Theory of Mind (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Theory of mind as an explanation for autism

• Theory of mind (TOM – also popularly known as ‘mind-reading’) is the ability to understand that other people may have different thoughts, feelings, ideas, attitudes or knowledge to one’s own

• Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder which is genetic and has a prevalence rate  of 1 in 59 children (Rylaarsdam & Guemez-Gamboa, 2019)

• Although ASD is highly heritable, there are environmental risk factors which can increase the likelihood of giving birth to a child with ASD e.g. older parents, a difficult birth, or infections during pregnancy (Modabbernia et al. 2017)

• People with ASD are affected by what is known as the triad of impairments, which entails difficulty understanding social relationships, reading facial expressions, lack of imagination, problems with communication and difficulty adjusting to new, unfamiliar situations

• Younger children and people with ASD (both adults and children) are thought to lack TOM; young children due to their age and people with ASD due to the triad of impairments

• One aspect of TOM is understanding intentionality in terms of another person’s behaviour, e.g. I can predict that James is going to take his dog for a walk because he has come out of his house wearing his green ‘dog-walking’ coat’

• The ability to understand the intentions of other people shows an appreciation that people are motivated by their beliefs and attitudes, which is a precursor to the development of TOM (Dennett, 1987)

• TOM is thought to be fully developed by the age of 3 or 4 years old, depending on the child, although some researchers claim that infants as young as 7-9 months old understand intentionality to some extent (Baron-Cohen, 1991)

• TOM may be a specific skill which is processed in a specific brain region rather than a generalised cognitive disorder, as people with ASD do not experience difficulty with other cognitive abilities such as language, memory and attention (Baron-Cohen, 1993)

False-belief tasks & Sally-Anne research

• A ‘false belief’ task is a way to test ToM

  • These tasks were developed to test whether children can understand that others can believe something that is not true

  • To pass a false belief task, an individual must be able to predict the actions, thoughts or beliefs of another person

  • False belief tasks tend to be conducted with young children around the age of 3-4 years to assess the extent of their TOM

• A classic false belief task is the ‘Smarties’ test (Hogrefe, Wimmer, and Perner, 1986): 

  • A child is shown a Smarties box and asked what they think is inside

  • They typically answer "Smarties" (or chocolate)

  • The box is opened to reveal pencils instead

  • The child is then asked what a friend, who hasn’t seen inside the box, would think is inside

  • The child passes the test if they say "Smarties", as this shows understanding of the friend’s false belief

  • The child fails the test if they say "pencils", as this assumes the friend knows what they know

• The Sally-Anne task (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985) is another false belief task assessing ToM:

  • A child sees two dolls: Sally (with a basket) and Anne (with a box).

  • Sally places a marble in her basket and leaves the room, so Anne is alone

  • While she’s gone, Anne moves the marble to her own box before Sally is returned to the room

  • The child is asked, "Where will Sally look for her marble?"

  • The child passes the task if they say "basket", showing they understand Sally’s false belief

  • The child fails the task if they say "box", showing they assume Sally knows what they know

• The Sally-Anne task has been used to explore links between ToM deficits and ASD to offer some insight as to why children with ASD have difficulty seeing from the perspective of others

Research which investigates theory of mind

• Baron-Cohen (1985) – The classic Sally-Anne task using child participants who had ASD, Down’s syndrome or were normal: 20% of the ASD group answered the question correctly compared to 85% of normal children and 86% in the Down’s syndrome group 

• Harris (1989) - Children often imagine that they are someone else in pretend-play scenarios at the age of 4, which suggests that they are using TOM to put themselves in another person’s place and use imagination to create feelings, ideas and thoughts which are not their own 

• Tager-Flusberg (2007) - A review article which questions many of the preconceived assumptions about TOM and ASD e.g. why do some people with ASD pass TOM tests? 

Evaluation of theory of mind for A Level psychology

Strengths

• Understanding TOM could be applied to anti-bullying strategies: Sutton et al. (1999) found that bullies need to be skilled in social cognition and TOM in order to manipulate others; hence, this could be used in a positive way to address the bullying behaviour

• Research such as Baron-Cohen (1985) used children with Down’s syndrome to demonstrate that lack of TOM may be a specific cognitive deficit, unique to ASD i.e. not shared by people with other developmental disorders

Limitations

• The failure of children with ASD to pass TOM tests may actually be due to researcher bias, i.e., the researchers are not able to recognise any relevant TOM behaviours if they fall outside of their scoring criteria (Korkiangas et al. 2016)

• There is no real consensus among researchers as to the age at which TOM fully develops in children, which means that the concept may lack reliability

Issues & Debates

• The idea of an innate Theory of Mind Module (ToMM) exemplifies the nature side of the nature vs nurture debate, suggesting ToM is biologically hardwired and matures with age

  • However, Vygotskian approaches suggest nurture is key, with social interaction and early caregiver input shaping ToM — indicating an interactionist view

• Research into Theory of Mind, especially when applied to autism, is socially sensitive, as it may unintentionally pathologise neurodivergent individuals

  • Labelling ToM deficits in autistic individuals risks reinforcing negative stereotypes and could lead to stigmatisation, even though many people with autism develop alternative but effective ways of understanding others