature.
The addition of fathers is a sensible suggestion for almost any sort of study
directed to parenting and theory of mind. Here I single out several ways in which
prior work suggests that the inclusion of fathers might be especially informative.
One concerns the consideration of mothers and fathers together. An emphasis
on the family as a system, and not simply each member in isolation, is, as we have
seen, a characteristic of modern parenting research. Such research has shown that
development generally proceeds best when the relationship between mother and
father is a positive one. It has also shown that development proceeds best when
the parents engage in cooperative coparenting, and thus have neither a hostile nor
an unbalanced division of labor. Both findings are expectable ones that presum-
ably extend to theory of mind; the relevant research, however, remains to be done.
We might also expect that development will proceed best when parents are
concordant in their approach to parenting. A prior question, of course, is how great
the spouse concordance is for various aspects of parenting. We saw that there is
evidence for moderate concordance with respect to both mind-m indedness and
general parenting style; for other aspects of parenting the situation is less clear.
The typical focus in research that includes both parents is on mean differences;
consistency between spouses is a less often reported statistic.
That spouse concordance is not necessarily always beneficial is shown by some
of the work on how parents’ response to children’s emotions relates to their chil-
dren’s emotion understanding. McElwain et al. (2007) reported that positive sup-
port by one parent was most beneficial when support from the other parent was
low. This finding was interpreted in terms of the divergence model: the idea that
exposure to different responses to emotion helps children to learn that a diversity
of perspectives exists. Whether the same point applies to other mental states is at
present unresolved, and thus an obvious possibility for future research.
As noted, most mother–father comparisons focus on mean differences. One

point to note is that differences are not always found, and when they do occur
they tend to be small in magnitude. In studies that report differences, it is gener-
ally mothers who assume the more important role: They are higher in the relevant
parenting practice (e.g., mental state talk), and their behavior shows stronger rela-
tions to the child’s theory of mind. There are, however, some interesting excep-
tions to this conclusion. One was noted in the discussion of social referencing in
Chapter 6: Fathers’ expressed anxiety had more effect on infants’ anxiety on the
visual cliff than did mothers’ expressed anxiety (Moller et al., 2014). Although
similar mother–father differences have been shown for aspects of older children’s
behavior, it is not yet clear whether fathers might have a stronger impact on some
aspects of emotional understanding than mothers do. Another exception to the
general pattern was revealed in the study by LaBounty et al. (2008), which found
that fathers’ mental state talk showed stronger relations to children’s mastery of
false belief than mothers’ talk did. Given the centrality of false belief to the study
of theory of mind, this is a finding that is clearly in need of replication and explica-
tion: Why should fathers’ talk be especially influential?
More Longitudinal Study
The second suggestion is also an obvious one. More longitudinal research is a tra-
ditional (although often hard to implement) suggested future direction for almost
any topic in developmental psychology.
In offering the suggestion here, I should note that the literature on parenting
and theory of mind hardly lacks for longitudinal study—it is, in fact, a strength of
this literature that so many studies have traced parent–child relations over time.
Some across-time links of interest, however, have received limited attention in
research to date. I identify three here.
One was first noted in Chapter 5. Research on attachment and theory of mind
includes a high proportion of longitudinal studies, but to date all of this work has
been in one direction: studies of the relations between attachment in infancy and
theory of mind later in development. What the literature lacks is work directed
to possible transactional relations between the two developments as both change
across the toddler and preschool years. Identifying such relations will require
longitudinal study in which both attachment and theory of mind are assessed at
multiple time points. Such studies could add to what we know about exactly when
and how the attachment relationship contributes to the development of theory
of mind. They could also provide evidence with respect to an as yet unexplored
possibility: namely, that theory of mind is not only affected by but also affects the
development of attachment.
The second proposed form of longitudinal study seems likely to appear with
increasing frequency in the coming years. As of this writing, only one study
Conclusions 271
(Thoermer et al., 2012) has examined within-child relations between the implicit

form of false belief that can be studied in infancy or toddlerhood and the explicit
form of understanding that emerges during the preschool years. Recall that this
study presented a mixed picture with regard to continuity: a significant relation
between the infancy measure and the procedurally similar unexpected location
test, but no relation with the procedurally dissimilar unexpected contents task.
More examination of the within-child links between the infant and preschool
developments could clearly aid in the task of figuring out how the first turns into
the second. And inclusion of parenting measures at various developmental points
could help determine whether and how parenting contributes to the transforma-
tion of implicit into explicit.
The third suggestion is for more longitudinal research that spans the preschool
and grade-school (or later) years. At present only a handful of studies have exam-
ined whether relatively fast mastery of preschool accomplishments such as false
belief predicts relatively fast mastery of more advanced forms of theory of mind
(Miller, 2012b). This question is of theoretical interest: To understand the more
advanced forms of knowledge, we need to know how they relate to and grow out of
earlier knowledge. Such research also speaks to the conclusions that we can draw
about the importance of parenting. That variations in parenting lead to variations
in preschool theory of mind is clearly important, given that theory of mind relates
to so many other aspects of children’s development. Still, eventually all typically
developing children are going to reach the same end point for concepts like false
belief, and if the early individual differences disappear after age 5 then the impact
of parenting would be short-l ived. Conversely, if early differences among children
predict later differences—which is what the limited research to date suggests—
then what parents do clearly takes on greater significance.
More Cross-Cultural Study
Both the parenting and the theory-of-m ind literatures began as the study of devel-
opment in Western cultures. Both have now expanded well beyond this starting
point, although the expansion has been greater for parenting than it has been for
theory of mind. The theory-of-m ind literature, to be sure, does now include con-
siderable work in both Asian and Spanish-speaking cultures. Most of the world’s
cultures, however, remain unexplored, especially traditional, nonindustrialized
cultures (for exceptions to this point, see Slaughter & Perez-Zapata, 2014). And
the scope is even more limited if our focus is on parenting and theory of mind.
Earlier chapters touched on several possibilities for cross-cultural study. One
concerns the work on sequences of development discussed in Chapter 2. As we
saw, this work has revealed an intriguing cultural difference in response to the
Wellman and Liu (2004) theory-of-m ind battery. Children from Western societies
succeed on the diverse-beliefs task before they succeed on knowledge/ignorance,
whereas for children from China and Iran the sequence is the reverse. This differ-
ence has been hypothesized to result from differences in parenting between the
two cultural settings, differences that in turn are assumed to reflect differences
in general cultural orientation: an emphasis on autonomy and independence and
self in Western cultures, an emphasis on relations and interdependence and fam-
ily in Eastern cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). To date, however, the hypoth-
esized links between parental practices and developmental sequences have yet to
be empirically verified. More generally, the interdependent–independent distinc-
tion suggests that there may be a number of on-t he-average differences in both
parenting practices and related child outcomes between Eastern and Western
societies. Some work directed to possible differences in theory of mind has begun
to appear—for example, the Vinden (2001) study of parenting styles discussed in
Chapter 4, or the studies of emotion talk reviewed in Chapter 7. Much, however,
remains to be done.
Another suggestion for cross-cultural study concerns the mind-m indedness
concept discussed in Chapter 8. As noted there, with two exceptions research on
mind-m indedness has been limited to families in Western cultures, and thus to
settings in which all parents can be assumed to possess at least some degree of
mind-m indedness. Whether this assumption holds for all the world’s cultures is
by no means clear (Lillard, 1998). At the least, sampling of a wider range of cul-
tures would almost certainly yield increased variation in the degree and perhaps
the nature of mind-m indedness, and thus an increased opportunity to determine
whatever effects mind-m indedness may have. Such an expansion in the range of
an independent variable has always been one of the primary rationales for cross-
cultural research. Note that the same point applies to a close correlate of mind-
mindedness: parental talk about mental states. Here, too, a wider sampling of
cultures would almost certainly result in greater variation in the parental practice
of interest.
One more point about such research is important to make. It is a point that fol-
lows from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, a theoretical perspective
introduced in Chapter 3 (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). One possible outcome of the
kind of cultural comparison just sketched would be a main effect—for example,
more use of mental state talk in Culture A than in Culture B. A further possi-
ble outcome, however, would be an interaction—for example, a greater effect of
mental state talk in Culture A than in Culture B. In Bronfenbrenner’s terms, we
would have an interaction between the microsystem (a particular parental prac-
tice) and the macrosystem (the culture within which the practice is embedded).
Such an interaction would suggest that the effective aspects of parenting may take
somewhat different forms and development may take somewhat different routes
in some settings than in others. Mizokawa and Komiya (2014) provide a fuller
discussion of possible applications of the ecological systems approach to research
on theory of mind.
Conclusions 273
More Study of Beliefs

As noted earlier under the Beliefs heading, the study of parents’ thinking about
their children has yielded some of the most interesting conclusions with respect to
how parents contribute to the development of theory of mind. Intriguing though
it is, however, the literature on parents’ beliefs is also the smallest of the literatures
reviewed in this book, and work to date therefore leaves much still to be learned.
One gap was noted in the earlier section. We need to know more about the
origins of individual differences in mind-m indedness—and indeed, of individual
differences in parental thinking more generally. More cross-cultural research is
one obvious prescription. The general literature on parents’ beliefs has shown
that parents’ thinking is often shaped less by personal experience than by socially
transmitted modes of thought. It seems likely that thinking about theory of mind
has a similar social/cultural grounding; most of the relevant research, however,
remains to be done.
In addition to the question of origins, we need to know more about the behav-
iors that follow from parents’ beliefs and that directly affect their children’s
development. Promising starts in this direction have been made with respect
to both mind-m indedness and beliefs about emotion understanding. The work
on mind-m indedness, for example, has shown links between mind-m indedness
and both sensitivity of parenting and mental state talk. One needed expansion
of this work is chronological: the exploration of possible links both before and
after the toddler-preschool period that has been the locus for most research to
date. An extension to infancy would be especially interesting. We know that
mind-m indedness can be measured in parents of infants, but we have only limited
information about whether such early mind-m indedness relates either to parents’
behavior with their infants or to infant theory of mind.
One limitation of the general parents’ beliefs literature is that relatively few
studies have explored parents’ spontaneous thinking about children; rather, most
studies have presented specific items to which parents must respond. The work
on theory of mind includes some welcome exceptions. The core construct in this
literature, mind-m indedness, is not assessed through some forced-choice selec-
tion among experimenter-provided alternatives; rather, open-ended methods are
used to elicit the parent’s spontaneous thinking about the child. Similarly, in the
Parker et al. (2012) study, focus groups and open-ended interviews were used
to elicit parents’ beliefs about their children’s emotions. Many aspects of theory
of mind, however, fall outside the scope of either of these efforts, and thus more
attempts to tap parents’ spontaneous beliefs are another possible direction for
future research.
My final suggestion is in a sense the opposite of what has just been said, for
the suggestion is to make more use of established instruments that define the
bases for parental response. The instruments in question are the parent-report
measures of theory of mind that are discussed in Chapter 8. Again, I will use the
Children’s Social Understanding Scale (Tahiroglu et al., 2014) as an example, for
it provides an exceptionally broad sampling of theory-of-m ind developments to
which parents can respond. At the least, research is needed to validate the scale for
its intended use: namely, as a parent-based rather than a child-based assessment
of theory of mind. The validation correlations reported in the original publication
were, at least in my opinion, only borderline adequate in this regard. But the scale
could also be used as an instrument to study not children but rather parents—
specifically, what parents believe about their children’s theory of mind. It could
be used, in fact, to address most of the questions of interest that were identified
in the Parents’ Beliefs chapter: how accurately can parents judge their children’s
development, where do individual differences among parents come from, how do
parents’ beliefs relate to their behavior, and how do parents’ beliefs relate to their
children’s development?
More Study of Older Children

