The mechanism of deception and understanding of mind : Is young children's deception based on the inference of other's mind?

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The aim of this study was to clarify the mechanism of young children's deception ; it was to clarify how young children deceive the other's mind based on the hypothesis of the theory of mind. Especially, this study examined whether young children can deceive if they can acknowledge the other's mind, and whether young children can deceive after they infer the other's mind. In this study it was examined whether young children behave understanding mind including deception whether the deception is related to the understanding of the mind by observing young children. So the behavior of three, four, and five years old children in kindergarten was observed. The result suggested that the deception would be related to the ability of understanding of other's mind. The second purpose of this study was when young children can deceive. This problem was examined by analyzing the behavior of three, four and five year old children. The result showed that children more than four years old can understand the deception. These results suggest that the acknowledgement of deception would be related to the understanding of the mind. However, these results also suggest that the acknowledgement would not always be same with the understanding of the mind. Rather, it suggested that the deception would be independent to the understanding of the mind. The cause of this result was discussed.