Exposure to media and theory-of-mind development in preschoolers

Abstract Exposure to different forms of narrative media may influence children's development of theory-of-mind. Because engagement with fictional narratives provides one with information about the social world, and possibly draws upon theory-of-mind processes during comprehension, exposure to storybooks, movies, and television may influence theory-of-mind development. We examined 4–6 year-olds’ inferred exposure to children's literature, television, and film, using an objective measure that controls for socially desirable responding. Theory-of-mind was assessed using a battery of five tasks. Controlling for age, gender, vocabulary, and parental income, inferred exposure to children's storybooks predicted theory-of-mind abilities. Inferred exposure to children's movies also predicted theory-of-mind development, but inferred exposure to children's television did not.

[1]  H. Scarborough,et al.  On the Efficacy of Reading to Preschoolers , 1994 .

[2]  P. Garner,et al.  Low‐Income Mothers' Conversations About Emotions and Their Children's Emotional Competence , 1997 .

[3]  Richard J. Gerrig,et al.  Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading , 1993 .

[4]  S. Russ,et al.  Children's fantasy play and emotional understanding. , 1999, Journal of clinical child psychology.

[5]  H. Wellman,et al.  Scaling of theory-of-mind tasks. , 2004, Child development.

[6]  Ann Senghas,et al.  Language Promotes False-Belief Understanding , 2009, Psychological science.

[7]  N. Fox,et al.  Children's narratives and patterns of cardiac reactivity. , 2004, Developmental psychobiology.

[8]  M. Callanan,et al.  Metarepresentation in action: 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' developing theories of mind in parent-child conversations. , 1998, Developmental psychology.

[9]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Multiple indicators of children's reading habits and attitudes: Construct validity and cognitive correlates. , 1992 .

[10]  H. Wellman,et al.  Children Talk About the Mind , 1995 .

[11]  J. Astington,et al.  A longitudinal study of the relation between language and theory-of-mind development. , 1999, Developmental psychology.

[12]  Jonathan M. Campbell,et al.  Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test , 2010 .

[13]  A. Tellegen,et al.  Openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences ("absorption"), a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility. , 1974, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[14]  P. Harris.  The work of imagination , 1991 .

[15]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Exposure to print and orthographic processing. , 1989 .

[16]  K. Cassidy,et al.  Theory of mind concepts in children's literature , 1998, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[17]  C. Nixon,et al.  Social interaction skills and theory of mind in young children. , 1999, Developmental psychology.

[18]  H. Wellman,et al.  Infant social attention predicts preschool social cognition. , 2004, Developmental science.

[19]  H. Wellman,et al.  Young children's storybooks as a source of mental state information , 2000 .

[20]  Jo-Anne LeFevre,et al.  Knowledge of storybooks as a predictor of young children's vocabulary. , 1996 .

[21]  Jo-Anne LeFevre,et al.  Differential Effects of Home Literacy Experiences on the Development of Oral and Written Language , 1998 .

[22]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Reading in the Real World and Its Correlates. , 1993 .

[23]  L. Villanueva,et al.  Parent–child picture-book reading, mothers' mental state language and children's theory of mind , 2005, Journal of Child Language.

[24]  P. Harris,et al.  In Cinderella's slippers? Story comprehension from the protagonist's point of view. , 2000, Developmental psychology.

[25]  Dorit Aram,et al.  Mothers' Storybook Reading and Kindergartners' Socioemotional and Literacy Development , 2009 .

[26]  Keith Oatley,et al.  Why Fiction May be Twice as True as Fact: Fiction as Cognitive and Emotional Simulation , 1999 .

[27]  D. Olson,et al.  Developing theories of mind , 1988 .

[28]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Where does knowledge come from? Specific associations between print exposure and information acquisition. , 1993 .

[29]  Sam Kirschner,et al.  Perspectives on psychology and the media. , 1997 .

[30]  Marjorie Taylor,et al.  Imaginary Companions and Impersonated Characters: Sex Differences in Children's Fantasy Play , 2005 .

[31]  J. Jonides,et al.  Perception, cognition, and language : essays in honor of Henry and Lila Gleitman , 2000 .

[32]  H. Wellman.  The Child's Theory of Mind , 1990 .

[33]  P. Bloom,et al.  What does Batman think about SpongeBob? Children's understanding of the fantasy/fantasy distinction , 2006, Cognition.

[34]  Victor Nell.  Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure , 1988 .

[35]  Marjorie Taylor,et al.  The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind. , 1997, Child development.

[36]  Jordan B. Peterson,et al.  Bookworms versus nerds: Exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds , 2006 .

[37]  P. Rozin,et al.  What Kind of Empirical Research Should We Publish, Fund, and Reward?: A Different Perspective , 2009, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[38]  P. Garner,et al.  Predictors of mental state understanding in preschoolers of varying socioeconomic backgrounds , 2005 .

[39]  T. Ruffman,et al.  The relation between children's and mothers' mental state language and theory-of-mind understanding. , 2002, Child development.

[40]  Virginia Slaughter,et al.  Theory of Mind and Mental State Discourse during Book Reading and Story-Telling Tasks. , 2005 .

[41]  J. LeFevre,et al.  Parental involvement in the development of children's reading skill: a five-year longitudinal study. , 2002, Child development.

[42]  N. Feshbach,et al.  Children's empathy and the media: Realizing the potential of television. , 1997 .

[43]  Keith Oatley,et al.  The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience , 2008, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[44]  Letitia R. Naigles.  Manipulating the input: Studies in mental verb acquisition. , 2000 .

[45]  Joan Peskin,et al.  The effects of adding metacognitive language to story texts , 2004 .

[46]  Rhona Stainthorp.  A Children’s Author Recognition Test: A Useful Tool in Reading Research , 1997 .