Cognitive Development: A A B B A A A A

Cognitive Development 53 (2020) 100845
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Cognitive Development
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cogdev
Children’s storybooks as a source of mental state references:

T
Comparison between books from Chile, Colombia, Scotland and
USA
Chamarrita Farkasa,*, María Pía Santelicesa, Claire D. Vallottonb,
Holly E. Brophy-Herbb, Manuela Iglesiasa, Catalina Sieversona,
María del Pilar Cuellara, Carolina Álvareza
a
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
b
Michigan State University, United States
A R T IC LE I N F O ABS TRA CT
Keywords: Children’s storybooks may be considered as an important resource for young children to learn
Mental state references about different mental states (emotions, desires, cognitions); however, mental states represented
Children’s storybooks in stories vary, and may vary across cultures. This study investigates preschoolers’ storybooks
Cross-cultural comparison from Chile, Colombia, Scotland, and the USA to test similarities and differences in rates and types
of mental references. The texts in 160 children’s storybooks (40 per country) were coded. Results
showed similarities between countries in the references to desires, psychological states, and
physical expressions. Differences between countries were observed, where Chilean books con-
tained more references to cognitions, mood states, and causal talk compared with USA books, and
more references to emotions and causal talk compared with Scottish books. Also, Colombian
books had more references to emotions and causal talk compared with Scotland and USA books,
and more references to physiological states compared with Chilean and Scottish books. Finally,
USA books contained more references to perceptions in comparison to Colombian and Scottish
books. Similarities were identified between Chilean and Colombian books, and between Scotland
and USA books, and more differences between South American books (Chile, Colombia) and
those from Scotland and the USA.
1. Introduction
By five years old, children have a relatively sophisticated awareness of mental states and understanding of others’ minds, which
helps them to take others’ perspectives, empathize, and operate effectively in the social world. However, these skills begin developing
much earlier, and are influenced by the qualities of children’s interactions with parents and other caregivers (e.g., de Rosnay, Pons,
Harris, & Morrell, 2004; Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, & Youngblade, 1991). Specific aspects of interactions that influence
children’s understanding of mental states include the mental state talk they hear adults use about the child, the adult, and others (e.g.,
Adrián, Clemente, & Villanueva, 2007; Doan & Wang, 2010). However, adults’ use of mental state talk varies meaningfully between
individuals (e.g., Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991), including within- and between-culture differences (Chang, Farkas, Vilca, & Vallotton, 2017;
⁎
Corresponding author at: Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Avenida Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago,
Chile.
E-mail address: chfarkas@uc.cl (C. Farkas).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100845
Received 1 April 2019; Received in revised form 1 December 2019; Accepted 2 December 2019
Available online 10 December 2019
0885-2014/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
C. Farkas, et al. Cognitive Development 53 (2020) 100845
Pascual, Aguado, Sotillo, & Masdeu, 2008), and vary across different interaction contexts (e.g., care routines, playing with children,
reading stories) (Dyer-Seymour, Shatz, Wellman, & Saito, 2004; Farkas et al., 2018). In this study, we examined storybooks for young
children as a potential source of mental state talk, including references to varying mental states and supports for children’s under-
standing of mental states, which may reflect, or even influence, variation across cultures in adults’ attention to and talk about mental
states with young children.
The ordered development of children’s understanding of mental states, as measured by children’s use of mental state references in
speech, is widely documented (e.g., Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Tardif & Wellman, 2000); and, there is a parallel development in the
frequency of mothers’ mental references with their children, based on child age (Adrián et al., 2007; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002;
Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008). Studies conducted with children have shown that after 2 years of age, children refer to a range
of internal states in themselves and in others (Dunn et al., 1991), but this takes a developmental course. Toddlers develop from a
focus on their own mental states to including those of others (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Pascual et al., 2008; Tardif & Wellman,
2000), and from first focusing on desires to also including emotions and cognitions around 3 years of age (e.g., Bretherton &
Beeghley, 1982). A naturalistic study conducted by Bartsch and Wellman (1995) examined ten children’s spontaneous conversations
with their parents from 18 months to 6 years old. The authors suggest a developmental pattern through three phases: Desire psy-
chology, desire-belief psychology, and belief-desire psychology (Taylor & Sabbagh, 1996). In the first phase (ages 1.5 to 2 years)
children used only terms of desire, in diverse situations and linguistic contexts. In the second phase (3 years) children continue to use
references to desires but start referring to beliefs toward the end of the third year, once they acquire the representational under-
standing necessary to refer to beliefs. But the authors propose that this is a transitional phase, and that beliefs play a minor role in
children’s explanatory system for reasoning about human behavior. By age 4, in the third phase, references to thoughts and beliefs
increase, representing between 5% and 10% of all their mental state talk, and become central to children’s explanations of human
behavior (Taylor & Sabbagh, 1996).
Thus, in the first five years of life, young children develop from a rudimentary understanding of mental states focused on their
own desires, to having a more fully developed Theory of Mind, that is, understanding that mental states which drive their own and
others’ behaviors include desires, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs, which are different between individuals, and may be manipulated.
There is variation in this development, and children who have greater Theory of Mind skills are more prepared to control their own
behavior and get along with others. Importantly, parents and others influence children’s mental state understanding by engaging with
them at the mental level (Sharp, Fonagy, & Goodyer, 2006), interpreting and responding to children’s mental states, or “mentalizing”
them (Fonagy & Target, 1997; Sharp et al., 2006), and talking to them about mental states (e.g., Meins et al., 2003; Ruffman et al.,
2002; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008). In fact, these studies of parents’ mental state talk show that parents’ use of mental state
language precedes and predicts their children’s mental state talk.
Longitudinal studies of mother-child interactions showed that at 12 and 15 months, mothers’ references to internal states such as
desires, physical states, and emotions are more frequent than references to cognitions or attributes; then that mothers increase
references to cognitions when children are between 24 and 33 months of age, and decrease the reference to desires, while their
references to emotions remain stable (Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008). A study by Adrián et al. (2007) showed that mothers’
references to simple cognitive states – specifically the verbs “think” and “know” – were higher when their children were between 3
and 5 years old, and decreased one year later, in favor of other cognitive verbs, consistent with the increase in their children’s
understanding of mental verbs.
Variation in parents’ mentalizing (interpreting children as mental agents), and accompanying mental state talk in interactions
with children, predicts differences in children’s social-cognition. The frequency and diversity of mentalizing in discourse with parents
encourages the child’s expression and understanding of mental states (Adrián et al., 2007; Dunn et al., 1991; Ruffman et al., 2002;
Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006), which gains depth and nuance as they develop Theory of Mind, which is predicted by parents’ mental
state talk with children (de Rosnay et al., 2004; Meins, Fernyhough, Arnott, Leekam, & de Rosnay, 2013; Ruffman et al., 2002;
Ruffman, Slade, Devitt, & Crowe, 2006; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2008). Parents’ mental state talk also influences a variety of other
developmental outcomes. Mothers’ mental state talk is also associated with attachment security, as parents’ mentalization is un-
derstood as the cognitive substrate of sensitivity (Meins, Fernyhough, Fradley, & Tuckey, 2001). Mothers’ references to cognitions in
the interaction with their infants at one year of age predicts the child’s expressive language at 2 years of age (Laranjo & Bernier,
2013). Mental talk about emotions has been correlated with the child’s emotion situation knowledge and relational aggression
(Garner, Dunsmore, & Southam‐Gerrow, 2008), child’s understanding of emotion (Brown & Dunn, 1991), and, importantly, predicts
prosocial behavior (Garner, 2003).
These cross-sectional and longitudinal studies converge to show a coherent pattern in the development of specific types of mental
references, with the frequency of adults’ mental references preceding and predicting their child’s development. Thus, for parents who
are sensitive to children’s development, adults’ use of specific mental references can be seen as acting within the child’s zone of
proximal development in understanding of mental states (Adrián et al., 2007). This is consistent with the idea that children construct
an understanding of mind within their social interactions (Carpendale & Lewis, 2004), and internalize their culture’s ways of thinking
about themselves and others through the language used in interactions with more advanced others (e.g., parents, teachers, older
children; Vygotsky, 1978).
