儿童中期心理理论发展特点研究

The Study on Children Developmental Characteristics of “Theory of Mind” during Middle Childhood

摘要: 心理理论是指个体对自己和他人心理状态的认识，并由此做出因果性的预测和解释。近年来，学者们开始提出了心理理论发展的毕生取向。然而，儿童早期之后有关心理理论的研究在国内相对较少。本研究以上海市274名三、四、五年级的儿童为研究对象，采用“错误信念”任务和“奇异故事”任务考察儿童中期“心理理论”发展水平。研究发现在两类任务上都出现了，年级越高，儿童中期心理理论得分越高；儿童中期已能成功地完成“错误信念”任务，“奇异故事”任务上还有很大的发展空间；在“奇异故事”任务中，低年级儿童大部分关注到了故事的事实原因，小部分会关注到心理原因；而高年级儿童既关注到故事的事实原因，也关注人物的心理状态，同时答案也更详细。

Abstract: The Theory of Mind (TOM) means individuals’ understanding of self-mental states and others’ mental states, and making causal prediction and interpretation depending on their understanding. In recent years, scholars began to put forward the theory of mind development orientation for life. However, very few studies of theory of mind are focus on school-age children. In this study, “the False Belief” and “the Strange Stories Tests” two tasks were employed in a sample of 274 students in Grade Three, Grade Four and Grade Five from Shanghai primary schools, in an effort to explore how the ability of TOM developed with children’s age. The results indicated that the performance of children in different grades during middle childhood is different on the two TOM tasks. The higher the grade is, the better the performance is. All children performed better on “the False Belief” tasks than on “the Strange Stories Tests” tasks. Moreover, on “the Strange Stories Tests” tasks, most of the younger children pay attention to the real facts of the story, while few pay attention to the psychological reason; older children are focus on both the real facts of the story and the psy-chological state of the characters, and their answers are more detailed.