This section could almost be titled “Some Study of Older Children,” given how
infrequently children older than the age of 5 or 6 appear in the research reviewed
throughout this book. Extending research on parenting and theory of mind
beyond the preschool period is an obvious prescription for future study. Such an
extension, of course, would not be only or mainly chronological; a concentration
on older children would also mean a focus on the more advanced theory-of-m ind
developments that characterize the post-preschool years. There are many such
developments; Chapter 2 included a sampling, and Miller (2012b) provides a
fuller review.
One question of interest has already been mentioned. At present, longitudinal
studies demonstrate some persisting effects of early parental practices on later
theory of mind. Most, however, do not follow children beyond the preschool
period (although there are exceptions—e.g., Adrian et al., 2007; Racine et al.,
2006). Thus we know that what parents do in infancy, or toddlerhood, or early in
the preschool years has some effect on development at age 4 or 5. But we know less
about whether effects are still evident at 7 or 8 or 9.
Nor do we know much about how parenting in middle childhood or later relates
to the theory-of-m ind developments that emerge at those times. A glance at the
summary tables in the preceding chapters reveals that only a handful of studies
have looked for possible links between parenting and advanced forms of theory
of mind. The relevant studies present a mixed picture: positive relations in some
cases (e.g., Hutchins et al., 2009) but null results in others (e.g., Humfress et al.,
2002). Note that such studies are not only of interest in themselves; they also are
necessary to interpret any across-time relations that longitudinal research might
reveal. We need to know, for example, whether a correlation between parenting
Conclusions 275
when the child was 4 years old and theory of mind when the child is 8 years old is
a true across-time relation or is carried by similar parenting practices at the older
age. Similarly, we need to know whether parent–child correlations at age 8 reflect
the importance of parenting at that age or are simply a carryover from what the
parent did when the child was 4.
In part, the study of older children would address the question of whether
parenting practices that have been shown to be important early in development
remain important later in development. But such research also has the potential
to reveal parent–child links not evident at younger ages. At the least, particular
practices almost certainly will take somewhat different forms as children grow
older, given the increase in complexity of both the child and the situations for
which theory of mind is required. A parent reasoning with her 12-year-old about
the child’s difficulties with a friend will face challenges—including use of her
own advanced theory-of-m ind skills—beyond those necessary to talk to a tod-
dler about the difference between “want” and “need.”
The extension of the parenting literature to older children also has the poten-
tial to add to what we know about the relative contributions of different social
agents to the development of theory of mind, including, of course, the relative
influence of parents. At present, most of the within-study examinations of the
different people in children’s lives have been confined to the first 3 or 4 years of
life—comparisons of different sources for social referencing or joint attention, for
example, or the studies by Dunn and associates of children’s interactions with
parents, siblings, and peers (e.g., Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991). Informative
though such research has been, it is limited to a period during which most chil-
dren’s social worlds are a good deal smaller than they will eventually be. Such
research does not tell us how the emergence of advanced theory-of-m ind abili-
ties is affected by parents, siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, pastors, or any of
the other figures in older children’s lives. Recall that a basic question in the older
literature on information seeking concerned the relative influence of different
informants. Studies of theory of mind would benefit from a similar commitment
to within-study examinations of different potential contributors.
More Study of a Variety of Individual Differences

My final suggestion goes back to a point first made in Chapter 2. Parenting
research addresses the question of where individual differences among children
come from. The focus on differences is intrinsic to the approach: to know whether
variations in parenting make a difference, we need variations in child outcomes
to which we can relate the variations. When theory of mind is the target of study,
the individual differences in question have most often been differences in rate of
development. The concentration on differences in rate follows from the nature of
the developments being studied. False belief, for example, is both universal (in
typically developing samples) and dichotomous (i.e., two levels: failure followed

by success). The only possible individual difference in such a case is a difference in
the speed of moving from failure to success.
Individual differences in rate of development are clearly important. Such dif-
ferences are predictive of a wide variety of other important aspects of children’s
development. Such differences are also predictive over time: Children who are
relatively quick to master early theory-of-m ind achievements are also relatively
quick to master later ones. Speed, therefore, does matter, and we clearly want to
know why some children develop more quickly than do others.
But this is not all that we want to know. Probably no one believes that all the
differences that exist among children in theory-of-m ind abilities reduce to differ-
ences in speed of reaching the same developmental end point. What other sorts of
differences might there be?
We have seen a handful of examples in earlier chapters. The work on sequences
of development provides one example. This work reveals a qualitative difference
among children that is not a matter simply of the speed of getting to some com-
mon developmental achievement. It is a difference, moreover, for which parenting
has been hypothesized to be the main determinant. As we have seen, however, the
relevant parenting research remains to be done.
Another example comes from the work just considered, that on advanced the-
ory of mind. Most measures of advanced theory of mind, such as Strange Stories
or the Eyes Test, are not dichotomous, pass-or-fail assessments; rather such mea-
sures offer a range of scores that differentiate among informants. Furthermore,
performance on many of these measures is not at ceiling even in adulthood;
thus the individual differences they identify are not only of the transient, rate-
of-development sort but rather constitute enduring differences among people.
Parents almost certainly contribute to these differences; again, however, most of
the relevant research remains to be done.
A third example comes from the other end of the typical age span for theory-of-
mind research. Developments such as joint attention or social referencing do have
an absent-to-present quality; initially infants are not capable of such behaviors,
and eventually the competencies emerge. But the main individual differences that
have been examined are not of the pass or fail sort but rather have to do with how
often, or under what circumstances, or with what effect infants exercise their abil-
ities once those abilities have emerged. And these differences, as research makes
clear, are ones for which parents are major contributors.
Studies of mental state talk provide still another example. Again, there is an
absent to present transition and a difference in rate of development, in that some
children begin to use mental state terms earlier than do others. Age of emergence,
however, has not been the focus of most research on mental state talk. The focus,
rather, has been on the amount or the nature of the talk, and thus (as with the
infancy studies) on what children do with their newfound abilities. And just as
Conclusions 277
with the infancy studies, research makes clear that parents are major contributors
to what children do.
The preceding are not the only possible examples of individual differences
in theory of mind other than differences in rate of development. In Chapter 2
I briefly sketched a few other (as yet mostly unexplored) possibilities, such as
differences in the certainty with which knowledge is held, or in the ease with
which it can be accessed, or in the breadth with which it can be applied. The
identification of such differences, of course, does not tell us where the differ-
ences come from, including whether parents play any role. But knowing what
needs to be explained is always the first step in coming up with explanations
for development. For present purposes, it is also a necessary step toward the
goal of obtaining a full picture of how parents contribute to their children’s
theory of mind.
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Adamson, L. B., 136, 146, 156 Attwood, T., 216
Adrian, J. E., 168, 172, 174, 177, 178, 182, Auerbach, S., 94, 124, 193
186, 188, 274 Avenevoli, S., 48
Ahnert, L., 114 Aznar, A., 192
Ainsworth, M. D. S., 44, 109, 111, 113, 115,
158, 215, 264 Babu, N., 173
Akar, D., 98 Baillargeon, R., 14–â•‰15
Akbari, E., 152 Baird, J. A., 142, 166
Akhtar, N., 142 Bakeman, R., 146, 156
Akmal, N., 253 Bakersman-Kranenburg, M. J., 89, 113,
Aktar, E., 160 116, 148
Alario, A. J., 152 Baldwin, A., 62
Alexander, S., 175, 182 Baldwin, C., 62
Alfieri, L., 245, 246 Baldwin, D. A., 139, 142, 218
Allen, J. R., 230, 237, 239, 240, 245 Ball, J., 202
Aloian, S., 233, 237 Bandura, A., 54
Als, H., 136 Banerjee, R., 101, 102, 103, 237
Alvarez, M. P. S., 134 Barends, N., 42
Amato, P., 64 Barnes, J. L., 178
Amsterlaw, J., 247, 248, 249, 250 Baron-Cohen, S., 31, 32, 38, 143, 229
Anders, T. F., 234 Barone, L., 117, 124
Anderson, K., 66 Bar-Tal, D., 256
Andrews, G., 22 Bartsch, K., 12, 13, 19–â•‰20, 185
Angeard, N., 232, 239 Bascandziev, I., 253
Apostoleris, N. H., 204 Bassett, H. H., 94, 96
Apperly, I. A., 15 Bates, E., 123, 139
Appleton, M., 230, 237 Bates, J. E., 69, 70
Appleyard, K., 115 Baumrind, D., 3, 43, 47, 59, 60, 61, 64, 70, 76,
Aram, D., 42, 186 81, 87, 108, 149, 262–â•‰63
Arnott, B., 205, 207, 208, 212, 213 Bayliss, A. P., 138
Arranz, E., 89–â•‰91, 117, 124 Beardsall, L., 21, 191–â•‰92, 275
Artamendi, J., 89, 117 Beck, S. R., 16
Arterberry, M. E., 148 Beebe, H., 46
Aschersleben, G., 23, 145, 160 Beeghly, M., 21, 167, 168, 178, 186
Ashcroft, A., 229 Begeer, S., 229
Aslin, R., 21 Behne, T., 142
325
326 A u t h o r I n d e x
Belenky, M. F., 218 Briers, S., 81

Bell, R. Q., 57, 69 Broberg, A. G., 204
Bellagamba, R., 143 Brockmeier, J., 233, 244, 245
Belsky, J., 42, 116, 219 Bronfenbrenner, U., 63, 272
Bendersky, M., 98 Brooker, I., 251
Benigni, L., 123 Brooks, P. J., 245, 246
Benjet, C., 204 Brooks, R., 138, 145, 147, 232, 239
Bennett, B. T., 16 Brosh, M. E., 256
Bennett, D. S., 98 Brosseau-Liard, P. E., 252, 254
Bennett, M., 243 Brotman, M. A., 192
Benson, J. E., 230, 238 Brouzos, A., 186
Berg-Nielsen, T. S., 223 Brown, J., 21, 179, 184, 187, 192, 202, 275
Berlin, E., 157 Bruce, J., 102, 105, 106, 169, 191
Berlin, L. J., 115 Bruner, J. S., 39
Berman, L. S., 204 Bryant, J. B., 174, 177
Berndt, T. J., 67 Bryant, P., 16
Bernier, A., 91, 125, 130, 206, 207, 212, 215 Buckner, J. P., 66, 192
Berridge, D. M., 34, 254 Bugental, D. B., 41, 66, 71
Berzenski, S. R., 97, 98, 99 Bukowski, W. M., 68
Bianco, F., 231, 237, 239 Buriel, R., 41, 61, 63, 66, 71
Bibok, M. B., 35, 91 Burt, S. A., 42
Bierman, K. L., 243, 245, 246 Burton, R. V., 49
Bigelow, A. E., 126, 152, 212 Butkovsky, L., 94
Birch, H., 69 Butler, S. C., 138
Birch, S. A. J., 252, 253 Buttelmann, D., 15
Bird, J. E., 204 Butterfill, S. A., 15
Biringen, Z., 152 Butterworth, G. E., 138
Bjorklund, D. F., 71
Black, A. E., 43 Cahill, K. R., 79, 85, 86
Black, C., 100 Caldwell, B. M., 89
Black, J. E., 202 Calkins, S. D., 220
Blair, K., 94 Call, J., 142
Blehar, M. C., 44 Callanan, M. A., 175, 189, 193, 256
Blevins-Knabbe, B., 202 Camaioni, L., 123, 139, 143
Blissett, J., 212 Camic, P. M., 206
Bloom, P., 178, 252, 253 Campbell, J. D., 49
Boekamp, J. R., 104 Campbell, M. D., 12
Bogels, S. M., 159, 160 Campos, J. J., 92, 140, 162
Bohlin, G., 129, 240 Camras, L. A., 92, 140
Bonazinga, L., 216 Cannon, E. N., 142
Bond, L. A., 174, 177 Carlson, E., 115, 142, 156
Boomstra, N., 202 Carlson, S. M., 35, 91, 125, 130, 207, 230, 238
Booth-LaForce, C., 67 Carmiol, A. M., 230
Bornstein, M. H., 49, 115, 148, 155 Caron, A. J., 14, 138
Bosacki, S. L., 31 Carpendale, J. I. M., 26, 28, 35, 39, 40, 91, 144,
Boseovski, J. J., 252, 253, 255 166, 175, 176, 182
Bost, K. K., 115, 117, 126, 130 Carpenter, M., 15, 139, 142, 154, 181
Boulos, S., 54 Carruthers, P., 14
Bowlby, J., 54, 68, 109, 113, 125 Carugati, F., 202
Boyle, P. A., 192 Carver, L. J., 253
Bradley, R. H., 89, 90 Cassidy, J., 94, 115
Bradmetz, J., 22 Castellino, D. R., 54
Bradshaw, D. L., 162 Castro, V. L., 221, 222
Braungart, J. M., 94 Cavallini, E., 231
Braungart-Rieker, J. M., 148 Ceauşescu, N., 105
Brazelton, T. B., 136 Celimli, S., 106
Bretherton, I., 21, 113, 123, 167, 168 Centifanti, L. C. M., 215
A u t h o r I n d e x 327
Cervantes, C. A., 193 Croft, C., 127