1.1. Cultural variation in mental state references
Given the social nature of mental state understanding, one potential source of variation is culture. Some studies have suggested
that social interaction may vary across cultures – such as Eastern and Western cultures-, and, this influences children’s understanding
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of mind, as this understanding develops within their social interactions (Carpendale & Lewis, 2004). The priority that a culture gives
to mental state talk, or particular mental state concepts, and how emotions and thoughts are socially learned might influence the way
parents talk to their children, and thereby the development of understanding mental states (Wang, Doan, & Song, 2010).
Studies in different cultures and languages show a developmental sequence consistent with the one described above, for example
with children speaking English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Spanish (Pascual et al., 2008; Tardif & Wellman, 2000). However, these
same studies show differences in the frequencies of specific types of mental states. For example, in Spanish-speaking children, the first
and most frequent desire term was “want” although other verbal expressions of desire appear, such as “would like to” or “wish,” but
with much less frequency than in studies with English-speaking children (Pascual et al., 2008). Another study comparing UK and
Hong Kong parents found that their levels of mentalization differed; UK parents used greater levels of mental references and reported
that their children used more mental descriptions (Hughes, Devine, & Wang, 2018). A study of US and Chilean mothers interacting
with their 12 month olds in a story-telling task showed that although overall frequency of mental states was similar in the two
countries, US mothers more frequently referred to cognitive states than did their Chilean counterparts (Chang et al., 2017). Therefore,
although a consistent developmental sequence of young children’s social-cognitive skills may drive overall changes in parents’ use of
mental references, culture influences some aspects of these references, as well as children’s development of understanding their own
and others’ mental states.
Thus, for the current study we compared mental states references in four countries; two Spanish-speaking countries (Chile,
Colombia), and two English-speaking countries (USA, Scotland), which also present some cultural differences other than language.
According to the cultural orientation model suggested by Schwartz (2006), these two sets of countries belong to culturally distinct
regions, where USA and Scotland/UK are located in an English-Speaking region, and Chile and Colombia in a Latin American region.
The culture of the English-Speaking region is characterized by higher affective autonomy and mastery, and lower social harmony and
embeddedness. This profile encourages an assertive and pragmatic orientation to the social world, and it is coherent with a more
individualistic or independent style of relating to oneself and others (Hofstede, 1991; Triandis, 2001). In this profile individual
personal achievements and individual rights are valued as much as the group, and thus parents encourage their children’s in-
dependence and self-development, privileging their achievement of autonomy over their relationships, and focusing on the children’s
own will, goals, desires, and needs (Keller et al., 2006).
On the other hand, the Latin American region seems relatively homogeneous culturally considering the Schwartz’s (2006) or-
ientations, and is located near the average in all these orientations. Compared with the English-speaking region, Latin America is
higher in hierarchy and embeddedness, and lower in intellectual autonomy (Schwartz, 2006), which are the main components of a
collectivist or interdependent style (Hofstede, 1991; Triandis, 2001). In this profile, interdependence and in-group consideration is
maintained among the members of the group, and parents promote their children’s control of their own behaviors and limit ex-
pressions of negative emotion, and promote obedience and the acceptance of social norms and family values (Keller et al., 2006).
These cultural characteristics may influence the specific mental references used between adults and children, as the scarce cul-
tural comparisons literature showed. Thus, it is likely that parents from Spanish countries, such as Chile and Colombia, use more
references to desires but less to cognitions in comparison to the English speaking countries (Chang et al., 2017; Pascual et al., 2008).
However, our interest in this study was to analyze specifically the mental states references used in storybooks to which children are
exposed to in each country, and to observe if these books present some cultural variations in mental references, which may reflect, or
even shape, the use of mental state references between adults and children.
1.2. Children’s storybooks as a source of mental state language
Inside each culture there are instruments that reflect and transmit cultural values and ways of thinking - such as books, songs,
movies, video games – which may act as tools of cultural socialization. Such tools are developed and used within a culture, but exist
outside of adult-child interactions, and thus may serve as another route to understand a culture’s values and potential influence on
child development, apart from the influence of children’s and adults’ behavior on one another. The current study is focused on the
analysis of the mental state language, including references to mental states that support children’s understanding of mental states,
contained in storybooks written or recommended for preschool-aged children, the age when children are developing Theory of Mind.
Book-reading between a caregiver and child is a specific interaction context in which particular ways of conversing occur, with
both members of the dyad focused on the same subject (Adrián et al., 2007). These conversations may have a critical impact on
children’s understanding of the subject they are reading about, depending on the nature of the conversation about the story (Evans,
Reynolds, Shaw, & Pursoo, 2011). In these types of interactions, adults and children tend to use more mental state language, as well
as a more complex and richer language, compared with other types of dyadic situations (Dickinson, Hofer, Barnes, & Grifenhagen,
2014; Doan & Wang, 2010; Stich, Girolametto, Johnson, Cleave, & Chen, 2015; Van Kleeck, Vander Woude, & Hammett, 2006; Wasik,
Bond, & Hindman, 2006). In fact, during shared book-reading, caregivers speak more and with longer utterances, pose more ques-
tions to children, use richer vocabulary, and have a greater lexical diversity and syntactic complexity compared with other situations
in which they talk to children, such as while playing with toys (Farkas et al., 2018; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991; Salo, Rowe, Leech, &
Cabrera, 2016; Stich et al., 2015).
Further, some studies have suggested that the increased use of mental language during shared book-reading is not only related to
explicit mental state references or images inside the book, but also to the act of narrating (Adrián et al., 2007; Ziv, Smadja, & Aram,
2014). During book-reading, caregivers tend to make references to the mental states of the story’s characters, as well as to the child’s
mental states, acknowledging also a variety of perspectives in the characters of the story, as well as the perspectives of the readers (de
Rosnay & Hughes, 2006; Kristen & Sodian, 2014). Many times, children’s storybooks use animals as main characters of a narration,
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which is proposed to be a good resource to improve the understanding of different points of view by the child (Dyer, Shatz, &
Wellman, 2000), including differing mental states. Thus, book-reading contexts provide the child a unique opportunity to access new
words and ideas that are not necessarily addressed in other daily routines, as well as springboard to other conversations not common
for young children (Ganea, Pickard, & DeLoache, 2008; Symons, Peterson, Slaughter, Roche, & Doyle, 2005).
There is evidence not only that the act of sharing stories is a natural and potent context for discussing mental states (e.g.,
Drummond, Paul, Waugh, Hammond, & Brownell, 2014), but also that the content of the stories themselves influence the qualities
and contents of parents’ speech during book-sharing (Stadler & McEvoy, 2003). An observational study of Preschool teachers’ book-
reading showed that when teachers shared books about emotions, or which contained more emotional content, the teachers’ talked
more about emotions during the book-share (Goetsch, 2016). A study of parents’ sharing of a wordless storybook found that even
though parents add internal state content to their own story-telling that is not written in the text of the stories, the content to the story
creates the opportunities for these comments to arise in authentic and relevant ways (Brophy-Herb et al., 2015). Thus, it is also
common that scientists who assess parental mental state talk during storytelling intentionally use stories and images with greater
emotional connotations, interactions between adults and children, or potential interpersonal conflicts (e.g., Farkas, Strasser, Badilla,
& Santelices, 2017; Ruffman et al., 2002; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008). Therefore, the mental state contents of storybooks –
whether represented in text or images – do influence the conversations that adults have with children about mental states during the
book-sharing experience.
Despite the relevance of these findings to socialization of mental state understanding and development of Theory of Mind, only a
few studies have examined the contents and language used in the texts of children’s books. Dyer et al. (2000) analyzed 90 children’s
storybooks, organizing the mental references into categories for cognitive states (e.g. think), emotional states (e.g. happy), desires
and volition (e.g. want), and moral evaluation and obligations (e.g. should). They found that rates of mental state language per word
in storybooks is fairly similar for those stories directed to children aged 3–4 and those directed to children aged 5–6 years old;
however, the stories for 5–6 year olds are longer, and thus the total frequency of mental references in them is greater.
1.2.1. Categories of mental state references appropriate to child age

