The relation between theory of mind development and gender-typed development in early childhood
Date
2010-03-31T18:05:02Z
Authors
Miller, Michael Robert
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Abstract
Theory of mind development and gender-typed development are two areas of children's social-cognitive development that have rarely been compared. The current study predicted that a relation between theory of mind and gender-typing would exist based on components from both areas of development sharing similar social-cognitive processing demands. Eight tasks examined 5- to 7-year-olds' understanding of social perspective taking. interpretive theory of mind, gender constancy. gender stereotypes_ gender flexibility. and vocabulary. As predicted. children's knowledge of social perspective taking was related to gender constancy understanding over and above age. gender. and vocabulary. No relation was found between children's knowledge of social perspective taking and gender stereotype rigidity or between children's knowledge of interpretive theory of mind and gender flexibility. Implications for the findings and suggestions for future research are presented.
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Keywords
Gender, Brain