Chandler, M., 26, 28, 29 Croft, K., 17
Chang, H., 85 Cross, D., 9, 10, 11
Chao, R. K., 62 Cross, T., 219
Charman, T., 109, 145, 147, 173, 231, 236 Crouter, A. C., 75
Chee, Y. Y., 233, 237 Crowe, E., 78, 167, 169, 181
Chen, E. E., 178, 253 Csibra, G., 15, 139, 156
Chen, L., 233, 237 Cui, L., 41
Cherubin, E., 235, 244 Cumberland, A., 92
Chess, S., 69 Cummings, E. M., 64
Chevallier, C., 15 Curenton, S., 98, 99
Chiasson, L., 168, 172, 179, 180 Curia, J., 197
Chong, S. C. F., 16 Cutting, A. L., 81, 99, 261
Chouinard, M. M., 257
Chung, O. B., 202 Dack, L. A., 34
Cicchetti, D., 78, 102 Daddis, C., 202
Clark, M. A., 142 Dadds, M. R., 245
Clark, S. E., 78, 81, 88, 89, 117, 120, 124, Dale, N., 196
125, 126, 128, 129 Darling, N., 83
Clark-Carter, D., 124, 208 Davidge, J., 168, 179
Clarke-Stewart, A., 59, 60 Davidov, M., 71, 82
Claussen, A. H., 117, 126, 152–53 Davis, T. L., 202
Cleave, P. L., 197 Day, R. D., 64
Clemente, R. A., 168, 172, 174, 178 Deak, G. O., 155, 156
Clements, W. A., 11, 14, 33, 230, 235, 238 Deater-Deckard, K., 81, 85
Cleveland, E. S., 167, 180 de Barbaro, K., 155, 156
Clinchy, B. M., 218 Degotardi, S., 172, 219, 223, 224
Cluver, A., 253 de Holland Souza, D., 2
Coffield, C., 136 Demers, I., 206, 212, 213
Coffino, B., 115 Demicheli, P., 231
Cole, C. A., 253 de Miguel, M. S., 89, 91
Cole, K., 33, 79, 87, 88, 99 Denham, S. A., 94, 96–9 7, 124, 192, 193, 243
Cole, R. E., 62 de Rosnay, M., 22, 92, 117, 123, 166, 167, 174,
Collins, T. B. K., 167, 187 182, 188, 205, 207, 253
Collins, W. A., 49, 52, 115, 204 de Vente, W., 160
Colonnesi, C., 143, 145, 234 de Villiers, J., 198
Colvert, E., 106 de Villiers, P., 198
Conger, R. D., 202 Devine, R. T., 31, 34, 168, 179, 231, 237, 239
Conroy, S., 213 Devine, T. A., 85
Conry-Murray, C., 36 Devitt, K., 78, 181
Conte, E., 235, 244 De Wolff, M., 44, 116
Cook, E. T., 243, 245 Diamond, A., 240
Cooke, T., 22 Dickstein, S., 159, 162
Cooper, H., 202 Diego, M., 148
Coplan, R. J., 220 Diesendruck, G., 98
Coppa, D. F., 152 Dishion, T. J., 67, 74
Corriveau, K. H., 253, 254, 255 Dix, T., 103
Cortes, R. C., 243, 245 DiYanni, C., 253, 254
Couchoud, E. A., 94 Doan, S. N., 193, 194, 195
Cowan, C. P., 45 Dobrova-Krol, N. A., 89, 90, 106
Cowan, P. A., 45, 76 Dockett, S., 230, 239, 240
Coy, K. C., 46 Domitrovich, C. E., 243, 245
Coyne, J. C., 104 Donelan-McCall, N., 169
Craig, A. B., 221 Dore, R. A., 257
Crandell, L. E., 152 Dornbusch, S. M., 47, 62
Crittenden, P. M., 150 Doudin, P.-A ., 244
Croft, A. C., 253 Downey, G., 104
Doyle, E., 173, 176 Flavell, J. H., 17, 18, 22, 136, 230, 234, 238
Dunleavy, M., 197 Fletcher, B., 214
Dunn, J., 21, 22, 34, 99, 169, 179, 184, 186, 187, Fletcher, J., 85
191, 192, 275 Flom, R., 138, 140
Dunne, G., 245, 246 Flynn, E., 12, 248, 249
Dunphy-Lelii, S., 143, 146, 161, 162, 207, 209 Fonagy, P., 32, 87, 109, 117, 121, 122, 123,
Dunsmore, J. C., 94, 220, 221–22, 224 127, 132, 215, 219
Durand, L., 99 Foote, R. C., 12
Durand, T., 99 Fossum, K. M., 167, 187
Durrant, J. E., 204 Fox, J. K., 234
Dyer, J., 178 Fox, N, 107
Dyer-Seymour, J. R., 178 Fracasso, M. P., 126
Fradley, E., 130, 180
Eagly, A. H., 65 Fraley, R. C., 111, 114
Eaton, K. L., 92, 94, 220 Frampton, K. L., 253
Ebesutani, C., 228 Freedman-Doan, C., 65
Eccles, J., 65, 202 Freedman-Doan, K. S., 65
Eder, R. A., 86 Freeman, N. H., 34
Egeland, E. A., 115 Friedman, N. P., 35, 267
Egliston, K., 160 Fries, A. B., 107
Eilertsen, D. E., 128 Frischen, A., 138
Einav, S., 190, 250, 254 Frith, U., 31
Eisenberg, N., 74, 92, 96 Furnham, A., 202
Emde, R. N., 152 Furrow, D., 24, 168, 172, 179, 180
Ensor, R., 35, 79, 81, 84, 86, 105, 167, 168, Furstenberg, F. F., 62
169, 171, 172, 173, 179, 182, 187, 189, Fusaro, M., 253
190, 196
Ereky-Stevens, K., 207, 210 Gaffan, E. A., 152, 153, 155, 157
Erel, O., 31 Galende, N., 89–91, 101
Esbsensen, B. M., 16 Garcia Perez, R. M. G., 152
Estes, D., 162 Garner, P., 93, 99
Everett, B. A., 17 Garnett, M., 216
Evindar, A., 104 Garnham, W. A., 11
Garvin, M. C., 107, 152
Fabes, R. A., 74, 96, 97 Gauvain, M., 46, 61, 82
Fang, F., 23 Gavazzi, I., 233, 235, 244
Farrant, B. M., 79, 85 Geary, D. C., 71
Farrar, M. J., 33 Gelfand, D. M., 153
Farrow, C., 212 Gelman, S., 250, 253
Fay-Stammbach, T., 35 George, C., 111
Feil L. A., 203 Gergely, G., 139
Feinman, S., 140, 159 Gerrior, K., 212
Feiring, C., 159 Gershoff, E. T., 75–76
Fernald, A., 140 Gerson, S. A., 142
Fernyhough, C., 39, 124, 130, 173, 180, 205, Gilbert, K., 104
206, 207, 208, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215 Glasspool, R., 244, 246
Feufner, C., 114 Gola, A. A. H., 230, 237, 241
Field, D., 228 Goldberger, N. R., 218
Field, T. M., 148, 160 Goldfarb, W., 105
Fikke, L., 157 Goldman, N., 202
Fine, M. A., 75 Goldsmith, D. F., 153
Fishburn, S., 215 Goldsmith, H. H., 162
Fisher, P. A., 102, 105 Goodlin-Jones, B. L., 234
Fisher, T., 150, 156 Goodman, S. H., 104, 192
Fivush, R., 66, 167, 176, 190, 192, 193, 195 Goodnow, J. J., 54, 55, 71, 202, 204
Flanagan, P. J., 152 Goodwin, J., 220
Flavell, E. R., 17, 230, 234, 238 Goodyer, I., 32, 215
Gopnik, A., 9, 21, 24, 28, 37, 234, 236, 237, 239 Healy, S., 152
Gotlib, I. H., 104 Henderson, E. N., 153
Gottman, J. M., 220 Her, P., 221
Grace, S. L., 104 Hernandez-Reif, M., 148
Graczyk, P. A., 103 Hertenstein, M. J., 140
Graham, S., 204 Hetherington, E. M., 49
Graham, S. A., 147 Heyes, C., 15
Grazzani, I. G., 172, 173, 243, 245, 246 Heyman, G. D., 253
Greathouse, S., 202 Hickley, A. K., 257
Gredeback, G., 157 Higgins, E. T., 254
Green, F. L., 17, 230, 234 Higgitt, A. C., 123
Greenberg, M. T., 243, 245 Hill, J., 31
Greenwald, L. C., 151 Hill, K., 229
Greig, A., 104, 117, 124 Hill, V., 233, 237
Grolnick, W. S., 204 Himelstein, S. U., 204
Grossmann, T., 140 Hipwell, A., 81
Grube, D., 34 Hirsch, N., 22
Grusec, J. E., 41, 55, 66, 71, 76, 82 Hirschberg, L., 159
Guajardo, N. R., 78, 79, 81, 86, 88, 92, 100, 231, Hirsjarvi, S., 202
248, 249 Hiscock, J., 243
Gunnar, M. R., 106, 107 Hjelmquist, E., 195
Guo, Y., 33 Hobson, R. P., 152
Gupta, M. D., 180 Hofer, T., 23, 145, 160, 161
Hoff, E., 42, 63
Ha, C., 215 Hoff-Ginsberg, E., 176
Haden, C. A., 176, 193 Hoffman, M. L., 74
Hadwin, J., 228 Hofmann, S. G., 228
Hagekull, B., 158, 256 Hogrefe, G. J., 9
Haigh, S. N., 253 Hohenberger, A., 160, 161
Haight, W. L., 202 Holden, G. W., 41, 202, 203, 204
Hakim-Larson, J., 220 Holmes, H. A., 100
Halberstadt, A. G., 92, 94, 97, 220, 221 Holmes-Lonergan, H. A., 12, 79, 84, 87, 100
Hale, C. M., 231, 241 Hooven, C., 220
Hallinan, E. V., 142 Hort, B., 234, 238
Hamilton, B., 146 Houde, O., 232, 234, 238
Hamlin, J. K., 142, 252 Houminer, D., 256
Hammond, L., 213 Howard, A. A., 168, 172, 174, 186
Hammond, S. I., 91 Howe, D., 104, 117, 124
Happe, F., 29, 31, 32, 87, 106, 196, 237 Howe, N., 168, 172, 174, 175, 182, 183, 184
Hardin, C. A., 16 Howlen, N., 214
Harley, A. E., 223 Howlin, P., 229
Harlow, H. F., 110 Hsieh, K., 140, 159
Harris, J. R., 41, 50, 56, 57, 58, 67, 68–69 Hsu, H., 181
Harris, P. L., 17, 22, 37, 38, 92, 117, 122, 123, 134, Hsu, K., 157
166, 167, 170, 182, 190, 198, 199, 207, 224, Huang, Z., 84
228, 244, 246, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255 Hughes, C., 2, 12, 22, 31, 34, 35, 79, 81, 84, 85,
Harris-Waller, J., 214 86, 99, 101, 105, 124, 166, 167, 168, 169,
Hart, M. J., 105 179, 186, 188, 189, 190, 196, 237, 261
Hartmann, E., 128 Humfress, H., 80, 87, 117, 126, 274
Hasselhorn, M., 34 Hurtado, E., 202
Hastings, P. D., 202 Hutchins, T. L., 174, 177, 216, 218, 274
Hauf, P., 160 Hutto, D. D., 39
Havighurst, S. S., 223, 244, 245, 246 Hutton, D., 22
Hawes, D. J., 35
Hawk, C. K., 2 Iao, L., 231, 237
He, Z., 15 Inhelder, B., 18
Head, M. R., 75 Izard, C. E, 244, 245
Jacklin, C. N., 65 Koops, W., 145