The categories of mental states mentioned above – present in most children’s storybooks studied – are appropriate when taking
into account the age of the audience, and their stage of development. For example, children between 3 and 4 years old are far more
likely to refer to desires and emotions than to cognitions in their natural conversations (Dyer et al., 2000). This suggests that children
might have reached a stage of development where they understand that kind of mental references. However, books directed to
audiences of 3–4 years old tend to contain many more references to cognitions and beliefs, showing a relation of 3:2 with emotions
(Dyer et al., 2000). This indicates that children’s storybooks focus not on what children already know or use, but on what they need to
learn in their current stage of development. Thus, by exposing children to new mental state information, books can act as tools to
support parents’ and teachers’ scaffolding of children’s Theory of Mind development within children’s zone of proximal development
(Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2008; Vygotsky, 1978).
1.2.2. Culture and children’s storybooks

Children’s books can be an important source of information about what is considered appropriate in each culture in terms of
expression of mental states (Shatz, Dyer, Marchetti, & Massaro, 2006; Vander Wege et al., 2014). While only a few studies have
examined the impact of culture on mental state references in children’s storybooks, there is evidence to suggest possible cultural
variation in the expressions and types of mental states represented in books authored in different cultures (Dyer-Seymour et al., 2004;
Shatz et al., 2006; Vander Wege et al., 2014). One study compared the emotional expressions in American, Turkish, and Romanian
picture books and concluded that even though mental state terms are present across the children’s storybooks, the expression of these
states vary depending on the cultural background (Vander Wege et al., 2014). In the same way, even when language is the only
variable that changes, it is possible to see some differences. A study conducted with English and Japanese translations of the same
books found no significant differences regarding the frequency of mental states terms (Shatz, Dyer, Wellman, Bromirsky, & Hagiwara,
2001 cited by Shatz et al., 2006), but there were differences in the intensity of the expression of those states, or how the original
language was modified, motivated by culture-specific practices (Shatz et al., 2006). This phenomenon can be illustrated by a
comparison, made by Shatz et al. (2006), between English and Italian translations of children’s storybooks, in which the Italian
translation of the English word hugged in one of the analyzed books, was translated as lancia tra le braccia dell’amico, which in English
is threw herself into the arms of. In this example, the increase of the emotional intensity in the Italian version over the English is
noticeable. Therefore, culture and language should be a factor to consider when analyzing children's literature.
There are also studies suggesting cultural differences in the types of mental state used most often. For example, in the study
mentioned above, Shatz et al. (2006) compared 10 children’s books written in English and translated to Italian, and found that Italian
translations contained significantly higher frequencies of mental states that did the versions in English, and certain types of mental
references were used more often in the Italian versions of storybooks, such as cognitive state and moral evaluation and obligation.
Similarly, analyzing 40 English and 40 Japanese children’s books, Dyer-Seymour et al. (2004) found that both groups of books were
very similar, with higher frequency of references to emotions and cognitions, compared with other types of references; they only
differed in that Japanese stories contained more references to cognitive emotions, emotions that have a crucial cognitive component
(such as surprise).
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1.3. Current study
The literature reviewed here provides evidence that children’s storybooks could be a viable context for young children to learn
mental state references, particularly in shared book-reading with adults. However, there are questions about how specific mental
references are displayed in these storybooks, and possible cultural variations which may reflect cultural values, priorities, and ways of
understanding mental states. The preschool years were chosen because they are a very relevant stage in the children’s social-cognitive
development, particularly for developing Theory of Mind. This is also an age at which children across these cultures are preparing to
enter primary education, where they will face higher demands from their peers and non-familiar adults, and when they will need
greater socioemotional and meta-cognitive skills to be ready for those demands.
In the present study we analyzed the mental state references included in children’s storybooks from four countries: Chile,
Colombia, USA, and Scotland. We chose two Spanish-speaking countries, characterized as interdependent or more collectivist
countries, and two English-speaking countries, characterized as independent or more individualistic countries. We chose first Chile
and USA considering where the authors live, their expertise in each language (Spanish, English), their access to the data (books), and
their abilities to interpret the results as cultural insiders. A second country was added to each language-group, considering that they
had the same language, they were prolific in children’s literature, and they were not neighboring countries.
The aims of the present study were (a) to describe the mental state references included in a sample of 160 storybooks for preschool
aged children collected in two Spanish-speaking countries (Chile, Colombia) and two English-speaking countries (USA, Scotland) (40
books per country), and (b) to analyze similarities and differences between these countries. Because the literature in this field is very
scarce, this study took an exploratory approach. However, we had some expectations for the results of the study, for example, to find
more similarities between the countries of the same language and cultural group (Chile/Colombia, and USA/Scotland) and more
differences between countries of different groups. Related to the specific references, considering that in the interdependent profile,
parents encourages children’s control of their behaviors and limit their expressions of negative emotions, we expected more refer-
ences to emotions, mood states, physiological states, and physical expressions of emotion in Chile and Colombia, as a way to help
children to understand earlier how they feel and control it, prioritizing the group wellbeing. By the other hand, considering that
parents with an independent profile promote children’s independence, autonomy and self-development, we expected more references
to desires and cognitions in USA and Scotland, as a way to focus and promote children’s own will, goals, desires, and needs. With
these results we expect to provide additional information about whether and how children’s storybooks in these four countries may
be tools of cultural socialization through their use of mental state references.
2. Method
2.1. Sample of materials
For this study, 160 storybooks for preschool-aged children from four countries were analyzed. Half of them were in Spanish (40
for Chilean children and 40 for Colombian children) and the other half were in English (40 for USA children and 40 for Scottish
children). Separate databases for the relevant population of storybooks were built within each country, utilizing nationally and
culturally relevant lists and databases described below. The inclusion criteria in each country were: books were considered to be
storybooks, including both images and texts, were published in the dominant language of the country (Spanish, English), and were
recommended for children between ages 3 and 4 years old. To ensure the books were appropriate for preschoolers aged 3–4 years, the
age recommendation for each book was consulted from the original sources where each book was identified (see below), the books’
editorial suggestion, and the recommendation by a larger source of readers, such as Amazon.com. To be included in the database,
each book had to be identified as appropriate for preschoolers from at least between two of these three sources. Activity or poetry
books, compilations of different stories, classic fairy tales from other cultures (e.g., Cinderella), or books based on TV programs were
excluded from the populations of stories in the database. Once the databases of the population of relevant books were created for each
country, 40 books were selected at random from each one. While there was some very small overlap in stories in the four population
databases, there was no overlap in the books randomly selected from each database.
The 40 storybooks from Chile were randomly selected from a larger database of approximately 280 books compiled by the
authors. This database considered the bestsellers and suggestions from the main libraries and bookstores in Chile, and books sug-
gested as part of national plan to promote literacy in Chilean preschoolers (Program “Chile Crece Contigo” (Chile Grows with You),
national books catalogue from Chilean public childcare centers (Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles JUNJI), and the Center of
Resources for Learning (CRA in Spanish, project which aims is to improve the quality and equity of the education).
The 40 storybooks from Colombia were randomly selected from a larger database of approximately 270 books compiled by the
authors. This database was compiled to represent the bestsellers and suggestions from the main libraries and editorials in Colombia,
and books suggested as part of national plans to promote literacy in Colombian preschoolers (Fundalectura and “Leer es mi cuento”
(read is my story).
The 40 storybooks for USA were randomly selected from a larger database of approximately 270 books compiled by the authors.
This database included books suggested or awarded by the Horn Book guide, the list of best books 2017 from the School Library
journal, the 2017 notable children’s books from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), Scholastic bestsellers and
teachers’ picks, Goodreads choice award, New York Times and Time bestsellers, Caldecott Award winners, Newbery Award winners,
Coretta Scott King Award winners, and Pura Belpré Award winners, between others.
Finally, the 40 storybooks for Scotland were randomly selected from a larger database of approximately 280 books compiled by
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Table 1
Characterization of the books by country.
Chile (n = 40) Colombia (n = 40) USA (n = 40) Scotland (n = 40)
n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%)
Year of the book

