Howard Gardner, well-known scholar in psychology and education, recently said that in the last decade, the most important research in developmental psychology has been about children's theory of mind. Although primarily of interest to psychologists, the work is also important to educators. For many years, educators have thought about children's thinking and promoted competent and critical thinking in the classroom. The new work in children's theory of mind shifts the focus onto the ways children themselves think about thinking. As Jerome Bruner writes in his most recent book: Modern pedagogy is moving increasingly to the view that the child should be aware of her own thought processes, and that it is crucial for the pedagogical theorist and teacher alike to help her become more metacognitive—to be as aware of how she goes about her learning and thinking as she is about the subject matter she is studying. . . . Equipping her with a good theory of mind . . . is one part of helping her to do so. (Bruner, 1996, p. 64)
Theory of Mind
What is this theory of mind that has occupied developmental psychologists for the past decade or more? It's common to talk about children's theories of different domains—physics, for example, or biology. We mean that children have an integrated set of concepts underlying their understanding of how things work in a particular domain. Children's theory of mind underlies their understanding of human behavior. Our social life depends upon the interaction of minds—that is, interactions of our thoughts, wants, feelings, or plans. To explain what we did or what we're going to do, we tell one another what we want, what we believe, what we hope for, what we intend, and so on. Moreover, we attempt to interpret other people's actions by considering their thoughts and wants.
The basic premise of the theory is that people act to fulfill their desires in light of their beliefs. Thus, the mental landscape, what Bruner (1986) calls the "landscape of consciousness," lies alongside the physical landscape of actions and events. To give meaning to actions and events, we must uncover the mental level. When children become aware of this mental level, they have acquired a theory of mind. Children's "discovery of the mind" (Astington, 1993) enables them to understand many aspects of human social life—surprises, secrets, tricks, mistakes, and lies, for example—that depend upon the ability to integrate these two landscapes: the landscape of action and the landscape of consciousness.
When do children discover the mind and become aware of the mental landscape? Piaget was the first to investigate this question, concluding that children have little understanding of the mind before age 6. However, recent research has challenged his methods—he relied perhaps too much on children's ability to verbalize their understanding—and has revised his conclusions. We now know that the child's discovery of the mind begins very early in life. Even babies respond differently to people than to things; they watch where others look and point things out—although most psychologists would not claim that babies understand very much about people's minds. However, once children learn to talk, they soon refer to the mind, or at least they talk about what they and others see, want, or feel. By age 3, they realize the difference between thoughts in the mind and things in the world—for example, between thinking about a cookie and really having one.
The most crucial development occurs around age 4, when they realize that thoughts in the mind may not be true. Recently, psychologists have investigated this development, using methods that make sense to young children, such as playing games or acting out stories. For example, the child is allowed to discover that a familiar candy box actually contains pencils, and then she is asked what her friend will think is in the box before looking inside it. The 3-year-old assumes that the friend will know it has pencils inside, just as she herself now does, but the 4-year-old recognizes that the friend will be tricked, just as she was earlier (Perner, Leekam, & Wimmer, 1987). The younger child, who cannot anticipate the friend's false belief, also does not remember that her own belief has changed. When the pencils are put back in the box again, if we ask her what she thought was in the box before she opened it, she'll say "pencils," not "candy" (Astington & Gopnik, 1988). That is, 3-year-olds are not simply egocentric, thinking everyone knows what they know; rather, they come to understand their own minds and those of others at the same time. By age 4 or 5, children realize that people talk and act on the basis of the way they think the world is, even when their thoughts do not reflect reality.
How Is a Theory of Mind Acquired?
An important question, hotly debated among psychologists, is, How do children come to this new understanding? In other words, how do they acquire their theory of mind? Some researchers think that children are born with it and that children will start to use it as soon as the brain matures. Others argue that children construct their understanding from their experience of trying to make sense of human action. Both views have some truth to them. Children are tuned in to people right from the start. They are also active participants in the construction of their own understanding, which is not simply innate or given to them.
The social world plays a vital role in theory of mind development, particularly the immediate social world of the child's family and friends. For example, perhaps the child is upset when her brother takes her toy, and her mother comforts her by saying, "He didn't know you wanted it." Judy Dunn's book (1988) includes many examples of this sort of exchange between toddlers and their parents and siblings. Undoubtedly, social interactions in the family—talking, teasing, and comforting—are an important source of the child's ideas about the landscape of consciousness.