Jambon, M., 36 Koren-Karie, N., 219
Jameson, P. B., 153 Kovacs, A., 139
Jaswal, V. K., 253, 257 Koyama, K., 194
Jeffer, S., 253 Krasno, A. M., 155
Jenkins, J. M., 34, 100, 152, 166, 167, 169, 171, Kreppner, J. M., 128
179, 184, 188 Kriakidou, C., 34
Jennings, K. D., 153 Kristen, S., 23, 145, 147
Jeon, H., 107 Krogh-Jespersen, S., 136
Jervis, N., 229 Kucirkova, N., 168, 191, 192
Jiaming, X., 232 Kuczynski, L., 48
Jing, Z., 11 Kuebli, J., 192, 193
Johansson, M., 127 Kuersten-Hogan, R., 191
Johnson, C., 22, 155, 244, 246 Kuhlmeier, V. A., 146
Johnson, F., 173 Kuhn, B. R., 76
Johnson, S., 140 Kujawa, A., 104
Jones, R., 31 Kulcsar, E., 153
Joormann, J., 104 Kurdek, L. A., 75
Joraschky, P., 128 Kurowski, C. O., 204
Jorna, R., 202 Kurtz-Nelson, E. C., 104
Jovanovic, B., 145 Kusche, C. A., 243, 245
Juffer, F., 89 Kvello, O., 223
Juffer, S., 116 Kwak, K., 158
Kalpakci, A. H., 126 LaBounty, J., 143, 146, 167, 172, 179, 185, 187,
Karn, M. A., 220, 222, 224 189, 192, 207, 270
Karstad, S. B., 223 Ladd, G. W., 68
Katz, L. F., 220 Lagace-Seguin, D. G., 220
Kay-Raining Bird, E., 197 Lagattuta, K. H., 167, 172, 193
Keels, M., 202 Laible, D., 117, 124, 168, 191
Kehoe, C., 223 Lalonde, C. E., 29
Kelly, A., 216 LaLonde, N., 146
Kelso, G. A., 126 Lam, S., 202
Kerig, P., 45 Lamb, M. E., 63, 64, 126, 159, 162
Kerns, K. A., 67, 111 Lamborn, S. D., 47, 48, 62
Kerr, M., 70, 75 Landrum, A. R., 253
Killen, K., 128 Lane, J. D., 143, 207, 253, 267
Kim, G., 140, 158 Lang, B., 12
Kim, H. K., 105 Laranjo, J., 118, 125, 128, 130, 207, 211, 215
Kim, P. L., 255 Larzelere, R. E., 76
King, K. A., 244, 245 Laursen, B., 42
King, R. A., 74 Leadbeater, B. J., 39, 151, 153
Kinsey, K., 230, 237, 239, 240 Leaper, C., 65, 66
Kirk, E., 214 Lecce, S., 231, 237, 239
Kirkcaldy, B., 202 Le Donne, M., 99
Kitayama, S., 272 Lee, A., 152
Klahr, A. M., 42 Lee, C., 220
Klann-Delius, G., 128 Lee, K., 253
Klingberg, T., 240 Leekam, S. R., 2, 33, 205, 207, 208, 231
Kloo, D., 12, 231, 236, 240 Leerkes, E. M., 220
Knieps, L. J., 140 Legerstee, M., 135, 136, 143, 144, 149, 150–51,
Knoll, M., 231, 236 156, 161
Kochanoff, A., 94, 96–9 7 Lemche, E., 118, 128
Kochanska, G., 46, 48, 69, 70 Lerner, R. M., 54
Koenig, M. A., 17, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254 Leslie, A. M., 15, 31, 38, 240, 241
Kogushi, Y., 166, 167 Lewis, C., 34, 39, 40, 80, 84, 144, 254, 257
Komiya, A., 272 Lewis, J., 155
Lewis, M., 98, 159, 202 Marks, A., 168, 179

Leyendecker, B., 126 Marks, M., 213
Li, Q., 253 Markus, H. R., 272
Licata, M., 161, 162, 208, 209, 212 Marshall, T. R., 248
Lidstone, J, 173 Marsiglio, W., 63, 64
Liebermann-Finestone, D. P., 91 Martin J., 89, 117
Lillard, A. S., 214, 240, 257, 272 Martin, J. A., 59
Lin, X., 248 Martin, S. E., 104
Lindquist, S., 240 Martinez-Beck, I., 98
Lindsay, J. J., 202 Martins, C., 152, 157
Lionetti, F., 117, 124 Martins, E. C., 152, 157
Liu, D., 23, 24, 79, 80, 81, 86, 88, 128, 145, 146, Masciadrelli, B., 63
147, 167, 172, 194, 230, 249, 271 Mash, C., 148, 233, 237
Liu, G., 23 Massaro, D., 178
Livelli, A., 253, 254 Mateus, V., 157
Lock, A., 126 Maughan, A., 78, 102
Lohmann, H., 232 Maybery, M. T., 85
Lok, S. M., 212 Mayeux, L., 168
Lollis, S., 166, 167 Mayhew, E., 136
Lopez-Duran, S., 85, 146 Mayringer, H., 12
Louie, J. Y., 178 McAlister, A., 33
Lovejoy, M. C., 103 McCallum, S., 230, 235
Low, J., 11, 14, 15 McConachie, H., 231
Lozada, F. T., 221 McConnell, D., 143
Lu, H., 232, 237 McCool, A., 220
Lucariello, J. M., 39, 99 McDonough, S. C., 219
Lucas, A. J., 254, 257 McElwain, N. L., 97, 118, 128, 129, 220, 269
Luce, M. R., 256 McGillicuddy-De Lisi, A. V., 202, 203
Luke, N., 101, 102, 103 McHale, J. P., 64–65, 191
Lundy, B. L., 206, 208, 212 McLaughlin, J., 126
Lunkenheimer, E. S., 85 McMahon, C. A., 212
Luu, B., 253 McMahon, R. J., 74
Lyons-Ruth, K., 126 McQuaid, N., 118, 126, 130
Lytton, H., 65 Mee, L., 215
Lyyra, A., 256 Meins, E., 118, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128,
129, 130, 132, 133, 152, 153, 157, 173, 180,
Ma, L., 21, 253 186, 189, 201, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210,
Maccoby, E. E., 49, 53, 59, 65 211, 212, 213, 214, 215
Mackintosh, E., 175, 187 Melinder, A., 157
MacLean, K., 126, 152 Melot, A., 232, 234, 238, 239
MacWhinney, B., 12 Meltzoff, A. N., 138, 140, 142, 143, 145, 147,
Madden-Derdich, D. A., 96 232, 239
Madigan, S., 152 Mendive, S., 155
Mahler, C., 34 Meredith, P., 35
Main, M., 123, 132, 134 Meristo, M., 195
Majdandzic, M., 159, 160 Merrilees, C. E., 64
Maliken, A. C., 220 Mervis, C., 167, 168
Malkin, C., 162 Mesman, J., 148, 149
Mallik, S. A., 126 Metsapelto, R., 256
Mandara, J., 61 Meunier, L., 103
Manhal, M., 215 Miller, K. E., 67
Manian, N., 148 Miller, P. H., 18
Mar, R. A., 34, 177 Miller, S. A., 16, 18, 25, 26, 31, 36, 41, 52, 100,
Marchetti, A., 178 202, 205, 215, 224, 228, 254, 271, 274
Marcovitch, S., 220 Milligan, K., 34, 240, 266
Maridaki-Kassotaki, K., 34 Mills, C. M., 253, 259
Markova, G., 149, 150 Mills, R. S. L., 202
Misailidi, P., 186 O’Hare, E., 103

Mitchell, P., 12, 31, 33, 79, 87, 88, 99 Olabarrieta, F., 89, 117
Mitchell-Copeland, J., 94 Olineck, K. M., 143, 146
Mizokawa, A., 272 Olson, S., 80, 84–85, 167, 172
Mo, S., 232 O’Malley, C., 248
Moeller, M. P., 196 O’Neill, D. K., 16
Moll, H., 138 Onishi, K. H., 14–15
Moller, E. L., 159, 270 Ontai, L. L., 119, 123, 124, 125, 127, 130, 174,
Montgomery, D. E., 16, 199 189, 190
Moore, C., 24, 34, 119, 127, 135, 137, 144, 168, Oppenheim, D., 219
172, 179, 180, 188 O’Reilly, J., 80, 84, 102
Moran, G. S., 123 O’Riordan, M., 31
Morgan, G., 195 Ornaghi, V., 172, 173, 233, 235, 243, 244,
Morgan, T. A., 111 245, 246
Morrell, J. M. B., 22, 167, 207 Osorio, A., 152, 153, 155, 157
Morris, A. S., 41, 48, 59, 67, 73 Ozdemir, M., 70
Moses, L. J., 35, 78, 80, 84, 85, 92, 93, 99,
101, 139 Pala, F. C., 254
Mostow, A. J., 244, 245 Palacios, J. R. P., 134
Moulson, M. C., 107 Papoudi, D., 186
Mounts, N. S., 47 Parke, R. D., 41, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66, 71, 94,
Mugny, G., 202 159, 202
Muller, U., 35, 91 Parker, A. E., 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 273
Mumme, D. L., 140 Parker, J. G., 68
Munch, H. M., 228, 229, 237, 245, 246 Parkin, L., 33, 46, 47
Mundy, P., 126 Pasco Fearon, R. M., 116
Munn, P., 21 Pasquini, E. S., 254
Murphey, D. A., 205 Paterson, A. D., 220
Murray, C., 36 Patrick, M. P. H., 152
Murray, K. T., 46 Patriquin, M., 172, 180
Murray, L., 80, 81, 87, 99, 104, 149, 152, 160 Pavarini, G., 2, 188
Musun-Miller, L., 202 Pawlby, S., 42, 103, 213
Muzik, M., 219 Pears, K. C., 78, 80, 84, 85, 92, 93, 99, 101,
102, 105
Nagell, K., 139 Pebley, A., 202
Naigles, L. R., 168 Pelaez, M., 160
Naito, M., 33, 194 Peleg, D., 256
Nayer, S. L., 147 Pelletier, J., 36
Nelson, C., 107 Pen, P., 233, 237
Nelson, J. A., 94, 220 Peng, M., 244, 246
Nelson, K., 39 Penney, D., 254
Nelson, P. B., 146 Perala-Littunen, S., 202
Neppi, T. K., 202 Perez, S. M., 46
Neuman, G., 103 Perez-Rivera, M. B., 221, 222
Newport, E. L., 21 Perez-Zapata, D., 271
Ng, F. F., 202 Perner, J., 1, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 25, 26, 27, 33, 37,
Nielsen, M., 84 46, 47, 231, 236, 240
Nilsen, E. S., 147 Perotti, E. C., 159
Nini, D., 253, 254 Perst, H., 147
Nixon, C. L., 94 Perucchini, P., 145
Noack, P., 202 Peskin, J., 233, 242
Nurmsoo, E., 253, 254 Petersen, R., 78
Nutley, S. B., 240 Peterson, C. C., 23, 33, 34, 80, 84, 102, 154, 155,
Nye, B., 202 162, 166, 167, 173, 175, 176, 177, 181, 186,
187, 188, 196, 216, 229, 248, 249
O’Brien, M., 220 Pettit, G. S., 68, 69
O’Connor, T. G., 22, 87, 103 Phillips, A. T., 146
Piaget, J., 1, 10, 18, 55, 144, 229 Roberts, C., 234

Pick, A. D., 138 Roberts, D., 140, 159
Pike, A., 85 Roberts, S., 154, 168, 171, 209
Pillow, B. H., 2, 34, 233, 237, 239 Robinson, E. J., 12, 190, 250, 253, 254
Pinquart, M., 114 Robinson, J. L., 152
Piralli, F., 235, 244 Rochat, P., 140
Plaisted, K., 31 Roche, J., 173, 176
Pleck, J. H., 63 Roessler, J., 15
Plumb, I., 31 Roger, K. M., 172, 192, 193
Pollak, S. D., 93, 102, 107 Rogoff, B., 153
Pollock, J., 244, 246 Rogosch, F. A., 78, 102
Polonia, A., 251 Rohrer, L. M., 78, 80, 85, 88, 89, 104
Pomerantz, E. M., 202 Rollins, P. R., 150, 151
Pons, F., 22, 92, 102, 166, 167, 182, 207, 224, 244 Roman, G., 105
Poulin, R. E., 96 Romney, D. M., 65
Poulin-Dubois, D., 143, 146, 251, 254 Rooksby, M., 84
Power, M., 212 Rosati, A., 28
Pratt, C., 16 Rose-Krasnor, L., 204
Pratt, M. W., 45, 61 Rosenblum, K. L., 219
Prelock, P. A., 216 Ross, H. S., 166, 167, 175, 182
Premack, D., 1, 7, 8, 36 Rostan, C., 233
Pring, L., 196 Rothbart, M. K., 69, 70
Prior, M. R., 223 Rothbaum, F., 54
Proctor, J., 152 Rowe, D., 51
Provost, M. A., 206, 212 Roy, K., 63
Pulkkinen, L., 256 Rubin, K. H., 68, 202
Pulmer, M., 212 Ruffman, T., 33, 46, 47, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85,
Pure, K., 24 88, 89, 92, 99, 144, 167, 169, 172, 180, 181,
Putnam, S. P., 69, 70 186, 187
Puustinen, M., 256 Russell, J., 36, 124, 208
Rustin, C. L., 230, 235
Qinghua, Q., 11 Rutter, M., 105–6
Qu, L., 233, 237, 240 Rydell, A., 129
Quamma, J. P., 243, 245
Saarni, C., 92
Racine, T. P., 143, 175, 176, 180, 182, 274 Sabbagh, M. A., 17, 35, 175, 189, 194, 216, 230,
Radke-Yarrow, M., 48, 74 232, 238
Raikes, H. A., 104, 119, 127, 130 Sachs, V. B., 140
Rajendran, G., 31 Saffran, J. R., 21
Rakoczy, H., 20, 233, 236, 240 Sage, K. D., 218
Randell, A. C., 34, 173, 175 Saito, M., 178
Rapee, R. M., 160 Sales, J. M., 193
Raste, Y., 31 Salmon, K., 244, 245
Raver, C. C., 39, 93, 151, 153 Sameroff, A., 50, 70, 85, 203, 219
Raviv, A., 256 Sanders, P., 66
Recchia, H. E., 168, 174, 175, 184, 185 San Juan, V., 15
Reddy, V., 135, 136, 230, 237 Sanson, A. V., 69
Redfern, S., 109 Sawyer, D., 159
Reese, E., 167, 180, 190, 193, 234, 238, 242, 247 Saylor, M. M., 142
Reid, B. V., 202 Schacht, R., 213
Repacholi, B. M., 21, 119, 123, 124, 125, 140 Schick, B., 196
Rheel, W., 253, 254 Schlegelmilch, A., 111
Rhodes, M., 248, 249 Schmitow, C., 158, 256
Rieffe, C., 145, 168, 174 Schneider, B. H., 67
Riggs, S. G., 152 Schneider, R., 22
Riksen-Walraven, J. M., 113 Schnerch, G., 160
Rinaldi, C. M., 168, 172, 174, 183 Schofield, T. J., 202
Scholl, B. J., 38 Spitz, R., 105