1970–1979 0 0 1 (2.5) 0
1980–1989 0 1 (2.5) 0 0
1990–1999 0 5 (12.5) 1 (2.5) 0
2000–2009 7 (17.5) 11 (27.5) 7 (17.5) 6 (15.0)
2010–2018 32 (80.0) 23 (57.5) 31 (77.5) 34 (85)
No inf. 1 (2.5) 0 0 0
Writer’s gender
Male 14 (35.0) 17 (42.5) 16 (40.0) 17 (42.5)
Female 22 (55.0) 21 (52.5) 23 (57.5) 23 (57.5)
Both 1 (2.5) 2 (5.0) 1 (2.5) 0
No inf. 3 (7.5) 0 0 0
Writer’s nationality
Ibero-American 22 (55.0) 12 (30.0) 0 1 (2.5)
USA 4 (10.0) 9 (22.5) 34 (85.0) 4 (10.0)
European 10 (25.0) 15 (37.5) 4 (10.0) 35 (87.5)
Asian 2 (5.0) 4 (10.0) 2 (5.0) 0
No inf. 2 (5.0) 0 0 0
M (S.D.) Range M (S.D.) Range M (S.D.) Range M (S.D.) Range
Number of pages 22.2 (11.7) 1–56 29.6 (6.1) 20–52 33.2 (10.2) 13–74 27.2 (5.3) 14–48
Number of words 424.9 (346.6) 43–1460 426.5 (266.5) 75–1243 394.5 (253.9) 66–1120 440.2 (255.2) 95–1405
the authors. This database included books suggested or awarded by newspapers (The Scotsman, The Guardian), bestsellers and rating
from bookshops (Waterstones, Blackwell’s), Scottish children book award BookBugs 2016 and 2017, Kate Greenaway Medal winners,
Scottish children’s Books award, and Scottish initiatives to promote the literature (“Books For All” Scotland database, Scottish Book
Trust, Bookbug Program).
After random selection, in the total sample, 5.0% of the storybooks analyzed were published between 1970 and 1999, 18.3%
corresponds to 2000–2009 period, and 76.7% between 2010 and 2018. Additionally, 40.0% of the writers were male, and 55.6%
were female. A 22.2% of the writers were from Ibero-America, 32.3% from USA, 40.5% from Europe, and 5.0% from Asia. Finally, the
books had an average of 28.0 pages (S.D. = 9.55, range 1–74) and 421.5 words (S.D. = 280.96, range 43–1460) (the detail by
country can be seen in Table 1).
2.2. Procedure to identify and code the mental state references
To identify mental state references in the storybooks, we used a list of references developed by Farkas et al. (2017, 2018) which
was based largely on work conducted by Ruffman and his team (see for example Ruffman et al., 2002; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006,
2008). The current list contains 13 distinct categories of references, some of them including subcategories; the main categories are
classified into either references to mental content or support for mental work in understanding mental states. Both types are part of
the process of understanding one’s mind and that of others, but the first classification characterizes references to varying mental
states and the latter emphasizes scaffolds for engaging in mental work that results in conceptual development, including under-
standing concepts about mental states. Specifically, the mental content type includes mental state references such as desires, cog-
nitions, emotions and others, which have been included in other studies or by the present research team as mental content. Support
for mental work refers to some expressions that are not in themselves mental states, but which support the child to do mental work,
such as using causal talk, explaining facts, or linking ideas to the child’s life. The main categories that included subcategories are
desires, cognitions, emotions, psychological attributes, perception, and figurative language. The subcategories for emotions were
derived following the classification of Vander Wege et al. (2014). The rest of the subcategories were conceptually derived via
discussion with investigators from both Spanish and English speaking countries, and then validated and modified via the process of
training others, and getting reliability on them (see Table 2 for all main- and sub-categories).
To assess the reliability of the identification of the mental state expressions in the storybooks, five Spanish/English bilingual
coders coded 10 books randomly selected, and separately identified in them the expressions connoting mental states, including both
the main categories and subcategories. The agreement between coders was 80% (range 77%–84%) for the words selected and 95%
(range 91%–97%) for the code assignment. Subsequently, four coders coded the storybooks of all the samples and the fifth coder,
considered as the “expert,” reviewed their coding for accuracy. All disagreements were discussed and resolved between the coders.
For each of the 13 categories (and respective subcategories), the overall frequency of mental references used and the rate at which
these terms occurred per 100 words (using the total number of words for the storybook as the denominator) were calculated to
control the heterogeneity in the number of words between the books. These references were counted in two ways: First as tokens,
which counts all of the occurrences of references within a category (number of words mentioned, regardless of whether they were
6
Table 2
References coded in storybooks.
Source: Farkas et al. (2018)
Mental states References Description Examples
Mental contents Desires References to what people want, like, wish; preferences Wish or like something, prefer. A favorite toy.
and intentions.
Considers the subcategories of:
Desires (e.g., want, wish, hope).
Preferences expressed as an experience of the person (e.g.,
like something, prefer).
Preferences expressed as an attribute of the object, activity
or experience (favorite toy).
Cognitions References to mental or cognitive processes. “Do you know what this is?”
Considers the subcategories of: “They are concentrated”.
Attentional processes (e.g., attend, concentrate). “Let me think about it”.
Memory processes (e.g., remember, forget). Believe, remember, think, understand, guess,
Thinking processes (e.g., think, know, believe). imagine.
Complex cognitive rational processes (e.g., understand,
learn, realized).
Complex cognitive creative processes (e.g., imagine,
pretend).
Emotions References to emotions, feelings, moods. Happy, sad, love someone, unhappy, feel,
Considers the subcategories of: emotions, angry.
Positive emotions (e.g., happy, love, hope). Sad face, surprise face, to be surprised.
Negative powerless emotions (e.g., sad, afraid).
Negative powerful emotions2 (e.g., anger, jealous).
Psychological References to child’s characteristics, him/herself or the Be kind, nice, good, nervous, loving, determined,
attributes story character that are related to personality smart, curious, uninterested, silly.
characteristics or ways of being.
General attributes (e.g., silly, nervous).
Regulation attributes (e.g., obedient, patient).
Dysregulation attributes (messy, impatient).
Mood states1 References to mood states related to the child’s emotional Feeling calm, bored, entertained, motivated,
commitment, the story character, or his/her self (how the uninterested, interested; having fun; confused.
person feels).
Physiological states References to the physiological states of the child, the Tired, sleepy, in pain, cold, hot, hungry, thirsty, ill,
story character, or him/herself. sick, hurt.
Perception2 References to sensory perceptions, either talking about Look, see, smell, feel (sensations), “Look at that.”
what is perceived, or to instruct the child’s attention on
something.
Sensorial perception (e.g., see, hear, smell).
Perception to orient attention (e.g., “look at this”).
Figurative language2 References where the mental content is not literal but “She open her eyes widely” (to express surprise), “it
figurative. was spinning in his head” (to express thinking), “I
Considers the subcategories of figurative language for have dreams” (to express desires).
desires, cognitions, emotions, psychological attributes,
mood states, physiological states and physical expressions.
For example, “I am dying for an ice-cream” (desires), or
“little owl’s eyes grew wide” (emotion).
Ambiguous internal Adult makes reference to an internal state, but it is not “How do you feel?”, “are you OK?” (and the answer
states2 clear whether this is physiological, emotional, cognitive, cannot tell if it is referring to an emotional or a
etc. physiological state.
Support for Mental Causal talk Considers references to causal talk and associations “He fell because he did not look where he was
Work between events. Adult explains why something happens, going”.
causal relationships, associations between two events, a “The mother punished her because she didn’t eat all
relationship between before and now. the food”. “Why he fell?”
“He lost his dog and then he’s sad”.
Factual talk References to facts, such as object function or nature facts. “An orange is a type of fruit that grows on trees”.
“The hens lay eggs”.
Links with the child’s Links between what occurred in the story and child’s life. “Andrés’ mother called him for lunch, just as I
life called you for lunch today”.
“Now your new baby brother will arrive. Do you
remember when you were smaller?”
“Now the cake has all the ingredients and looks
delicious! Do you have a favorite cake?”
Physical expressions References to physical expressions or behaviors related to Crying, smiling, laughing, shivering, frowning,
the child, the story character, or him/herself. yawning, sighing, sleeping
1
called “states of consciousness” in the previous version.
2
New categories.
7
Table 3
Descriptive statistics for mental state references for the total sample and per country.
Total (N = 160) Chile (n = 40) Colombia (n = 40) USA (n = 40) Scotland (n = 40)
Min-Max M (SD) Min-Max M (SD) Min-Max M (SD) Min-Max M (SD) Min-Max M (SD)
Total score
Tokens 2.2–23.8 7.87 (3.269) 2.3–19.0 8.35 (3.408) 3.4–11.5 7.59 (1.767) 2.7–23.8 8.24 (4.445) 2.2–16.1 7.29 (2.873)
Types 1.5–12.9 4.90 (1.959) 1.5–12.9 5.59 (2.536) 2.6–8.0 5.11 (1.351) 2.0–8.6 4.49 (1.687) 1.5–8.5 4.42 (1.896)
Total content score
