Types And Features Research On The Use Of 4-year-old Children's Theory Of Mind In Pretend Play Situation

The research about theory of mind is a new point of view and a new paradigm that on mental representation and psychological understand of children after the Piaget on cognitive development of children and metacognitive research.It was known as the third major wave on the children' cognitive development. The 1980s,with the introduction of the concept of theory of mind,many researchers carried out a large number of studies from different angles in term of philosophy,cultural anthropology,development psychology,medicine,the studied primates and so on. Psychologists generally believe that children have well-developed theory of mind ability,which can promote their social cognitive ability and help them adapt to the social life in the future.At present, the research on children's theory of mind mostly concentrated in the age to obtain theory of mind , influence factors and special children's theory of mind under the condition of static laboratory research.While the dynamic research about how to use the children's theory of mind in real life is lack. Therefore, this study took a beneficial attempt in this respect, in order to make up for the previous deficiencies.The author took purpose sampling method on the basis of the observation and interviews.Then selected 12 4-year-old children in a class of kindergarten of Changchun City. According to the aim of this study, the author created pretend play situations.Then the study have made a specific description and analysis on the the types and characteristics of the use of theory of mind through non-participant observation. The results of the study showed that:1.4-year-old children have already acquired good ability on the use of theory of mind.2. 4-year-old children's dominant types are infer intention and motive on the use of theory of mind.3. the use of theory of mind of 4-year-old children's main strategy is material for intermediary.4.the use of theory of mind of 4-year-old children show four characteristics:intention is guidance, situation conditionality, meta-communicative and individual differences.Based on the results of this study and analysis, the author has put forward four focalized education suggestions: First, developing pretend game actively; Second, organization mixed age activities properly; Third, strengthen the psychological feeling communication between parents and children;Fourth, the right attitude towards the children good at"Sense motive".