Scholmerich, A., 119, 126, 153 Sprung, M., 32, 228, 229, 235, 236, 237,
Scott, R. M., 15 245, 246
Seamans, E. L., 216 Sroufe, L. A., 115
Sears, R. R., 53 Starr, M. D., 159
Sebald, H., 67 Stattin, H., 70, 75
Sebastian, C., 155 Steele, H., 119, 120, 123, 127
Seeman, A., 138 Steele, M., 119, 120, 123, 127
Sellabona, E. S., 234 Steinberg, L., 41, 47, 48, 49, 62, 67, 68, 83
Sepeta, L., 155 Stenberg, G., 158, 159, 256
Sessa, F. M., 48 Stephens, E., 250, 252
Setia, A. R., 253 Stettler, N. M., 220
Shackman, J. A., 102 Stevens, J. H., 159, 204
Shahaeian, A., 23, 81, 84 Stevens, K., 207, 210
Shai, D., 219 Stewart, D. E., 104
Shaked, M., 31 Stone, V., 31
Sharp, C., 32, 126, 215, 216, 219 Strandberg, K., 94
Shatz, M., 98, 178 Striano, T., 140, 157, 233, 236
Shinohara, I., 214 Sturge-Apple, M. L., 36
Shmueli-Goetz, Y., 173 Su, Y., 34, 232, 237
Siefen, G., 202 Suarez, S., 250
Siegal, M., 196 Sullivan, K., 26
Siegler, R. S., 247, 248, 258 Sung, J., 180
Sigel, I. E., 202, 204, 205 Svejda, M., 159
Silliman, E. R., 174, 177 Swanson, D., 159
Sinclair, R. J., 75 Symons, D. K., 2, 78, 81, 88, 89, 117, 119, 120,
Sinha, P., 93, 102 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 166, 167,
Skerry, A. E., 142 169, 173, 176, 181, 187, 188, 189
Skotheim, S., 149 Szekely, E., 104
Slade, A., 128
Slade, L., 78, 167, 169, 181 Tackett, J. L., 34
Slaughter, J. U., 87 Tadic, V., 196
Slaughter, V., 23, 84, 143, 154, 155, 162, 166, Tager-Flusberg, H., 26, 173, 231, 241
167, 168, 169, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 181, Tahiroglu, D., 216, 274
186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 197, 234, 235, 236, Tarabulsy, G. M., 149, 206, 212
237, 239, 271 Tardif, C., 67
Slomkowski, C., 179, 184, 187 Tardif, T., 42, 194
Smadja, M., 42, 186 Target, M. U., 87, 121, 122, 132
Smallen, L. S., 94 Tarule, J. M., 218
Smetana, J. G., 36, 71, 202 Tarullo, A. R., 106, 107
Smilovic, S., 256 Taumoepeau, M., 172, 181, 186, 187, 234,
Snyder, G., 78 238, 242, 247
Soares, I., 152, 153, 157 Tauzin, T., 139
Sodian, B., 23, 147 Taylor, B. T., 16
Sokol, B. W., 29 Taylor, K., 99
Solomon, J., 111 Taylor, M., 234, 238, 253
Solomon, M., 234 Teglas, E., 139
Solomonica, D., 31 Tenenbaum, H. R., 66, 192, 245, 246
Song, J., 168, 191 Tesla, C., 179, 184
Song, Q., 195 Teti, D. M., 153
Sorkhabi, N., 61 Teuscher, C., 156
Southgate, V., 15 Thoermer, C., 23, 146, 147, 271
Spelke, E. S, 142 Thomas, A., 69
Sperber, D., 184 Thompson, R. A., 104, 109, 117, 119, 123,
Spieker, S. J., 111 124, 125, 127, 130, 162, 166, 174, 189,
Spinrad, T. L., 74, 92 190, 199
Thorell, L. B., 129, 240 Wainwright, R., 180

Thurman, S. L., 252, 253 Walden, T. A., 139, 140, 158
Tipper, S. P., 138 Walker, T. M., 206, 213, 215
Tipsord, J. M., 67 Walker-Andrews, A., 136
Tomasello, M., 15, 20, 39, 138, 139, 142, 143, Wall, S., 44
144, 232, 233, 236 Wang, B., 11
Tompkins, V., 33, 100, 168, 191, 192 Wang, Q., 167, 193, 194, 195, 232, 237
Torr, J., 172, 219 Wang, Y., 34
Toth, S. L., 78, 102 Warneken, F., 20
Trapolini, T., 119, 123, 124, 125 Waters, E., 44
Trentacosta, C. J., 244, 245 Waters, G. M., 16
Trevarthen, C., 149 Watson, A. C., 94, 231
Triesch, J., 155, 156 Watson, J., 9, 10
Tronick, E., 136 Weimer, A. A., 100
Troseth, G. L., 12 Weiner, B., 204
Tsai, J. L., 178 Welch-Ross, M. K., 176
Tseng, V., 62 Wellman, H. M., 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 23,
Tuckey, M., 130, 180 24, 37, 79, 80, 81, 86, 88, 128, 143, 145, 146,
Turnbull, W., 166, 175, 176, 182, 189 147, 167, 172, 178, 185, 193, 194, 207, 229,
Turner, M., 207, 208, 213 230, 240, 247, 248, 249, 250, 253, 254, 257,
Turrell, S. L., 166, 167 268, 271
Wheatcroft, R., 206
Uchida, Y., 178 Wheelright, S., 31
Whipple, N., 91
Vaala, S. E., 202 White, P. J., 156, 239
Vaish, A., 140, 194 Wichstom, L., 223
Valsiner, J., 202 Wilde, C. A., 202
Van Bergen, P., 245, 246–47 Williamson, L. R., 104
VanderBorgtht, M., 253 Willoughby, J. C., 126
Vander Wege, B., 178 Wilson, A., 228, 229, 235, 236, 237
van Dijk, M., 202 Wilson, D., 184
van Geert, P., 202 Wilson, K. R., 223
van IJzendoorn, M. H., 44, 89, 113, 115, Wimmer, H., 1, 8, 9, 12, 26, 27
116, 148 Wise, S., 136
vanMarle, K., 146 Witherington, D., 92
Van Ryzin, M., 107 Wong, K., 254
Vanwoerden, S., 120, 126 Wood, B., 213
Varghese, J., 150 Wood, D., 248
Vaughan, A., 155 Wood, W., 65
Vaughn, B. E., 115 Woodruff, G., 1, 7, 8, 36, 37
Vauthier, S. A., 253 Woodward, A. L., 140, 141, 142, 160
Vereijken, C. M. J. L., 113 Woolgar, M., 81
Villanueva, L., 168, 172, 174, 178 Woolley, J. D., 20
Vinden, P. G., 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 230, 272 Wyatt, T. M., 94, 96
Virues-Ortega, J., 160 Wynn, K., 146, 252
Vittorini, L., 212
Voelker, S., 220 Xu, F., 21, 253
Volling, B. L., 97, 118, 128, 129
Volterra, V., 123, 139 Yagmurlu, B., 106
von der Lippe, A., 128 Yamaguchi, M., 146
Vriends, N., 159 Yarnell, L., 99
Vuori, M., 147 Yarrow, M. R., 49
Vygotsky, L. S., 39, 54, 187 Yates, T. M., 97, 98, 99
Yee, D. K., 202
Wade, M., 152 Yirmaya, N., 31
Wahl, S., 248, 249 Yoerger, K., 105
Yoon, K. S., 65 Zarbatany, L., 159

Yoon, S. A., 120, 126, 153 Zeanah, C., 107
Youngblade, L. M., 179, 184, 186 Zelazo, P. D., 230, 238
Zhu, L., 23
Zahn-Waxler, C., 74 Ziv, M., 42, 186
Zaitchik, D., 26 Zoller, D., 94
SU BJECT I N DE X
Page numbers followed by b, f, or t indicate boxes, figures, or tables, respectively.
AAI. See Adult Attachment Interview anxiety, 270

academic expectations, 65–â•‰6 6 Separation Anxiety Test, 112t, 117t, 119t
academic outcomes, 75 in social referencing, 159–â•‰60
accuracy, of parents’ beliefs, 215–â•‰18, anxiety disorders, 229, 234
217t, 223–â•‰2 4 appearance-â•‰reality
across-â•‰time relations, 51t, 89, 274–â•‰75. colored filters task and, 17
See also attachment across-â•‰time relations contrived objects in, 17
joint attention specific experience, 155–â•‰56 mind-â•‰m indedness and, 209t
in mental state talk longitudinal relations, 182 representation in, 17–â•‰18
adolescent mothers, 212–â•‰13 training studies of, 230t–â•‰2 34t
adolescents AQS. See Attachment Q-â•‰Set
in attachment concurrent relations, 126 artifacts, 120–â•‰21
monitoring of, 75 Asia, 194. See also China
and peers, 67 Asian Americans, 61–â•‰62
verbal report about, 48 Asian cultures, 83–â•‰8 4
adoptive families, 229, 234 attachment, 3, 54, 87, 109–â•‰34, 270.
causality in, 51t See also secure attachment
Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), 111, 112t, AAI in, 111, 112t, 117t, 119t–â•‰120t
117t, 119t–â•‰120t definition of, 109
advanced theory of mind, 25–â•‰32, 78, 83, 121, development of, 109–â•‰11, 112t, 113–â•‰16, 114t
170, 276 elaborative discourse and, 191–â•‰92
adverse conditions emotional understanding and, 117t, 119t
institutional rearing as, 105–â•‰7 false belief and, 117t–â•‰120t
maltreatment as, 101–â•‰3 internal working models of, 113
parental mental illness as, 103–â•‰5 joint attention and, 152–â•‰53
affect, 183 language related to, 117t–â•‰118t, 129–â•‰30
in working models, 134 in learning from others, 255–â•‰56
affective false belief task, 22, 124 maternal teaching and, 130
African Americans mind-â•‰mindedness and, 130, 207t–â•‰2 08t,
parenting styles for, 61–â•‰62 214–â•‰15
parents’ beliefs and, 222–â•‰23 naturalistic observation of, 44
age peers and, 67–â•‰68, 156
maltreatment and, 102 sensitive responsiveness and, 115–â•‰16
training and, 237 sensitivity and, 129
ambiguity, 29, 230t separation distress and, 110
animal research, 51t, 52 in Spanish children, 90
antecedents of theory of mind, 33–â•‰35 Strange Situation and, 111, 112t, 117t–â•‰120t
337
338 S u b j e c t I n d e x
attachment (Cont.) false belief and, 31–32

