Bilateral (Hong Kong): Theory of mind development and use in children from Hong Kong and the UK - A latent variable study

双边（香港）：香港和英国儿童的心智发展和运用理论——潜变量研究

• 批准号: ES/J021180/1
• 负责人: Claire Hughes
• 金额: $ 10.22万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FJ021180%2F1
• 关键词: Bilateral; Hong; Kong; Theory; mind

Acquiring a theory of mind (i.e., recognizing that human behaviour is governed by mental states such as beliefs and desires) enables young children to understand and engage in a wide range of sophisticated social interactions, including lies, jokes and shared pretend play. The litmus test for having a theory of mind has, for many years, been success on tasks involving predicting or explaining mistaken beliefs. In the West, children typically begin to pass such tasks between their 3rd and 5th birthdays. Yet findings from a recent meta-analysis suggest that Chinese preschoolers pass false belief tasks up to 2 years later, with children in Hong Kong performing even more poorly than their peers in mainland China. These findings have led to concerns that the intensely academic focus adopted by Hong Kong preschools may be constraining children's sociocognitive development. However, before seeking explanations for this striking cross-cultural contrast, at least two sets of methodological issues need to be addressed. First, very few studies have used carefully matched samples or applied statistical tests to establish whether contrasts simply reflect inappropriate translations or differing response styles / social norms. In addition, such studies rarely include direct measures of the environment (e.g., parental practices and expectations), even though these are needed to explain WHY there are group contrasts. Second, new task paradigms have shown that from as early as 15- to 18-months of age, children show looking and helping behaviours that appear to indicate false-belief awareness, such that failure on traditional false-belief tasks does not necessarily mean poor understanding of mind. To date, these novel paradigms have yet to be used in direct cross-cultural comparisons. Moreover, research with adults suggests that Chinese adults actually show superior use of 'theory of mind' skills, suggesting that any cultural contrasts observed in pre-schoolers are likely to be developmentally specific. There is, therefore, a pressing need both to increase the methodological rigour of existing research and to integrate cultural and developmental perspectives. This proposal uses two psychometric studies to address these twin challenges. Study 1 extends the developmental scope of this research field by comparing theory of mind use in 10-year-old children from the UK and Hong Kong, using a task battery that includes a newly developed silent film task. Study 1 also includes a battery of other cognitive tests (e.g., tests of language ability and executive function) and multi-informant, multi-measure ratings of social competence. In this way, Study 1 will also shed light on the cultural universality / specificity of the correlates of variation in older children's understanding of mind.Study 2 also has twin aims. The first of these is to test competing theoretical accounts of why children's spontaneous behaviours (e.g., looking, helping) appear to indicate a rudimentary understanding of mind long before they respond correctly to traditional false-belief tasks. Next, the most robust paradigms will be administered to pre-schoolers in Hong Kong (matched with their UK peers for age and verbal ability) to investigate the nature, magnitude and origins of cultural contrasts in children's understanding of mind. This collaborative venture promises to be fruitful as it brings together researchers with diverse areas of expertise (e.g., experimental task design, cognitive assessments, psychometrics). In addition, by partnering with researchers at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, the applicants are well placed to ensure that policy-relevant findings are disseminated efficiently to educational practitioners in Hong Kong; positive relations developed with the Faculty of Education in Cambridge will have a similar effectiveness of impact in the UK.

获得心理理论（即认识到人类行为受信念和欲望等心理状态控制）使幼儿能够理解并参与各种复杂的社交互动，包括谎言、笑话和共同的假装游戏。多年来，是否有心理理论的试金石一直是在涉及预测或解释错误信念的任务上取得成功。在西方，孩子通常在三岁到五岁生日之间开始完成此类任务。然而，最近的一项荟萃​​分析结果表明，中国学龄前儿童在长达两年的时间里仍会通过错误信念任务，其中香港儿童的表现甚至比中国大陆的同龄人还要差。这些发现引发了人们的担忧，即香港幼儿园过于注重学术可能会限制儿童的社会认知发展。然而，在寻求对这种惊人的跨文化差异的解释之前，至少需要解决两套方法论问题。首先，很少有研究使用仔细匹配的样本或应用统计测试来确定对比是否仅仅反映了不恰当的翻译或不同的反应方式/社会规范。此外，此类研究很少包括对环境的直接测量（例如，父母的做法和期望），尽管需要这些来解释为什么存在群体对比。其次，新的任务范式表明，早在 15 至 18 个月大时，儿童就表现出寻找和帮助的行为，这些行为似乎表明了错误信念意识，因此传统错误信念任务的失败并不一定意味着对心灵的理解不佳。迄今为止，这些新颖的范式尚未用于直接的跨文化比较。此外，针对成年人的研究表明，中国成年人实际上表现出了对“心理理论”技能的出色运用，这表明在学龄前儿童中观察到的任何文化差异都可能是发育特定的。因此，迫切需要提高现有研究方法的严谨性，并整合文化和发展视角。该提案使用两项心理测量研究来解决这双重挑战。研究 1 通过使用包含新开发的无声电影任务的任务组，比较英国和香港 10 岁儿童的心理理论使用情况，扩展了该研究领域的发展范围。研究 1 还包括一系列其他认知测试（例如语言能力和执行功能测试）和多信息、多测量的社交能力评级。通过这种方式，研究 1 也将揭示大龄儿童心理理解差异的文化普遍性/特殊性。研究 2 也有双重目标。第一个是测试相互竞争的理论解释，解释为什么儿童的自发行为（例如，寻找、帮助）似乎早在他们对传统错误信念任务做出正确反应之前就表明了对心灵的基本理解。接下来，将对香港的学前儿童实施最强有力的范例（与英国同龄人的年龄和语言能力相匹配），以调查儿童心理理解中文化差异的性质、程度和起源。这项合作有望取得丰硕成果，因为它将具有不同专业领域（例如实验任务设计、认知评估、心理测量学）的研究人员聚集在一起。此外，通过与香港教育学院的研究人员合作，申请人能够确保向香港的教育从业者有效传播与政策相关的研究结果；与剑桥教育学院建立的积极关系将在英国产生类似的效果。

项目成果

Executive Function Mediates the Relations between Parental Behaviors and Children's Early Academic Ability.

• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01902
• 发表时间: 2016
• 期刊: Frontiers in psychology
• 影响因子: 3.8
• 作者: Devine RT;Bignardi G;Hughes C
• 通讯作者: Hughes C

Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer Publications.

人格和个体差异百科全书。

• 发表时间: 2016
• 作者: Devine, R.T.