The Cross Culture Study On The Relationship Between Different Levels Of Theory Of Mind And Deception Of Children

In recent years , researchers have paid more attention to the development of children's theory of mind(ToM), which is a new research area in children's social cognitive development. Some researchers have put the study of children's social ability into the study of development about ToM. They claimed that the development of social ability reveal the changing of the theory of mind. So, the related researchers have discussed the link between the theory of mind and deception of children, and they insisted that this can explain the consist problem of the ToM. But there is no consistence conclusion in the discussion of the link between Tom and deception. We believe that the main reason is this: the Tom and deception of children both stem from the social life ,and the children who come different culture context would have different reaction to the same condition of social life. Therefore, we should discuss the link between the ToM and deception of children who come from different culture context, and this is the necessary choice for answering the question.As the first step in the present thesis, a comprehensive literature review is made with regard to the important empirical and major theoretical model. The critical analysis is focused on the current situation findings and deficits existing in researches. On base of these, two related studies on 480 children aged 5-10 who come from different nationalities were presented following the objectives set forth in this research. Study one administered the first-order ToM tasks and the deception tasks in different condition ,and investigated the link between children's ability of theory of mind and the ability of different deception. Study two explored the second-order ToM tasks and the deception tasks in different condition , and investigated the link between children's ability of theory of mind and the ability of different deception.The major findings in the above two studies are as follows: On the one hand, the children's scores in the tasks of different level about theory of mind(ToM) keep growing with the growth of age .And this conclusion is consist with the other people's results. But we find that the ages which the children can pass the tasks of ToM on first level and the second level in this thesis are different with the past conclusion. In this thesis, the children can not finish the needs of the tasks of ToM on first level and the second level until six years old and eight years old, and these ages are both later two years than the other people's same research .On the other hand, the performances of children who come from different nationalities on the different tasks of deception reveal the significant character of development with the growth of age. We can find that there are two faster phases in the children's performance on the strategy of deception in overt deception, because the quantity of the children who can use the best strategy of deception is continue growing in the grade two and grade four, and nearly half of the children can use the...