theory of mind and, 109, 116–3 4 joint attention and, 156
theory of mind in infancy and, 162 language and, 196–9 7
trust and, 255–56 mental state terms and, 173, 197
attachment across-t ime relations, 81t, 89 autonomy, 221t
attachment security in, 128 avoidance, 114t, 255–56
emotion understanding in, 127 in joint attention, 153
executive function in, 128–29
false belief in, 127–2 8 baby sign, 214
fathers in, 128 behavioral problems, 85–86
mental state talk in, 128 belief, 93t, 177, 217t. See also emotion belief;
attachment behaviors, 110 false belief; infants’ false belief; parents’
attachment concurrent relations, 131t, 132 beliefs
adolescents in, 126 desire compared to, 19–21
emotion understanding in, 124–25 perception and, 188
false belief in, 123–25 belief-desire reasoning, 19–21
joint attention in, 126–27 benevolence, 252, 253t
mental state talk in, 126 biology, 38, 261. See also autism
target in, 125–2 6 blind children, 196
working model in, 125 boys and girls
attachment development academic expectations for, 65–6 6
determinants of, 115–16 authoritarian parenting style with, 66
individual differences in, 113, 114t differential treatment of, 65–6 6
measurement of, 110–11, 112t, 113 emotions and, 66, 193
predictive power in, 115 sex-t yped activities of, 65
stability in, 114–15 talk to, 66
Attachment Q-Set (AQS), 111, 112t, 117t, brain, 38
119t–120t
attachment security, 126–2 8 CARE-I NDEX. See Child-A dult Relationship
Attachment Story Completion, 112t, 117t Experimental Index
attachment-t heory of mind conclusions, 130–3 4 causality, 51t
attachment-t heory of mind correlation, 116 causality determination
artifacts in, 120–21 animal research and, 52
directionality in, 121 control and, 51t, 52
infants in, 122 converging operations in, 52
secure attachment in, 122–2 3 correlation and, 36, 49–52, 51t
sensitive responsiveness in, 122–2 3 directionality in, 50, 51t, 52, 57
Separation Anxiety Test and, 121 evidence in, 51–52, 51t
attention maintenance, 151t. genetics in, 50–51, 51t
See also joint attention manipulation in, 51t, 52
atypical development, 166, 195–9 7. mental state talk and, 170–71
See also autism mind-m indedness and, 210
Australian children, 175t, 245–4 6, 245t third-factor explanations in, 51t, 52
authoritarian-authoritative distinction, 84 transactional model in, 50
control domain and, 82 CCNES. See Coping with Children’s Negative
false belief and, 83 Emotions Scale
reasoning in, 82–83 Child-A dult Relationship Experimental Index
authoritarian parenting style, 59, 59f, 60t, (CARE-I NDEX), 150–52, 160
62, 82 Child Attachment Interview, 112t, 117t, 120t
with boys and girls, 66 child description, 167t
Korean Americans and, 83–8 4 Child Language Data Exchange System
authoritative parenting style, 59f (CHILDES database), 12–13,
superiority of, 48, 59–61, 60t, 64, 68, 19–2 0, 193–94
82–8 4, 262 child outcomes measurement, 49, 55
autism, 106, 166, 229 Child Rearing Practices Report, 87
cognitive states and, 197 childrearing style. See parenting styles
cognitive theory of, 31 and dimensions
S u b j e c t I n d e x 339
children’s effects on parents, 57 in parenting historical research changes, 58

commonalities in, 71 of parenting styles, 58–59
parenting styles in, 70 of physical punishment, 58
parent-to-child effects and, 70–71, 70f of socialization domains, 71–73
socialization practices in, 69–71, 70f control domain, 72–73, 72t, 82
temperament in, 69–70 converging operations, 52
transactional model of development in, cooperative pattern of parenting, 64–65
70–71, 70f coparenting, 64–65
Children’s Social Understanding Scale (CSUS), Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions
216–18, 217t, 273–74 Scale (CCNES), 94, 95t–96t
China correlations, 4, 227. See also attachment-t heory
false belief in, 84 of mind correlation
looking-behavior study in, 11 causality determination and, 36, 49–52, 51t
parenting style in, 62 in cause-a nd-effect relations, 170
theory-of-m ind battery and, 271–72 in emotion beliefs, 224
Chinese American children, 194–95 within mind-m indedness, 206–7
chronological expansion of research, 18–19, 19f in parenting styles and dimensions, 78
clinical disorders, 213 in studies of physical punishment, 76
coding, 169–70, 205–6 cross-c ultural study, 194, 214, 271–72
cognitive change, 247–49 ecological systems theory and, 62–63, 62f
cognitive development, 1–2 , 60–61, 268–69 CSUS. See Children’s Social
cognitive emphasis in parenting research Understanding Scale
child outcomes in, 55 cultures, 83
in guiding theories, 53t China, 11, 62, 84, 271–72
individual differences in, 55 Hispanic Americans, 222–2 3
nonshared environment in, 55 storybook reading and, 178
normative development and, 56
parental cognitions in, 54–55 deaf children, 166, 229, 234
in parenting historical research false belief understanding and, 196
changes, 54–56 mental state talk for, 195–96
social-cognitive theory in, 54 theory of mind and, 249
cognitively oriented approaches, 93t, 95t–96t, deceptive context, 10–11, 10b
96–98. See also emotion understanding declarative points, 154–55
socialization deprivation, 105–6
HOME, 89–9 0 designers, parents as, 68
physical environment in, 90 desire, 23, 24t, 93t, 169, 169t, 217t
scaffolding in, 90–91 age and, 19–2 0, 20t
cognitive terms, 185, 187–88, 197 belief compared to, 19–21
cognitive theory of autism, 31 emotion related to, 187
colored filters task, 17 in mental state talk longitudinal relations,
commonalities, 71 185, 187–88
communication, 16–17 understanding of, 19–21
communicative gestures, 154–55 development. See also attachment development;
compliance, 75–76 infancy development; relations among
concurrent development, 24–25. developments
See also attachment concurrent relations; under adverse conditions, 101–7
mental state talk concurrent relations of attachment, 109–11, 112t, 113–16, 114t
conflict, 192 later, 25–29, 27b, 28f, 30b, 31
connectedness, 189t, 190, 198, 265 maternal depression and, 104–5
consequences of theory of mind, 35–36, 221t relations among, 23–25, 24t
consultants, parents as, 68 developmental systems theory, 54
context, 10–11, 10b differential treatment of boys and girls, 65–6 6
in emotion talk, 191–9 2 directionality
in guiding theories, 53t in attachment-t heory of mind correlation, 121
in mental state talk concurrent relations, 176 in causality determination, 50, 51t, 52, 57
in mental state talk longitudinal in cause-a nd-effect relations, 170
relations, 183–8 4 in learning from others, 255
directionality (Cont.) episodic knowledge, 252

in parenting styles and dimensions, 51t, 78 epistemic states, 16
of parents’ beliefs, 204–5 ethnicity, 61–62, 214
discipline, 46–47, 47b, 97–98 ethological theory, 54
display rules, 21–22 European American children, 222–2 3
divergence model, 97, 269–70 Chinese American children compared
diverse-beliefs task, 23–2 4, 24t, 271–72 to, 194–95
domains, 53t, 54. See also socialization domains exclusionary rules, 169
executive function, 34, 231t, 267
early social interest in attachment across-t ime relations, 128–29
in infancy development, 136–38 maternal depression and, 105
maternal depression and, 148–49 parenting and, 35, 91, 105, 267
replay task and, 149 readiness and, 237–38
sensitivity and, 148–49 scaffolding and, 35
ecological systems theory, 62–63, 62f, 272 in training method, 239–4 0
elaborative discourse, 189t, 190–9 2 exosystem, 62f
emotional availability, 152, 162 experimental approaches, 4, 222, 227–6 0
emotion beliefs conclusions from, 258–59
accuracy of, 223–2 4 emotion understanding and, 242,
culture and, 222–2 3 243t–2 45t, 245–47
experimental approach to, 222 general theory of mind and, 228–29,
focus groups in, 222 230t–2 34t, 234–42
instruments in, 220 learning from others as, 250–52, 253t, 254–57
language in, 221–22 microgenetic studies as, 228, 247–50, 258
of parents, 201, 219–2 4, 221t, 266 training studies as, 227–47
emotions, 66, 169, 169t, 217t, 230t. explanations, 12, 51t, 52, 257
See also training studies: emotion in mental state talk, 182, 197, 248–49
understanding external validity, 229, 241, 249, 258
children’s talk about, 21 Eyes Test, 31, 216, 276
desire related to, 187
display rules of, 21–22 false belief. See also infants’ false belief; second-
mastery of, 21–22 order false belief
mothers’ and fathers’ talk about, 185 appearance-reality and, 17–18
relation-specific reasoning about, 22 in attachment across-t ime relations, 127–2 8
emotion talk, 165–6 6, 190 attachment and, 117t–120t
of Chinese American children, 194–95 in attachment concurrent relations, 123–25
conflict in, 192 authoritarian-authoritative pattern and, 83
context in, 191–9 2 autism and, 31–32
gender in, 192–93 in China, 84
generality in, 191 of deaf children, 196
memory talk in, 191–9 2 first-order, 23–25, 24t, 31–32
mothers and fathers in, 192 institutional rearing and, 106
negative emotions in, 193–94 interpretive diversity and, 26–2 8
emotion understanding, 21–22, 92, 102, 104, maltreatment related to, 102–3
107, 127, 233t. See also emotion beliefs; maternal depression and, 104–5, 117t
emotion talk; training studies emotion mental state talk and, 173–82, 174t–176t,
understanding 178t–181t, 185
attachment and, 117t, 119t, 124–25 in microgenetic studies, 248
mind-m indedness and, 207t, 210 mind-m indedness and, 207t–2 08t, 210
emotion understanding socialization, 93t parental talk and, 174t–176t, 178t–181t, 189t
harsh punishment and, 97–98 in parenting styles and dimensions,
imitation in, 92 79t–81t, 82
inconsistency in, 98 second-order, 25–2 6, 27b
parental expressiveness in, 92–94 siblings and, 33–3 4
parental response in, 94, 95t–96t, 96–9 7 task modifications in, 10–13, 10b, 13t
parenting style and, 92 training studies of, 230t–2 34t, 238–39
power and, 92 family size, 34
fathers, 104. See also mothers and fathers joint attention in, 138–39, 149–57
in attachment across-t ime relations, 128 later development relations, 144–45,
differential treatment by, 66 145t–146t, 147
parenting styles of, 64 mind-m indedness in, 207t–2 09t, 209–10
in parents’ importance, 269–70 normative development in, 163
as socialization agents, 56 parental talk in, 162, 264
Faux Pas, 31 parenting style in, 161–62
feedback, 248–49. See also explanations parents’ contribution to, 148–61, 151t
first-order false belief, 23–25, 31–32 rich-lean in, 143–4 4
FMS. See Functional-Multilinear Socialization social referencing in, 139–4 0, 157–6 0
focus groups, 222, 273 theory of mind and, 136–45, 145t–146t, 147
Freudian theory, 53–5 4 infant-d irected speech, 154
Functional-Multilinear Socialization infant mental states, 154
(FMS), 99–100 infants
abilities of, 276
gaze monitoring, 150–51, 232t in attachment across-t ime relations, 128
gender, 85, 192–93. See also boys and girls; in attachment conclusions, 133
mothers and fathers in attachment-t heory of mind correlation, 122
generalization of training, 235–36 early social interest and, 148–49
gestures, communicative, 154–55 gaze monitoring of, 150–51
girls. See boys and girls in institutional rearing, 107
group participation domain, 72t mind-m indedness in, 207t–2 09t, 209–10
group variations parental talk for, 264
ecological systems theory in, 62–63, 62f infants’ false belief
economics in, 61–62 measurement of, 14
race and ethnicity in, 61–62 parenting in, 15–16
SES in, 63 understanding in, 15
guided learning domain, 72–73, 72t validity of, 14–15
informants, 275
harsh parenting, 86 in learning from others, 251–52, 253t,
harsh punishment, 97–98 254–55
Head Start, 100 in origins of knowledge, 17
Hispanic Americans, 222–2 3 in verbal report, 46, 48
HOME. See Home Observation for information seeking, 256–57
Measurement of the Environment initiation of joint attention, 155–57
home observation, 166–67, 167t, 183 insecure attachment, 114t
Home Observation for Measurement of the institutional rearing
Environment (HOME), 89–9 0, 117t deprivation in, 105–6
hostile pattern of parenting, 64 emotion understanding from, 107
How Feel responses, 80t–81t, 83, 85 false belief and, 106
infants in, 107
imaginative pretense, 37 quasi-autism from, 106
imitation, 92 intention understanding, 29, 30b, 31, 217t
imperative points, 154–55 infancy development and, 140–43, 141f
implicit feedback, 248–49 joint attention and, 161
indirect contributors to theory of mind, 266–67 mind-m indedness and, 207t–2 08t
individual differences, 33, 55, 99–101, 113, sensitivity and, 160–61
114t, 275–77 interaction partner, 156–57
individual dimension, 254 intergenerational transmission, 216
infancy development, 3, 25 internalization, 39
attachment in, 109–3 4, 162 internal working models, 113
early social interest in, 136–38, 137f, 148–49 interpretive diversity, 27b, 233t
emotional availability in, 162 ambiguity and, 29
gaze monitoring in, 150–51 definition of, 26
institutional rearing in, 107 false belief and, 26–2 8
intention understanding in, 140–43, reversible figures in, 28, 28f
141f, 160–61 invariant sequence, 23–2 4, 24t
involved-u ninvolved dimension, 79t, 86–87 later development relations, 144–45,