Tokens 0–23.8 4.60 (2.904) 0–13.9 5.06 (2.543) 1.0–8.0 3.94 (1.766) 1.1–23.8 5.21 (4.213) 0.8–9.7 4.20 (2.414)
Types 0–8.3 2.98 (1.536) 0–8.3 3.28 (1.768) 0.9–8.0 2.93 (1.432) 0.6–6.8 2.86 (1.386) 0.7–6.4 2.84 (1.548)
Total support score
Tokens 0–10.5 3.26 (1.684) 0–8.6 3.29 (1.765) 0–8.1 3.65 (1.552) 0–10.5 3.03 (1.966) 0.6–6.4 3.09 (1.390)
Types 0–8.6 1.93 (1.110) 0–8.6 2.31 (1.646) 0–3.9 2.18 (0.745) 0–4.6 1.63 (0.886) 0.6–3.9 1.58 (0.735)
Desires
Tokens 0–12.9 0.80 (1.560) 0–12.7 1.01 (2.044) 0–2.7 .545 (0.616) 0–12.9 0.82 (2.051) 0–5.5 0.82 (1.026)
Types 0–2.2 0.42 (0.439) 0–1.7 0.46 (0.436) 0–2.2 0.43 (0.513) 0–1.7 0.30 (0.340) 0–2.1 0.48 (0.443)
Cognitions
Tokens 0–6.9 1.07 (1.097) 0–2.8 1.17 (0.816) 0–3.1 0.97 (0.868) 0–3.9 0.87 (1.014) 0–6.9 1.28 (1.533)
Types 0–3.9 0.73 (0.726) 0–2.8 0.91 (0.735) 0–2.5 0.69 (0.588) 0–2.6 0.56 (0.685) 0–3.9 0.77 (0.856)
Emotions
Tokens 0–10.2 0.77 (1.093) 0–10.2 1.19 (1.782) 0–3.2 0.72 (0.651) 0–3.4 0.61 (0.722) 0–3.1 0.58 (0.710)
Types 0–2.5 0.53 (0.522) 0–2.5 0.67 (0.649) 0–1.5 0.59 (0.424) 0–1.9 0.45 (0.495) 0–2.4 0.43 (0.476)
Psychological attributes
Tokens 0–6.5 0.41 (0.822) 0–6.5 0.46 (1.107) 0–2.5 0.27 (0.560) 0–4.2 0.52 (0.944) 0–2.3 0.40 (0.537)
Types 0–2.3 0.29 (0.456) 0–1.8 0.30 (0.494) 0–1.8 0.20 (0.390) 0–1.7 0.33 (0.438) 0–2.3 0.35 (0.495)
Mood states
Tokens 0–1.7 0.19 (0.343) 0–1.7 0.26 (0.373) 0–1.3 0.15 (0.270) 0–1.4 0.16 (0.348) 0–1.7 0.21 (0.372)
Types 0–1.7 0.17 (0.312) 0–1.7 0.23 (0.353) 0–1.3 0.14 (0.266) 0–1.4 0.14 (0.306) 0–1.7 0.18 (0.319)
Physiological states
Tokens 0–4.6 0.30 (0.652) 0–1.8 0.14 (0.324) 0–4.0 0.48 (0.804) 0–4.6 0.39 (0.879) 0–1.8 0.20 (0.358)
Types 0–4.0 0.22 (0.455) 0–1.8 0.13 (0.315) 0–4.0 0.35 (0.667) 0–2.1 0.25 (0.467) 0–0.9 0.15 (0.221)
Perception
Tokens 0–23.8 0.97 (2.002) 0–2.8 0.78 (0.750) 0–2.4 0.72 (0.613) 0–23.8 1.75 (3.772) 0–2.2 0.63 (0.579)
Types 0–3.6 0.54 (0.547) 0–2.8 0.53 (0.616) 0–1.9 0.46 (0.435) 0–3.6 0.73 (0.678) 0–1.3 0.43 (0.368)
Figurative language
Tokens 0–0.6 0.02 (0.087) 0–0.4 0.03 (0.083) 0–0.5 0.03 (0.094) 0–0.6 0.02 (0.111) 0–0.2 0.01 (0.050)
Types 0–0.6 0.02 (0.078) 0–0.4 0.03 (0.083) 0–0.2 0.02 (0.054) 0–0.6 0.02 (0.111) 0–0.2 0.01 (0.050)
Ambiguous internal states
Tokens 0–1.9 0.06 (0.227) 0–1.0 0.03 (0.161) 0–1.2 0.06 (0.233) 0–1.1 0.07 (0.193) 0–1.9 0.07 (0.301)
Types 0–1.2 0.04 (0.164) 0–1.0 0.03 (0.161) 0–1.2 0.05 (0.193) 0–1.1 0.07 (0.193) 0–0.5 0.03 (0.088)
Causal talk
Tokens 0–8.1 2.72 (1.483) 0–7.8 2.83 (1.720) 0–8.1 3.12 (1.376) 0–5.8 2.28 (1.360) 0–5.5 2.64 (1.374)
Types 0–7.8 1.56 (1.036) 0–7.8 1.93 (1.576) 0–3.5 1.83 (0.759) 0–2.7 1.21 (0.607) 0–3.5 1.28 (0.728)
Factual talk
Tokens 0–1.4 0.04 (0.169) 0–0.5 0.05 (0.118) 0–1.4 0.05 (0.233) 0–1.3 0.05 (0.215) 0 0
Types 0–1.4 0.04 (0.169) 0–0.5 0.05 (0.118) 0–1.4 0.05 (0.233) 0–1.3 0.05 (0.215) 0 0
Links with the child’s life
Tokens 0–0.6 0.01 (0.064) 0–0.6 0.03 (0.127) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Types 0–0.6 0.01 (0.064) 0–0.6 0.03 (0.127) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Physical expressions
Tokens 0–5.0 0.51 (0.781) 0–2.5 0.38 (0.545) 0–5.0 0.48 (0.843) 0–4.2 0.71 (1.000) 0–3.2 0.45 (0.646)
Types 0–3.3 0.32 (0.445) 0–2.5 0.31 (0.479) 0–1.1 0.30 (0.333) 0–3.3 0.37 (0.576) 0–1.4 0.30 (0.364)
Notes: (1) The scores represent the proportion of the references over 100 words. (2) In consideration of the limited space, the descriptive statistics
for the subcategories are not presented in this Table.
repeated or not), and types, which counts occurrence of different references within a category (different concepts mentioned), as used
by Dyer and colleagues (Dyer et al., 2000). For example, in the reference to “happiness,” the occurrence of happy, happiness, glad, and
happy face produces a value of 4 tokens (4 total references to emotion) but only 2 types (happy, glad). Thus, each story has a score for
total rates of tokens and of types for each of the 13 categories. Finally, summary scores were created to sum all tokens, and all types,
across the mental content categories, and across the support for mental work categories, and finally, across all categories.
3. Analyses and results
3.1. Descriptions of mental state references included in storybooks
The average mental references across all books in the sample was 7.9 tokens (S.D. = 3.27) per 100 words, with 4.9 different types
per 100 words (S.D. = 1.96). For references to mental content, the average was 4.6 /100 words for tokens (S.D. = 2.90) and 3.0 /
8
Fig. 1. Comparison of average summary token and type scores for total references, mental content references, and support for mental work across
four countries.
100 words for types (S.D. = 1.54); in support for mental work, the average was 3.3/100 for tokens (S.D. = 1.68) and 1.9/100 for
types (S.D. = 1.11). Table 3 includes the descriptive statistics for all of the categories in the total sample, as well as in each country.
Because certain categories had very low average scores indicating very rare occurrence, only the categories with an average score
equal to or greater than 0.10 (once in every 1000 words) were used in the comparative analyses; thus, the categories of figurative
language, ambiguous internal states, factual talk, and links with the child’s life were excluded from the next analyses.
For those categories with higher scores, the four samples of books were similar in their higher rates of references to causal talk,
desires, cognitions, emotions, and perceptions, but differed between them in which of these was most common. Across all countries,
the single most common category was causal talk, which is part of support for mental work; however, the next three most common
categories differed between countries. In Chile the second, third, and fourth most frequent categories were emotion, cognition, and
then desire; in Colombia they were cognition followed by a tie between emotion and perception. In Scotland the order was cognition,
desire, and then perception; and in the US, the most common were perception, cognition, and then desire.
3.2. Comparison of references to mental states in storybooks from each country
To determine whether there were overall differences in the rates of mental state talk between each country’s books for pre-
schoolers, we used a non-parametric independent sample tests (Kruskal-Wallis test) for the summary scores. There were significant
differences between countries in the total types score across all categories, x2 = 8.00, df = 3, p = .046, and the total types score of
support for mental work, x2 = 19.08, df = 3, p < .001 (see Fig. 1). No differences were found in the summary scores for mental
contents. Specific comparison conducted with Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that Chilean storybooks reached a higher total score and
support for mental work score compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 596.50, p = .050 for total score, Mann-Whitney U = 589.00, p
= .042 for support score), and with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 586.50, p = .040 for total score, Mann-Whitney U = 550.50, p =
.016 for support score). Additionally, the Colombian storybooks reached a higher total score and support for mental work score
compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 591.00, p = .044 for total score, Mann-Whitney U = 435.00, p < .001 for support score),
and with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 391.50, p < .001 for support score). No differences were found between Chile and Colombia,
nor between USA and Scotland. These differences were only related to types scores, which calculates the variety of concepts men-
tioned in the storybooks for each reference, rather than the total amount of references (reflected in the tokens scores); thus, these
differences reflect differences in the richness or variety in the ideas brought to children via stories, but not in the total number of
times these ideas are brought to children’s attention in books.
Within the categories of mental states references, the general analyses showed significant differences between countries for
physiological states, x2 = 8.75, df = 3, p = .033 for tokens, x2 = 7.95, df = 3, p = .047 for types, and for causal talk, x2 = 8.26,
df = 3, p = .041 for tokens, x2 = 20.27, df = 3, p < .001 for types (see Fig. 2). Specific comparisons revealed that in the references to
cognitions, Chilean storybooks reached higher scores compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 588.50, p = .039 for tokens, Mann-
Whitney U = 583.00, p = .034 for types). Related to the references to emotions, Chilean storybooks reached higher scores compared
with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 595.50, p = .047 for tokens), and Colombian books reached higher scores compared with USA
(Mann-Whitney U = 589.00, p = .041 for types) and with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 574.50, p = .029 for types). In mood states,
Chilean books reached higher scores compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 614.00, p = .045 for tokens). In perceptions, USA
storybooks reached higher scores compared with Colombia (Mann-Whitney U = 586.00, p = .039 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U =
589.50, p = .042 for types), and with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 541.00, p = .012 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U = 581.00, p = .034
9
Fig. 2. Mental reference scores for the average number of tokens (Panel A) and types (Panel B) of each category in storybooks in each country.
for types). For physiological states, Colombian storybooks reached higher scores compared with Chilean books (Mann-Whitney U =
