How children tell a lie from a joke: The role of second‐order mental state attributions

The relationship between the ability to attribute second-order mental states and the ability to tell a joke from a lie was examined. Forty-eight children (mean age 6.8) were tested for their ability to make both second-order ignorance and belief attributions, and to discriminate lies from jokes. Children typically were able to distinguish a lie from a joke only after they could attribute second-order ignorance (Person 1 does not know what Person 2 knows). In contrast, children could distinguish a lie from a joke before they could attribute second-order false belief (Person 1 wrongly thinks that Person 2 thinks x). The presence of intonation distinguishing the joke from the lie had no effect on children's ability to determine that the joke was not intended as a lie. These results provide evidence for a relation between a selective aspect of the child's theory of mind (the ability to conceptualize second-order ignorance) and the child's ability to interpret and distinguish two kinds of intentionally false utterances.