A Research On The Relationship Among Theory Of Mind, Peer Relationships And Aggression Of Primary School Children

Theory of mind refers to individual cognition about his or others’ mental state,such as belief, intention, emotion and so on and making prediction and explanation ofcause and effect about the relevant action. Previous research results about relationshipbetween theory of mind and aggression are not consistent, so the relationship should befurther studied. Cluster sampling is adopted in this research. Five classes, all together952subjects, have been chosen from the first, third and fifth grades in two primaryschools in Haerbin. First of all, by peer nomination, children peer relationship can beconfirmed. By the test of aggression of children, children peer relationship is observed.According to Coie and Dodge’s classification, three classes namely popular children,common children and rejected children have been screened out.113,140and113children have been chosen respectively by random selection. The tests of second-orderfalse belief paradigm and Faux pas understanding paradigm have been carried outamong these children. Thus, mental development characteristics of primary schoolchildren are observed, so is the relationship between the characteristics and peerrelationship and aggression. Structural equation modeling is further used to testmoderating effect of peer relationship in the theory of mind and aggression, the resultsare as follows:1. For primary school students, Second-order false belief and Faux pasunderstanding is different between different grades, which grows with ages.Second-order false belief and Faux pas understanding have positive correlation. Forchildren’s development, Second-order false belief is higher than Faux pasunderstanding.2. For primary school students, there is gender difference in peer relationship. Girlsare more popular than boys. Among17.22%popular children and44.03%commonchildren, girls are all higher than boys. In15.29%rejected children, boys are higher thangirls.3. For primary school students, there is gender difference in aggression, with thelevel of boys higher than girls. 4. Theory of mind and peer relationship have positive correlation. Theory of mindis different in three different types of peer relationships of children. From the higher tothe lower, there are popular, common and rejected children. Theory of mind andaggression has insignificant correlation.5. Peer relationship and aggression have negative correlation. Aggression isdifferent in three different types of peer relationships of children, with rejected childrenhigher than common and popular children. According to the popularity of the children,the aggression, to some extend, can be predicted.6. Peer relationship is the moderator for the theory of mind and aggression. Inrejected children, the theory of mind and aggression has remarkable correlation. Incommon and popular children, the correlation are insignificant.