Theory Of Mind And The Level Of Development Of Communication Relations And Daily Companions

With the third wave in children's cognitive development, young children's theory of mind(TOM) has earned much attention since last two decades and lots of studies have been done in this field. Recently, many researches have been focusing on the development and influental factors of young children's theory of mind. Among these studies, the relationship between young children's TOM development and their peer interaction has caused the interests of developmental psychologists. The peer relation that works as an important part in the children's socialization process, has played an unique role in children's earning social value, fostering social ability and developing healthy personality. Therefore, studying the relationship between them bears important significance, both in theory and in practice. Based on the above concerns, this study is to discuss the possible relations between preschoolers' false belief understanding and their daily peer interactions by adopting the way of behavioral observation during children's play, peer nomination and teacher assessment.52 preschoolers aged 4 and 5 years completed all experimental tasks. All of them experienced the peer nomination, the shoot of peer play and standard false-belief tasks. Meanwhile, the teacher who is in charge of the class finished the questionnaire of Teacher Rating Scale of Children's Social Behavior. Peer play is coded for 8 categories: active/passive, domination/obedience, verbal discussion, the duration of episodes, empathy/conflict, prosocial behaviors/mal-adjusted behaviors, creativity and role play. The results indicate that:(1)There are some differences in the developmental speed of TOM of 4-year-old children. Significant progress has happened in children's TOM ability after their fourth birthday.(2)There exists significant correlation between the development of young children's theory of mind and the peer interaction during the peer play. Those who have different developing speeds of TOM show the notable significance on the "interactive sentivity" and "interactive expression"during the peer play.(3)As a whole, there exists no obvious correlation between children's theory of mind and peer nomination and teacher assessment. But the relationship between theory of mind and childrens' prosocial behaviors is evidently positive. It can be predictive, according to the result of regression analysis, that children's TOM ability indirectly guides their daily peer interaction and peer relation by influencing children's prosical behaviors.(4)The peer nomination of children aged four or five years old seems no predictive. Hence, that can't be a reliable criterion to reflect young children's real status in their group.(5)As the assessment methods, behavior observation, peer nomination and teacher assessment reflect the real state in young children's peer interaction consistently. Using these three methods together can help to understand their peer interaction generally.