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Foundations of theory of mind and its development in early childhood

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 1, pages 223–235 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Theory of mind is the human conceptual capacity to understand other people as agents who have subjective mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. It is the basis of distinctively human forms of social understanding and interaction that are essential for communication, cooperation, and culture. In this Review, I summarize the current state of research about the emergence and development of theory of mind in early childhood. I describe the typical developmental trajectory and review findings about the cognitive, linguistic, social and neural foundations of theory of mind development. Finally, I review an ongoing debate regarding whether there are different — implicit versus explicit — forms of theory of mind that develop independently, and conclude by providing an outlook on future challenges and perspectives for research in this area.

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Fig. 1: Milestones in the development of theory of mind.
Fig. 2: Level I and level II perspective-taking tasks.
Fig. 3: False-belief and related theory of mind tasks.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks Natalie Bleijlevens, Isa Garbisch, Feride Nur Haskaraca Kızılay, Lydia Schidelko, Britta Schünemann and Rowan Titchener for helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

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    Hannes Rakoczy

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Rakoczy, H. Foundations of theory of mind and its development in early childhood. Nat Rev Psychol 1, 223–235 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00037-z

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