Iran, 271–72 145t–146t, 147
irony, 30b, 183–85 later developments, 25
interpretive diversity, 26–29, 27b, 28f
Japan, 214 nonliteral utterances understanding, 29,
joint attention 30b, 31
attachment in, 126–27, 152–53 second-order false belief, 25–2 6
in infancy development, 138–39 lean. See rich-lean
and intention understanding, 161 learning disabilities, 229, 234
parental talk and, 209–10 learning from others, 17
parents’ contribution to, 149–57, 151t attachment in, 255–56
joint attention general approaches, 149 directionality in, 255
attachment in, 152–53 episodic knowledge in, 252
avoidance in, 153 false belief task in, 254–55
communicative gestures from, 154–55 informant in, 251–52, 253t, 254–55
emotional availability in, 152 methods and findings in, 251–52, 253t
infant mental states in, 154 parents in, 255–57
labeling in, 154–55 questions in, 257
maternal attunement in, 150–51, 151t rationale in, 250–51
maternal depression in, 153 selectivity in, 251–52, 254
measurement in, 150–52, 151t semantic knowledge in, 252
parental talk in, 153–55 situation in, 254–55
joint attention specific experience theory of mind in, 254–55
across-t ime, 155–56 learning theory, 53–5 4, 53t
with autism, 156 level 2 perspective taking, 18
avoidance in, 157 lies, 30b, 47b, 87–88
initiation in, 155–57 longitudinal relations, 88–89. See also mental
interaction partner in, 156–57 state talk longitudinal relations
rich-lean in, 156 longitudinal studies, 36, 51t, 274
jokes, 30b in cause-a nd-effect relations, 170
microgenetic studies compared to, 247
knowledge, 217t, 238, 249, 252 in parents’ importance, 270–71
origins of, 16–17, 234t strengths of, 88–89
knowledge/ignorance, 271–72 third-factor explanations and, 182
Korean Americans, 83–8 4 long-term across-t ime, 51t
looking-behavior studies, 11–13, 13t
labeling, 154–55 looking time, 14
laboratory observation, 167t, 168 Lumbee American Indians, 222–2 3
laboratory studies
discipline in, 46 macrosystem, 62f, 63, 272
limitations of, 43t, 45 Making Minds: How Theory of Mind Develops
parental teaching in, 45–4 6 (Wellman), 268
of parenting, 43t, 45–4 6 maltreatment, 93
strengths of, 43t, 45 false belief related to, 102–3
language, 12, 39. See also mental state talk rationale in, 101–2
attachment related to, 117t–118t, 129–30 Manchester Child Attachment Story Task, 112t
autism and, 196–9 7 maternal attunement, 150–51, 151t, 161
CHILDES database, 12–13, 19–2 0, 193–94 maternal depression, 153, 213
in emotion beliefs, 221–22 development and, 104–5
maternal, 129–30, 154, 264 emotion understanding and, 104
mind-m indedness and, 215 executive function and, 105
motherese, 154, 264 false belief and, 104–5, 117t
in parents’ importance, 264–67 parenting impairment in, 103, 148–49
readiness and, 237–38 timing of, 104
SES and, 100–101 maternal distress, 88
in theory of mind, 34–35 maternal language, 129–30, 154, 264
in training method, 239–41 Maternal Mental State Input Inventory, 177
maternal schizophrenia, 103, 213 syntax of, 198

maternal teaching, 130 target of, 171–72
maternal warmth, 79t, 86–87 teachers in, 186
mathematics, 65– 6 6 Ways of Knowing Interview in, 218–19
measurement mental state talk concurrent relations, 173–78,
of appearance-reality, 17–18 174t–176t
of attachment, 110–11, 112t, 113 belief in, 177
of beliefs about emotions, 220, 221t context in, 176
of child outcomes, 49 strength of, 173
of desire understanding, 19–21 target in, 176–77
of emotion understanding, 21–22, 92, 93t third factor in, 173, 176
of first-order false belief, 8–13 mental state talk longitudinal relations, 178–82,
of infant false belief, 14 178t–181t
of intention understanding, 140–43, 141f cognitive terms in, 185, 187–88
of interpretive diversity, 26–29, 28f context in, 183–8 4
of joint attention, 138 desire in, 185, 187–88
of level 2 perspective taking, 18 emotion in, 185, 188
of mental state talk, 166–70, 167t, 169t false belief in, 178t–181t, 185
of mind-m indedness, 205–7 general versus specific, 187–88
of nonliteral utterances understanding, limitations in, 190
29–30, 30t mental state talk in, 187–88
of origins of knowledge, 16–17 mothers and fathers in, 184–85
of parenting styles and dimensions, quality in, 188–9 0, 189t
43–4 4, 78, 81 quantity in, 188, 190
of second-order false belief, 25–2 6, 27t speaker in, 184–86
of social referencing, 139–4 0 target in, 186–87
mediators, parents as, 68 third factor in, 182
memory, 43t, 49 time periods in, 178t–181t, 182
memory talk, 167t, 171, 174t mental state terms, 242
in emotion talk, 191–9 2 mesosystem, 62f
of mothers, 242 meta-a nalyses, 235
mentalistic clarifications, 189t metacognitive verb understanding, 233t
mental states coding, 205–6 methodological challenges, 42–52, 43t, 47b, 51t
mental state talk (mental state language), 3, methodological issues, 165–71, 167t, 169t
165–2 00, 264–65 microgenetic studies, 228, 258
appropriateness of, 189t cognitive changes in, 247–49
in attachment across-t ime relations, 128 explanations in, 248–49
in attachment concurrent relations, 126 external validity of, 249
for blind children, 196 false belief in, 248
child’s use of, 12–13, 13t, 72–73, 211 knowledge access in, 249
concurrent relations, 173, 174t–176t, 176–78 longitudinal studies compared to, 247
connectedness in, 189t, 190, 198, 265 parents’ contribution in, 250
for deaf children, 195–96 training studies compared to, 249
explanations for, 182, 197, 248–49 microsystem, 62f
irony in, 183–85 mind-m indedness, 201
limitations of, 211–12 adolescent mothers and, 212–13
measurement of, 166–70, 167t, 169t attachment and, 130, 207t–2 08t, 214–15
mind-m indedness and, 205–6, 210–11, 225 baby sign and, 214
mothers and fathers in, 172, 270 cause and effect in, 210
nature of, 171, 198–9 9, 265 clinical disorders and, 213
in older children study, 184, 196, 206 conclusions on, 209–10
in parents’ importance, 264–65, 276–77 correlations within, 206–7
pragmatics of, 198–9 9 cross-c ultural study of, 272
scaffolding and, 211 definition of, 205
sibling effect in, 184 distinctions in, 206
stability in, 172 emotion understanding and, 207t, 210
storybook reading in, 177–78 false belief and, 207t–2 08t, 210
mind-mindedness (Cont.) nonshared environment, 55

in infants, 207t–2 09t, 209–10 The Nurture Assumption (Harris, J. R.), 41,
in Japan, 214 50–51, 56–57
language and, 215
maternal depression and, 213 obstetric history, 213
maternal schizophrenia and, 103, 213 older children study, 90, 112t, 159, 271
meaning attribution and, 206 autism in, 197
measurement of, 205–7, 207t–2 09t expansion for, 18–19, 19f
mental states coding of, 205–6 learning from others in, 258–59
mental states talk and, 205–6, 210–11, 225 mental state talk in, 184, 196, 206
mothers and fathers and, 212 parents’ importance in, 274–75
other outcomes and, 214–15 readiness and, 237, 246
parent behavior and, 210–11 older siblings, 184
parents’ beliefs and, 4, 205–7, 207t–2 09t, origins of knowledge, 234t
209–15, 265–6 6 communication in, 16–17
sensitivity and, 211–12 evidence in, 16
sources of, 212–14 informants in, 17
targets of, 214 perception in, 16
temperament and, 213 understanding in, 16
theory of mind and, 207, 207t–2 09t, orphanages. See institutional rearing
209–12, 224–25 other-oriented reasoning, 74, 83
valence of, 206 overheard information, 241–42
moderator variables, 235
modularity, 38, 241 PAA. See Preschool Assessment of Attachment
monitoring, 74–75, 150–51, 232t PACT. See Parent Child Affect
motherese, 154, 264 Communication Task
mothers, 194, 212–13 PAI. See Parenting Attitudes Inventory
of blind children, 196 parental embodied mentalizing, 219
of deaf children, 195–96 parental expressiveness, 92–94
memory talk of, 242 parental mental illness, 103–5 . See also maternal
peers compared to, 156 depression
sensitivity of, 187 parental meta-emotion philosophy
socialization agents other than, 56–57 (PMEP), 220–21
in social referencing, 157–58 parental response to emotions, 94,
mothers and fathers, 157 95t–96t, 96–9 7
abilities of, 64 parental stress, 79t, 87–88
coparenting of, 64–65 parental talk, 162, 264. See also mental state talk
divergence model of, 97, 269–70 atypical development and, 166, 195–9 7
emotions of, 185 conclusions in, 197–9 9
in emotion talk, 192 emotion talk in, 165–6 6, 190–95
in mental state talk, 172, 270 false belief and, 174t–176t, 178t–181t
in mental state talk longitudinal joint attention and, 153–55
relations, 184–85 measurement of, 167–70, 167t, 169t
mind-m indedness and, 212 parental teaching, 45–4 6, 130
parenting conclusions and, 63–65 parental warmth, 47–4 8, 79t, 85–87, 263
relationship between, 64–65 Parent Child Affect Communication Task
(PACT), 183
Native Americans, 222–2 3 parenting, 40–76
natural experiments, 103 boys and girls and, 65–6 6
naturalistic observation causality determination and, 49–52, 51t
direct observation in, 43, 43t child outcomes measurement and, 49
limitations of, 44–45 children’s effects on, 69–71, 70f
in parent measurement, 42–45, 43t group variations in, 61–63, 62f
sensitive responsiveness in, 44 methodological challenges in research, 42–52,
negative emotions, 93–94, 95t–96t, 193–94 43t, 47b, 51t
newborns. See infants mothers and fathers and, 63–65
nonliteral utterances understanding, 29, 30b, 31 parenting styles in, 58–61, 59f, 60t
parents and peers in, 67–68 parents’ contribution, 250, 259, 262–67