Evidence supports this argument. Children from larger families develop a theory of mind sooner, perhaps because they have experienced more tricks, jokes, and teasing among their siblings, or perhaps because they are more exposed to talk about thoughts and wants when parents try to settle disputes among the children. We also know that children whose mothers used words like know and think when the children were 2 were more likely to use these words themselves at 4. They also performed better when tested on understanding the distinction between knowing something and just thinking it, which is related to understanding false belief. These findings suggest that when children first come to school, they may have differences in their understanding of minds—and indeed, recent studies show this. An important question is, Does this make any difference to their lives in school?
Theory of Mind at School
We need to ask ourselves why many lively young children, who learn so much so quickly during their preschool years, find school learning difficult. They deal well with the world in situations that make human sense to them, but success in school depends on their ability to deal with representations of the world through unfamiliar symbol systems. Children from highly literate families have less difficulty because they are already somewhat familiar with these systems. Early literacy programs provide all children, whatever their home background, with literate experiences that make sense to them before they begin the process of becoming literate.
Even this may not be enough, however, because the school experience itself may not make sense to the child. This is because education is not just a literate activity; it is also a thoughtful activity. We know that families differ in the extent to which they talk about people's motivations and thoughts. Some parents punish bad behavior and demand obedience, whereas others reason with children and explain different points of view. Talking about viewpoints will help children understand that people have beliefs about the world, that their beliefs may be different from those of others, and that their beliefs may change when they acquire new information. The theory of mind thus developed may help children make sense of school.
An old joke reflects an old idea: "Sign on schoolroom door: Free knowledge, bring your own container." In the past, school was seen as a place where knowledge was a commodity that teachers could dispense. Now, it is thought of as a place where children construct their knowledge through their own activity and experience, forming and revising their beliefs about the world. Such activity may be easier for children whose theory of mind has already been well developed.
Why? Researchers have made strong claims regarding the importance of theory of mind development for children's social behavior generally, and social maturity is an important aspect of success in school. More specifically, there may be a relation between the level of children's theory of mind development and their ability to learn by instruction and collaboration (Astington & Pelletier, 1996). In particular subject areas, researchers suggest the role of a theory of mind in students' production of stories and their interpretation of literary and historical texts (Gardner, 1991). Theory of mind understanding is also linked to the development of scientific reasoning and critical thinking.
Taken together, these suggestions cover a lot of ground. What do they have in common? They all involve, indeed require, the ability to talk about one's own and other people's thoughts. That is, students require an appropriate metacognitive language for social maturity—to explain and excuse oneself—and for collaborative learning—to talk about mutual understandings and conflicts. This language is also required to discuss literary and historical characters' motivations, to evaluate evidence, and to test scientific hypotheses. Critical thinking depends upon the ability to reflect on one's own beliefs, to recognize where they are mistaken, and to take another's perspective. For all these purposes, children need a language that is "mentalistic" and reflective, that gives reasons and asks for explanations.
What Schools Can Do
At school entry, children's theory of mind is intuitive, embedded in every-day social interaction. Teachers can encourage children to make their understanding explicit by talking about it. Mental activities are not directly observable, but they become objects of reflection through language. I believe this is what Bruner meant when he said that teachers must equip children with a "good theory of mind"—it is their preschool social understanding (their theory of mind) made explicit in metacognitive language. Even kindergartners can be asked, How do you know that? Do you really know or are you just guessing? Did you just think of that or did you remember it? Vivian Paley (1984) shows how well this can be done.
In some ways, this is not new, but theory of mind research gives us a new way of thinking about what good teachers have been doing all along. In a 1st-grade classroom that I recently observed, the teacher often talked about her own thought processes, saying, for example, "I just learned something new" when she found out that one student had a pet rabbit at home. When she was surprised or made a mistake, she talked about her own wrong beliefs, and at storytime, she had the children talk about the motivations and beliefs of story characters. Her style of talk helped the class focus not just on the thought content, but also on the thinking process—yet the term theory of mind was unknown to this teacher.
In a rapidly changing society, we cannot teach children all the facts they will need to know in their lifetime. But we can teach them how to assess their knowledge state, how to find out things for themselves, and how to evaluate conflicting sources of information. The emphasis in the modern classroom is less on the memorization of facts than on the acquisition of cognitive skills—thinking, learning, and reasoning. Once the focus shifts, the child's understanding of mind becomes important.
The theory of mind that children acquire in the preschool years provides the conceptual foundation for the metacognitive skills they require in school. Most important, teachers can build on this foundation. By consciously introducing and using language about thinking in the classroom, teachers can lead children to reflect on and to articulate their thinking. Metacognitive talk serves to bring cognition into consciousness. It enables the sophisticated social understanding that preschoolers have of people as thinking beings to be carried over into classroom life, where it informs their understanding of how they think and learn in school.
