Meins Elizabeth, Fernyhough Charles, Wainwright Rachel, Das Gupta Mani, Fradley Emma, Tuckey Michelle
Department of Psychology, University of Durham, UK.
Child Dev. 2002 Nov-Dec;73(6):1715-26. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00501.
This study investigated relations between social interaction during infancy and children's subsequent theory of mind (ToM). Infant-mother pairs (N = 57) were observed in a free-play context at 6 months. Interactions were coded for (a) mothers' use of mental state language that commented appropriately on the infants' mental states, and (b) mothers' use of mental state language that did not appropriately reflect their infants' minds. A third variable was (c) security of attachment, which was assessed using the Strange Situation procedure at 12 months. Performance on a battery of ToM tasks at 45 and 48 months was positively correlated with (a), but was not related to (b) or (c). A regression analysis showed that mothers' use of appropriate mental state comments independently predicted overall ToM performance, accounting for 11% of the variance. Children's verbal ability was the only other independent predictor of ToM performance, accounting for 16% of the variance. These findings represent the earliest known social predictor of individual differences in ToM.
本研究调查了婴儿期的社会互动与儿童后续心理理论（ToM）之间的关系。对57对母婴在婴儿6个月大时的自由玩耍情境中进行了观察。互动情况按以下方面进行编码：（a）母亲使用的能恰当评论婴儿心理状态的心理状态语言；（b）母亲使用的不能恰当反映婴儿心理的心理状态语言。第三个变量是（c）依恋安全性，在婴儿12个月大时通过陌生情境程序进行评估。在45个月和48个月时进行的一系列心理理论任务的表现与（a）呈正相关，但与（b）或（c）无关。回归分析表明，母亲使用恰当的心理状态评论能独立预测整体心理理论表现，解释了11%的方差变异。儿童的语言能力是心理理论表现的唯一其他独立预测因素，解释了16%的方差变异。这些发现代表了已知最早的心理理论个体差异的社会预测因素。