practices in, 73–76 beliefs and, 265–6 6
socialization domains, 71–73, 72t control and, 263
Parenting Attitudes Inventory (PAI), 83–8 4 to early social interest, 148–49
parenting historical research changes to executive function, 35, 91, 105, 267
children’s effects on parents, 57 indirect contributors, 266–67
cognitive emphasis in, 54–56 to infancy developments, 148–61, 151t
context in, 58 to joint attention, 149–57, 151t
genetics in, 57 to language, 35
guiding theories in, 53–5 4, 53t parenting styles and, 262–63
parenting styles and dimensions, 3, 58–62, reasoning and, 263
70, 89, 92 sensitivity and, 264
for Asian Americans, 61–62 to social referencing, 157–6 0
attachment and, 89 talk and, 264–65
authoritarian, 59, 59f, 60t, 62, 66, 82–8 4 theories implications for, 267–68
authoritative, 48, 59–61, 59f, 60t, 64, 68, warmth, 263
82–8 4, 262 Parent Stress Index, 88
cognitive development and, 60–61 parent-to-child effects, 70–71, 70f
context of, 58–59 paternal depression, 104
directionality in, 51t, 78 PATHS. See Promoting Alternative Thinking
false belief in, 79t–81t, 82 Strategies
How Feel responses in, 80t–81t, 83, 85 peers, 56–57, 67–68
involved-u ninvolved, 59, 59f, 60t, 79t, 86–87 attachment and, 67–68, 156
longitudinal relations in, 88–89 perception, 154, 169, 169t, 217t
measurement of, 43–4 4, 78, 81 belief and, 188
PAI in, 83–8 4 in origins of knowledge, 16
parental stress in, 79t, 87–88 permissive parenting style, 59, 59f, 60t
permissive, 59, 59f, 60t perspective taking, 18
power in, 84–85 physical environment, 90
reasoning and, 73–74 physical punishment
social development and, 60, 60t compliance from, 75–76
theory of mind and, 82–88 context of, 58
parent intervention, 243t–2 45t, 246–47 correlation related to, 76
parent measurement severity of, 76
laboratory studies in, 43t, 45–4 6 Piagetian training literature, 228–29
naturalistic observation in, 42–45, 43t pitch variability, 154
verbal report in, 43t, 46–49, 47b PMEP. See parental meta-emotion philosophy
parents and peers, 156 pointing, 154–55
relation between, 67–68 positive emotions, 94
parents’ beliefs, 21, 54–55, 201–2 6 power, 46, 84–85, 92, 107, 115
accuracy of, 215–18, 217t Preschool Assessment of Attachment
African Americans and, 222–2 3 (PAA), 112t
content of, 203, 225 pretend, 30b, 240
directionality of, 204–5 pretense, 233t
emotion beliefs in, 201, 219–2 4, 221t, 266 Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies
expression of, 205 (PATHS), 243t
literature on, 202–5, 202t protection domain, 72–73, 72t
mind-m indedness and, 4, 205–7, 207t–2 09t, punishment. See physical punishment
209–15, 265–6 6
other approaches to, 215–19, 217t, 225 quality, 170
parental embodied mentalizing in, 219 in mental state talk longitudinal relations,
parents’ behavior and, 204 188–9 0, 189t
in parents’ importance, 265–6 6 of parents’ beliefs, 203, 225–2 6
quality of, 203, 225–2 6 quantity, in mental state talk longitudinal
reflective function in, 219 relations, 188, 190
sophistication of, 218–19 quasi-autism, 106
sources of, 203–4, 225 questions, 257
race, 61–62, 214. See also African Americans; SES. See socioeconomic status
culture sex-t yped activities, 65
readiness, 228, 235, 246 short-term across-t ime, 51t
executive function and, 237–38 sibling effect, 33–3 4, 100, 184
language and, 237–38 simulation theory, 37–38
reasoning, 19–22, 263, 275 situational dimension, 254
in authoritarian-authoritative pattern, social-cognitive theory, 54
82–83 social development, 60, 60t, 268–69
effectiveness of, 73–74 socialization agents other than mother, 56–57
reciprocity domain, 72t, 73 socialization domains
reflective function, 219 context of, 71–73
relations among developments control, 72–73, 72t, 82
concurrence in, 24–25 essence of, 71–72
invariant sequence in, 23–2 4, 24t group participation, 72t
relationship, 39, 67–68 guided learning, 72–73, 72t
between mothers and fathers, 64–65 protection, 72–73, 72t
relation-specific reasoning, 22 reciprocity, 72t, 73
replay task, 149 social referencing
representation, 17–18 anxiety in, 159–6 0
research directions, 18–19, 19f controls in, 159
responsiveness. See early social interest in infancy development, 139–4 0, 157–6 0
restriction-of-range problem, 84 interaction partners in, 158
reversible figures, 28, 28f measurement of, 139–4 0
rich-lean, 143–4 4, 156 mother in, 157–58
Romanian orphans, 105–7 novelty effect in, 157–58
Russian orphans, 107 parents in, 159–6 0
paternal anxiety in, 159
SAT. See Separation Anxiety Test reassurance in, 160
scaffolding, 35, 45–4 6, 90–91, 211 strangers in, 159–6 0
schizophrenia, 103, 213 social relationships, 39
second-order false belief, 25–2 6, 27b social responsiveness, 151t
first-order false belief compared to, 25–2 6 social understanding, 216–18, 217t
secure attachment, 114t sociocultural approaches, 39–4 0, 267–68
in attachment conclusions, 132–33 socioeconomic status (SES), 63, 77
in attachment-t heory of mind development rate and, 99–101
correlation, 122–2 3 FMS and, 99–100
selectivity, 251–52, 254 Head Start and, 100
self-concept, 97–98 language and, 100–101
self-worth, 79t, 86 parenting and, 101
semantic knowledge, 252 siblings and, 100
semantics of parental talk, 199 variable of, 98
sensitive responsiveness Spanish children
attachment and, 115–16 attachment in, 90
in attachment-t heory of mind parental talk and, 174t, 178t
correlation, 122–2 3 speaker, 184–86
in naturalistic observation, 44 special populations, 166, 195–9 7, 229, 234.
sensitivity, 151t, 152 See also autism; deaf children
attachment and, 129 SS. See Strange Situation
early social interest and, 148–49 stability, 221t
intention understanding and, 160–61 in attachment development, 114–15
mind-m indedness and, 211–12 in mental state talk, 172
of mothers, 187 statistical controls, 51t
sentential complements, 231t–2 34t Still-Face Paradigm, 148–49
Separation Anxiety Test (SAT), 112t, 117t, 119t stories
separation distress, 110 Attachment Story Completion, 112t, 117t
sequential development, 23–2 4, 24t, 276 Strange Stories, 29, 30b, 31–32, 106, 117t
storybook reading mental state talk concurrent relations and,

cultures and, 178 173–78, 174t–176t
in mental state talk, 177–78 mental state talk longitudinal relations and,
parental talk measurement in, 167t, 168 178–82, 178t–181t
target in, 171–72 mind-m indedness and, 207, 207t–2 09t,
strangers, 157, 159–6 0 209–12, 224–25
Strange Situation (SS), 111, 112t, 113, normative nature of, 32–33
117t–120t research directions in, 18–19, 19f
Strange Stories, 29, 30b, 31–32, 106, 117t SES and, 99–101
supervisors, parents as, 68 term use of, 7
surprise, 14 theory-of-m ind battery, 86–87, 242, 249,
syntax, 198 271–72
theory of mind theories
talk, 21, 66, 189t. See also emotion talk; memory modularity, 38
talk; mental state talk parenting, 40
targets simulation, 37–38
in attachment conclusions, 134 sociocultural approaches, 39–4 0, 267–68
in attachment concurrent relations, 125–2 6 theory theory, 7, 24, 36–37, 236,
of mental state talk, 171–72 240–41, 267–68
in mental state talk concurrent theory theory, 7, 24, 36–37, 236, 240–41,
relations, 176–77 267–68
in mental state talk longitudinal belief in, 36
relations, 186–87 concurrence in, 24
of mind-m indedness, 214 relations in, 37
task modifications third-factor explanations, 51t, 52, 173,
deceptive context in, 10–11, 10b 176, 182
dependent variable in, 11–13, 13t time periods, 239
in false belief, 10–13, 10b, 13t in mental state talk longitudinal relations,
mental state reference in, 12–13, 13t 178t–181t, 182
prediction-e xplanation contrast in, 12 trained concept, 238–39
unexpected location in, 11 training method
teachers, 186 conclusions from, 240–41
temperament, 267 executive function in, 239–4 0
in children’s effects, on parents, 69–70 external validity in, 241
mind-m indedness and, 213 false belief in, 239
Test of Emotion Comprehension, 224 language in, 239–41
theories, 53–5 4, 53t, 267–68 mental state terms in, 242
theory of mind, 1–3, 7–4 0 overheard information in, 241–42
advanced theory of mind, 25–32, 78, 83, 121, pretend play in, 240
170, 276 task in, 240–41
antecedents of, 33–35 training studies, 227–47, 230t–2 34t, 249
attachment and, 109, 116–3 4 training studies emotion understanding
cognitively oriented approaches to parenting conclusions from, 246
and, 89–94, 93t, 95t–96t, 96–98 duration of, 245
consequences of, 35–36 goal of, 242, 245
CSUS and, 216–18, 217t moderator variables, 235
deaf children and, 249 parent intervention in, 243t–2 45t, 246–47
emotion understanding socialization and, readiness in, 246
91–94, 95t–96t, 96–98 transactional model, 50, 70–71, 70f, 270
executive function and, 34–35 triadic interaction, 137–38, 137f
individual differences studies in, 33 trust, 251–52, 254
infancy development and, 136–45, attachment and, 255–56
145t–146t, 147 twins, 79t, 86, 99
intergenerational transmission of, 216
language in, 34–35 Ukrainian orphans, 106
in learning from others, 254–55 unbalanced pattern of parenting, 64
unexpected contents, 9, 22 memory in, 43t, 49

unexpected location (unexpected transfer), 9, 11 in parent measurement, 43t, 46–49, 47b
uninvolved parenting style, 59, 59f, 60t, 79t, 86–87 strengths of, 43t, 48
verbosity, 169
valence, 206 violation-of-e xpectation, 14
validity, 241
of CSUS, 218, 274 warm sensitivity, 151t
of infants’ false belief, 14–15 warmth, 47–4 8, 85, 263
verbal report maternal, 79t, 86–87
about adolescents, 48 Ways of Knowing Interview, 177, 218–19
childrearing style in, 46–4 8, 47b within-study examination, 237
discipline in, 46–47, 47b within-subject approach, 23, 24t
formats of, 46–47 working models. See internal working models
informant in, 46, 48
limitations of, 43t, 48–49 zone of proximal development, 187

Scott A. Miller-Parenting and Theory of Mind-Oxford University Press (2016)

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Scott A. Miller-Parenting and Theory of Mind-Oxford University Press (2016)

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Parenting and Theory of

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2016

First Edition published in 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-​i n-​P ublication Data

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK 2

THEORIES OF THEORY OF MIND 36

4. General Aspects of Parenting and Theory of Mind 77

PARENTING STYLES AND DIMENSIONS 78

DEVELOPMENT UNDER ADVERSE CONDITIONS 101

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENT 109

6. Developments in Infancy 135

THEORY- ​OF-​M IND DEVELOPMENTS 136

7. Parental Talk 165

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES 166

MENTAL STATE TALK 171

8. Parents’ Beliefs 201

THE GENERAL PARENTS’ BELIEFS LITERATURE 202

9. Experimental Approaches 227

TRAINING STUDIES: THEORY OF MIND IN GENERAL 228

10. Conclusions 261

HOW IMPORTANT ARE PARENTS? 261

overview is intended primarily as a reminder, as I assume that most readers will

Limitations of the Coverage

In saying that an individual has a theory of mind, we mean that an indi-

The Premack and Woodruff report was followed by a number of commentar-

Box 2.1 Variations Examined in Wellman, Cross, and Watson’s (2001)

example, Wellman and colleagues concluded that children do better when a

A second modification of the standard task was introduced by Bartsch and

Table 2.1 Examples of Spontaneous References to False Belief from Bartsch

Child Age Statement

Other Epistemic Measures

Appearance–​Reality and Level 2 Perspective Taking

the immediate perceptual appearance of something is simply a representation, a

Theories: domain-specific theory development,

Earlier developments Later developments

Other mental states: desires, intentions,

Table 2.2 Examples of Spontaneous References to Desire from Bartsch and

Child Age Statement

Wellman (1995) identified as early instances of understanding of desire. Most of

Relations Among Developments

Table 2.3 Tasks Presented in the Wellman and Liu Study of Sequential

The other pattern of interest is that of concurrence: Some abilities emerge

at age 4 is not simply a continuation of infant competence but rather reflects a

Second-​order reasoning poses several challenges not present at the first-​order

Figure 2.2 Examples of ambiguous stimuli.

Other research by Chandler and colleagues demonstrates that this conclu-

Understanding of Nonliteral Utterances

Note. From “An Advanced Test of Theory of Mind: Understanding of Story Characters’

example, on the appearance–​reality task and on measures of pretend play. They

Antecedents and Consequences

Antecedents of Theory of Mind

response appears to be especially important in this regard (Moses, Carlson, &

Consequences of Theory of Mind

There is clear evidence that false-​belief understanding is related to some

teacher ratings of global social competence . . . ; contentedness in school;

Theories of Theory of Mind

observable; rather they are themselves theoretical postulates. Thus to think

Measuring What Parents Do

Table 3.1 Measurement Options in the Study of Parental Behavior

Approach Strengths and limitations

Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication Data

THEORY- OF-M IND DEVELOPMENTS 136

Appearance–Reality and Level 2 Perspective Taking

Second-order reasoning poses several challenges not present at the first-order

example, on the appearance–reality task and on measures of pretend play. They

There is clear evidence that false-belief understanding is related to some

This approach assumes that parent–child interactions or relationships

Domain Nature of parent– Parental behavior Mechanism of

Ensor (2006) the outcome was behavioral problems in 2-year-olds, as measured

lax parenting, however, related negatively to theory-of-m ind performance. This

example of a distress reaction, and the last an example of an emotion-focused

language differences between low-income and middle-income children are