521.50, p = .004 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U = 534.50, p = .006 for types), and with Scottish books (Mann-Whitney U = 602.00, p
= .045 for tokens). Finally, in causal talk, the most common category across countries, Chilean storybooks included more references
compared with books from USA (Mann-Whitney U = 538.50, p = .012 for types), and from Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 553.00, p =
.017 for types). Colombian storybooks also reached higher references to causal talk compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 492.50,
p = .003 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U = 405.00, p < .001 for types), and Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 420.00, p < .001 for types).
No differences between countries were observed in the categories of desires, psychological states, and physical expressions.
10
Within the subcategories of mental states references, the general analyses showed no differences between the subcategories of
perception (sensorial perception, and perception to orient attention), or for the subcategories of desires (desires, preferences oriented
to the person, preferences oriented to the object, experience or activity). However, a significant difference was observed for the
subcategory of preferences expressed as an experience of the person (e.g., “she likes the doll”), where USA storybooks included more
concepts in this aspect compared with books from Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 619.00, p = .049 for types).
In relation to the subcategories for cognitions (attentional processes, memory processes, thinking processes, complex cognitive
rational processes, and complex cognitive creative processes), significant differences were identified between the countries, where
more references to cognitive rational processes (e.g., “he understood the rules”) were found in the Chilean and Colombian books.
Chilean books reached higher scores in this subcategory compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 569.00, p = .011 for tokens, Mann-
Whitney U = 569.00, p = .011 for types) and with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 579.50, p = .015 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U =
557.50, p = .007 for types). Likewise, Colombian books reached higher scores compared with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 557.00, p =
.008 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U = 548.50, p = .006 for types) and with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 565.00, p = .010 for tokens,
Mann-Whitney U = 537.00, p = .004 for types).
Finally, considering the subcategories for emotions (positive emotions, negative powerless emotions, negative powerful emo-
tions), no differences were appreciated for the positive emotions. Colombian storybooks showed more references to negative pow-
erless emotions (e.g., sadness, fear) in comparison with Scotland (Mann-Whitney U = 576.50, p = .022 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U =
603.00, p = .043 for types) and more references to negative powerful emotions (e.g., anger, envy) in comparison with USA (Mann-
Whitney U = 630.00, p = .016 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U = 626.00, p = .014 for types). Equally, Chilean storybooks showed more
references to negative powerful emotions in comparison with USA (Mann-Whitney U = 659.00, p = .035 for tokens, Mann-Whitney U
= 663.00, p = .040 for types).
4. Discussion
This study examined cross-cultural differences in the occurrence of mental state language, including both mental content and
support for mental work, in children’s books from Chile, Colombia, Scotland, and the USA. The results showed that these children’s
books are rich in references to mental states and the frequency of occurrence of mental state language, including both mental content
and support for mental work, were similar across the four countries. These findings are on par with the few existing cross-cultural
studies of children’s storybooks (Dyer-Seymour et al., 2004; Shatz et al., 2006; Vander Wege et al., 2014). However, when the variety
of different concepts were analyzed (types scores), Chilean and Colombian books showed a higher heterogeneity of concepts in the
support for mental work categories, in comparison with Scottish and US books.
Across all four countries, references to cognitions and causal talk occurred most frequently, but the next most frequent categories
differed across countries; in Chile and Colombia, the next most frequent category was emotions, and in Scotland and USA, they were
desires and perceptions, a result that was coherent with our hypothesis. We expected more references to emotions in Chile and
Colombia, as a way to help children to understand how they feel and control these feelings or related expressions, a typical char-
acteristic of countries with an interdependent profile. Also we expected more references to desires in USA and Scotland, as a way to
promote children’s own will, goals, desires, and needs, a common goal in countries with an independent profile. These findings of
cultural differences in the specific categories of mental state talk are discussed further below. We begin by discussing similarities in
the occurrence of mental state language between the four countries, and then turn to differences between them.
4.1. Stories as common tools to understand cognition, motivation, and causality
The similarities in overall rates of mental state references suggest a somewhat universal emphasis on the inclusion of mental
content and support for mental work in children’s literature. This is consistent with the findings of Chang et al. (2017), which found
high rates of references to mental states in a projective story-telling task (where parents finished a story based on a story stem)
between parents and their young children in Chile and the USA. Similarly, Dyer-Seymour et al. (2004) found few differences in the
rates of references to mental content in children’s books from the USA and Japan. Children’s books are often a rich source of
information on mental states and typically elicit more opportunities to make references to mental states than other types of parent-
child interactions (Dickinson et al., 2014; Doan & Wang, 2010; Stich et al., 2015). Moreover, as noted by Dyer-Seymour et al. (2004),
books across cultures serve as a source of “basic vocabulary” (p. 551) in mental states, likely because children around the world share
common developmental tasks in learning about mental states and the ways in which mental states and behaviors are linked. Emo-
tions, and we argue mental states in general, are socially shared scripts (Kitayama & Masuda, 1995) within and across cultures that
promote perceptions, beliefs, and expected behaviors (Perez-Rivera & Dunsmore, 2011). Moreover, parents of preschoolers are more
likely to focus on mental states of book characters during book sharing/storytelling episodes than are mothers of older children
(Rollo, Longobardi, Spataro, & Sulla, 2017), suggesting that parents scaffold their children's mental state understanding using story
experiences and view young children’s literature as a sources of emotion socialization. In our study, our results indicate that for every
100 words in a story, preschoolers encounter eight opportunities to consider mental states, with a variety of four to five different
concepts of mental states. This is much higher than the mental state language observed in other types of mother-preschooler in-
teractions - almost two opportunities for every 100 words during free play and almost three opportunities for every 100 words during
storytelling tasks (Farkas et al., 2018). Thus, children’s books may be a tool for promoting young children’s understandings of mental
states in self and others across many different cultures, as well as a tool for cultural socialization. A few studies have shown that the
content of the stories themselves (e.g., more emotional content) influence the qualities and contents of how adults (e.g., parents or
11
teachers) use mental states references during book-sharing with the child, even though they add internal state content to their own
story-telling that is not written in the text of the stories (Brophy-Herb et al., 2015; Goetsch, 2016; Stadler & McEvoy, 2003).
Therefore, the mental state contents of storybooks – whether represented in text or images – do influence the conversations that
adults have with children about mental states during the book-sharing experience. However, future observational studies should be
conducted to inform the relation between the use of mental state references in the text and images of children’s books and adults’
references to mental states during book-sharing, and how adults use stories in ways that socialize cultural understandings of mental
states.
Nuances in how mental states are addressed across cultures may be better understood by examining similarities and differences in
the types of mental state references made. No major differences between the books from the four countries were found in the amount
of references to desires, psychological attributes, or physical expressions, which suggest a somewhat consistent emphasis on the
inclusion of these references in children’s literature. It is likely that references to physical expressions are important for young
children to support their recognition and labeling of the expressions that they can see in other people’s faces or in themselves (e.g.,
cry, smile, yawn), and which are linked with inner states such as emotions and physiological states. These expressions make emotions
visible, and are themselves a natural scaffold for understanding others’ internal mental states. Further, references to psychological
