The Capricious Nature of Theory of Mind: Does Mental State Understanding Depend on the Characteristics of the Target?     

Seçil Gönültaş  Bilge Selçuk  Virginia Slaughter  John A. Hunter  Ted Ruffman 《Child development》2020,91(2):e280-e298

Using a between-groups design and random assignment, this study examined 214 Turkish children's (M = 11.66 years) mindreading and general reasoning about in-group members (Turks), similar out-group members (Syrians within Turkey) and dissimilar out-group members (Northern Europeans). Children heard four mindreading and four general reasoning stories with in-group or out-group members as targets. Whereas children's general reasoning about three groups was equivalent, accuracy of mental state inferences differed by target with more accurate mindreading of in-group targets compared to both sets of out-group targets. In this Turkish sample, mindreading of Syrian targets was the least accurate. Prejudice and perceived realistic threat predicted lower mindreading. These findings have important implications for understanding how similarity and intergroup processes play a role in children's mindreading.  相似文献   

Maternal Perinatal and Concurrent Anxiety and Mental Health Problems in Early Childhood: A Sibling-Comparison Study     

Line C. Gjerde  Espen M. Eilertsen  Thalia C. Eley  Tom A. McAdams  Ted Reichborn-Kjennerud  Espen Røysamb  Eivind Ystrom 《Child development》2020,91(2):456-470

Do associations between maternal anxiety symptoms and offspring mental health remain after comparing differentially exposed siblings? Participants were 17,724 offspring siblings and 11,553 mothers from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study. Mothers reported anxiety and depressive symptoms at 30 weeks’ gestation, and 0.5, 1.5, 3, and 5 years postpartum. Child internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed at ages 1.5, 3, and 5, and modeled using multilevel analyses with repeated measures nested within siblings, nested within mothers. Maternal pre- and postnatal anxiety were no longer associated with child internalizing or externalizing problems after adjusting for maternal depression and familial confounding. Maternal anxiety when the children were in preschool age, however, remained significantly associated with child internalizing but not externalizing problems.  相似文献