The development of executive functioning and theory of mind - A comparison of Chinese and US preschoolers
The development of executive functioning and theory of mind - A comparison of Chinese and US preschoolers
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01667.x
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发表时间：
2006-01-01
影响因子：
8.2
通讯作者：
Lee, K
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Sabbagh, MA;Xu, F;Lee, K
学龄前儿童的心理理论发展在许多文化中都遵循类似的年龄轨迹。为了确定这些相似性是否与相似的潜在个体发育过程有关，我们研究了在美国学龄前儿童中常见的心理理论与执行功能之间的关系是否也存在于中国学龄前儿童中。来自中国北京的学龄前儿童（N= 109），被管理的心理理论和执行功能的任务，他们的表现进行了比较，与以前研究的样本美国学龄前儿童（N= 107）。中国学龄前儿童在执行功能的所有指标上都优于美国同龄人，但在心理理论推理方面却没有类似的进步。尽管如此，执行功能的个体差异预测了两种文化中儿童的心理理论。因此，执行功能和心理理论之间的关系在两种不同的文化中都是稳固的。这些发现揭示了为什么执行功能对心理理论发展很重要。
Preschoolers' theory-of-mind development follows a similar age trajectory across many cultures. To determine whether these similarities are related to similar underlying ontogenetic processes, we examined whether the relation between theory of mind and executive function commonly found among U.S. preschoolers is also present among Chinese preschoolers. Preschoolers from Beijing, China (N= 109), were administered theory-of-mind and executive-functioning tasks, and their performance was compared with that of a previously studied sample of U.S. preschoolers (N= 107). The Chinese preschoolers outperformed their U.S. counterparts on all measures of executive functioning, but were not similarly advanced in theory-of-mind reasoning. Nonetheless, individual differences in executive functioning predicted theory of mind for children in both cultures. Thus, the relation between executive functioning and theory of mind is robust across two disparate cultures. These findings shed light on why executive functioning is important for theory-of-mind development.