characteristics of a character, other people, or the self are useful to help children understand that people differ beyond their behaviors
or actions; understanding the presence of these characteristics may help children understand differences in others’ motivations, and
predict others’ behaviors.
References to desires, such as wants, wishes, and preferences, have been included in several studies, and recognized as a frequent
and developmentally salient reference especially during mother-child interactions when children are around one year old, as such
references predict children’s later mental state language and emotion task performance (Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006). Further,
desires continue to appear, but with less frequency, in books for preschool-aged children (Dyer et al., 2000). In our study of children’s
books, although desire words occurred in the top three types of mental references for only the USA and Scotland, the overall rates of
references to desires did not differ between the four countries. The only difference observed was for the subcategory of preferences
expressed as an experience of the person, where USA books used more variety of such concepts than those in Scotland. These results
doesn’t go in the expected direction, but instead suggest a common focus on desires as key mental content for young children.
The most common reference for all four countries was causal talk, a type of support for mental work. This appeared to be a
universal element in stories for preschool-aged children, and perhaps in all stories. These results suggest that books may not only
serve to provide references to mental state content but also provide opportunities for children to gain exposure to sequences, cause
and effect relationships, and other types of relationships between events. Such sequences and relationships are often a part of
children’s stories, and are relevant for preschool aged children who are building their general knowledge of the workings of the world
(e.g., Mills, Legare, Bills, & Mejias, 2010; Ziv et al., 2014).
Interestingly, similarities were observed between Chile and Colombia, and between USA and Scotland, while Chilean and
Colombian books included a wider variety of causal talk types compared with the books from USA and Scotland. Without analyzing
the structure of the narrative content, it is difficult to say why causal talk might be greater, in general, in the books from Chile and
Colombia. For example, it would be interesting to note whether this causal talk is related to actions (e.g., it is snowing because is
winter), or emotions (e.g., when she received a present she was happy). As we noted, some studies have shown that Latin American
parents may use more emotion explanations in their interactions with children, and it may be that cause and effect explanations in
general are more common in Latin American cultures, which would fit well within an emphasis on greater relational competence,
including understanding associations between events and between events and people’s experiences of them. Thus, future studies
should consider the structure of the narrative content in children’s storybooks and also the nationality of the author, to learn more
about these cultural differences. Also, future studies could analyze the themes of the books and their relation with the mental states
references mentioned, for its possible contribution to understanding these differences.
4.2. Stories as tools for cultural emotion socialization
Regarding references to emotions, we identified similarities between Chile and Colombia, whose books both included these
references in the top three most frequently occurring categories, but not in books from the USA and Scotland. Chilean books featured
statistically more references to emotions as compared to Scotland only and books from Colombia had more emotion tokens and types
as compared to books from the USA and from Scotland. This result went in the expected direction, and there are several potential
explanations as to why emotion references occurred frequently in books from Latin America. Latin American countries have tradi-
tionally been identified as interdependent or collectivist countries in which group harmony and relational competence are strong
values, and then talk about emotions is a way to help children to understand earlier how they feel and control it (Keller et al., 2006;
Perez-Rivera & Dunsmore, 2011), which are reflected in emotion socialization practices. For example, Mexican American parents and
children make more emotional references when discussing interpersonal topics, such as friends and family members (Flannagan &
Perese, 1998). Latin American parents include more explanations of emotion and more emotion-framing in their talk with children
than European American parents (Cervantes, 2002). Some recent studies have shown that newly immigrated Latino parents in the
USA include the same emotional explanations in their storytelling interactions with their children as more acculturated Latino
American parents (Perez-Rivera & Dunsmore, 2011), which reflects the relevance of the emotions’ socialization in Latin American
culture, independently of the country of residence. This is consistent with our findings which identified more frequent references to
mood states in books from Chile as compared to books from the USA; this may suggest a greater emphasis on relational competence,
such as noticing the moods of others.
12
In the subcategories of emotions, Chilean and Colombian books featured more references to negative powerful emotions as
compared to those from the USA, and Colombian books showed more references to negative powerless emotions as compared to those
from Scotland. Children’s storybooks are rich in emotional contents (Dyer et al., 2000), and act as a specific pathway through which
emotions are presented, and provide an important resource for children to learn about culturally appropriate emotions, and how to
control or manage the inappropriate ones (Adrián et al., 2007; Ruffman et al., 2002; Vander Wege et al., 2014). In cultures with an
independent or individualistic model of emotional competence, children are encouraged to express emotions in an open way, thus
promoting children’s sense of autonomy, assertiveness, and self-esteem (Vander Wege et al., 2014). Consequently, in cultures with
this independent view of emotional competence, negative powerful emotions (e.g., anger, disgust) are valued as supporting the
assertion of the autonomous self, while negative powerless emotions which may threaten the child’s self-esteem (e.g., shame, guilt)
are discouraged (Markus & Kitayama, 2001). On the other hand, a “relational” model of emotional competence, more characteristic
in interdependent cultures, prioritizes proper behaviors and appropriate emotional expressions in hierarchical relationships, which
supports social harmony and the group interests (Vander Wege et al., 2014). Thus, such cultures promote emotions as sympathy and
shame in order to foster relational emotional competence (Chan, Bowes, & Wyver, 2009), whereas negative emotions such as anger
are considered potentially disruptive to interpersonal relationships and are strictly controlled (Wang, 2003). Chile and Colombia are
considered to be more relational and interdependent compared to the USA and Scotland (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2008), and would
have a relational model of emotion competence; thus, we hypothesize that their books are richer in references to negative emotions in
order to provide child-adult dyads more opportunities to discuss the appropriate expression and consequences of these emotions,
communicating the expectation that children regulate them, and perhaps providing strategies for regulation. A future study could test
cultural differences in the ways adults (parents, educators) talk about these negative emotions when sharing stories with preschool
aged children.
4.3. Cultural differences in scaffolding understanding of cognition
As we noted, cognitions appeared in the top three most frequently occurring reference in each of the four countries. To some
extent, this is not surprising. References to cognition are common in children’s books geared toward preschool-aged children (Dyer
et al., 2000). Similarly, parents too increase their references to cognitions, such as thinking and knowing, during the preschool years
(Adrián et al., 2007; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2008). These consistent references to cognition in books and in parent-child inter-
actions align with developmental changes in children as they gain new understandings in mental verbs (Pascual et al., 2008) and
Theory of Mind (Meins et al., 2013; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2008). The only difference identified in our study was between Chile
and USA, and not in the expected direction, where books from Chile had more cognition tokens and types as compared to books from
USA. In addition, among the subcategories, books from Chile and Colombia had more references to complex rational processes (e.g.,
understand, learn) as compared to USA and Scotland books. It would be valuable in future studies to consider a cultural model of
“cognitive competences,” as we presented above for emotions, which bring a better understanding of these differences.
Regarding the references to perceptions, books from the USA, Scotland, and Colombia featured references to perceptions in the
top four most frequently occurring mental references. Indeed, USA books had more perceptions tokens and types as compared to
Colombia and Scotland books. In the U.S., references to perception (look, listen, see, hear) are a very common way for parents to
guide young babies’ attention, which is a form of cognitive stimulation, and establishes triadic joint attention on an object or event
(Vallotton, Mastergeorge, Foster, Decker, & Ayoub, 2017). Parents use guidance of the child’s internal perception states to attune the
child to their own perception states, then use language to describe the objects to which they are both attuned; this triadic joint
attention predicts infants’ and toddlers’ word-learning and expressive vocabulary (Tamis-LeMonda & Bornstein, 1989; Tamis-
LeMonda, Bornstein, & Baumwell, 2001). This attention-directing behavior is more common in US parent-infant dyads than those in
more interdependent cultures which tend to focus more on encouraging dyadic joint attention – between the parent and infant
(Bornstein, Toda, Azuma, Tamis-LeMonda, & Ogino, 1990). Thus, the finding that references to perception are more common in US
storybooks than in other countries is consistent with US parents’ focus on object properties; but, it is somewhat surprising that this
difference still appears in books for preschool aged children. However, according to Bartsch and Wellman’s (1995), the development
of Theory of Mind (particularly “belief-desire psychology”) is supported by understanding others’ perceptions as a way to understand
their beliefs. Thus, at the preschool age, when formal Theory of Mind is developing (Baron-Cohen, 2001), references to perception
may directly support children’s understanding of others’ beliefs, even if the cognitive states of belief are not mentioned.
Taking together the findings on the greater use of perceptions among US books, and the greater use of cognitive concepts,
particularly complex rationale states and processes, among books from Latin American countries, it appears that the children’s
storybooks from these countries reflect content at a higher cognitive level than do books from the US. If understanding others’
perceptions is a route to understanding their cognition (e.g., knowledge, beliefs; Bartsch & Wellman, 1995), then the books in the US
provide more opportunities to discuss this basic concept. Whereas, books in Chile and Colombia label more advanced cognitive states
and processes (learn, discover), perhaps assuming the child’s understanding of such states.
4.4. Few facts and figures in stories for preschoolers
Finally, the relative scarcity of factual talk, figurative talk, and links to the child’s life may be due to the selection procedures, and
to the differences in book content versus the contents of dialogue during storytelling interactions. We chose to focus on narrative
stories which may be less likely to include content such as definitions of objects, statements of facts, or descriptions of object
functions. Similarly, figurative language that implicitly refers to mental states, such as “she opened her eyes widely” (suggesting
13
surprise), and links between the story content to children’s lives, occurred very infrequently. It may be more likely that parents
include factual talk, figurative references to mental states, and links between story content and children’s lives as they engage in book
sharing and storytelling, rather than for these types of information to be included in the text of children’s narrative storybooks.
4.5. Conclusions and implications
Our study results showed that the total references to mental content and support for mental work are similar across children’s
storybooks from Chile, Colombia, USA, and Scotland. Some differences were observed for the concepts used to support for mental
work, as well as the specific categories considered in this study, with similarities more consistent between Chile and Colombia and
between the USA and Scotland, suggesting that mental state language may differ according to cultural norms and a culture’s goals for
children’s socialization for each country. Further, these cultural differences may be consistent with the independent versus more
interdependent understanding of cultural norms and values. Another hypothesis could be related to differences in the languages
themselves, where some languages could have a richer vocabulary to express certain states and processes. In this line of thinking,
there are a few studies that have compared the same children’s stories translated into different languages. Comparisons between
English and Japanese have not identified differences in the mental references rates, but more cognitive emotions as surprise were
found in Japanese books (Shatz et al., 2001 cited by Dyer-Seymour et al., 2004). On the other hand, comparisons between English and
Italian books revealed more total mental references and specifically more cognitive state references in Italian books (Shatz et al.,
2006). But no prior studies have compared differences in books written in English and Spanish. It is likely that both culture and
language play inter-related roles in the contents of children’s stories, and should be considered in future studies.
Some limitations must be mentioned. For this study, only the texts in the books were considered, where the pictures in the stories
– particularly the facial expressions of the characters - could contribute unique internal state content to the stories, and could be
considered in future studies. This is important as at least one study has shown meaningful variation in parents’ emotion talk using a
wordless story book (Brophy-Herb et al., 2015). Further, an analysis of the coherence between the text and the characters’ facial
expressions would be particularly interesting to see if pictures provide overlapping or complementary information to the mental state
content in text, and whether there are instances of contradictions between the two media. It would be additionally important to see
how both the words and images influence adults’ discussion of mental states with their children, which could have implications not
only for selecting high quality books for preschool children, but potentially in using books as interventions to increase adult-child
mental state discourse. Cross-cultural observational studies of adult-child book-reading would advance our understanding of how
books serve as cultural tools for socializing children’s understanding of mental states. Because we did not analyze the pictures in these
stories, we did not include picture books without text in the current sample, which could also limit the understanding of how
children’s books are socializing mental state language in different cultures. This study considered only storybooks recommended for
children between 3 and 4 years old, which limits the generalization of the results. Future research should consider storybooks for
children of different ages, and contrasting the books available at different ages (e.g., toddler, preschool, early school age) may
provide insight into cultural beliefs about and supports for the process by which mental state understanding develops.
Despite these limitations, the current findings add knowledge to the scarce but growing literature regarding children’s storybooks
as tools for promoting young children’s understandings of mental states, and providing novel results by including Chilean and
Colombian cultures, which have not been considered in previous studies. These findings show that stories vary in their mental content
in meaningful ways, and, given the research showing that storybook contents influence the book-sharing experience (e.g., Goetsch,
2016; Stadler & McEvoy, 2003), thus also in their roles as tools for scaffolding adult-child conversations about mental states language.
The primary implication of these findings is that it may be possible to craft stories which would act as intentional scaffolds for
preschoolers’ understanding of mental states and ultimate Theory of Mind. In this way, it may be possible to experimentally test
whether stories themselves may act as social-cognitive teaching tools. To be culturally sensitive in choosing, generating, and using
stories as tools for education or intervention, one must consider the culture’s ways of understanding mental states, as well as their
values and priories for inculcating children’s understanding of the same.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by funding provided by the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico de Chile,
FONDECYT Nº 1180047.
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Cognitive Development: A A B B A A A A

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Cognitive Development 53 (2020) 100845

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Children’s storybooks as a source of mental state references:

1.1. Cultural variation in mental state references

1.2. Children’s storybooks as a source of mental state language

1.2.1. Categories of mental state references appropriate to child age

1.2.2. Culture and children’s storybooks

1.3. Current study

2.1. Sample of materials

Year of the book

M (S.D.) Range M (S.D.) Range M (S.D.) Range M (S.D.) Range

2.2. Procedure to identify and code the mental state references

3. Analyses and results

3.1. Descriptions of mental state references included in storybooks

3.2. Comparison of references to mental states in storybooks from each country

4.1. Stories as common tools to understand cognition, motivation, and causality

4.2. Stories as tools for cultural emotion socialization

4.3. Cultural diﬀerences in scaﬀolding understanding of cognition

4.4. Few facts and ﬁgures in stories for preschoolers

4.5. Conclusions and implications

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