Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm

Recently, several studies have claimed that soon after their first birthday infants understand others’ false beliefs. However, some have questioned these findings based on criticisms of the looking-time paradigms used. Here we report a new paradigm to test false belief understanding in infants using...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2009-08, Vol.112 (2), p.337-342
Main Authors: Buttelmann, David, Carpenter, Malinda, Tomasello, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Adults
Age Differences
Aging - psychology
Beliefs
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Child, Preschool
Cognition
Developmental psychology
Evaluation
Eye Movements
False belief
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Helping
Humans
Infancy
Infant Behavior
Infants
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Measures (Individuals)
Newborn. Infant
Perception - physiology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Schemata (Cognition)
Social behaviour
Student Attitudes
Theory of mind
Time Factors (Learning)
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Summary:Recently, several studies have claimed that soon after their first birthday infants understand others’ false beliefs. However, some have questioned these findings based on criticisms of the looking-time paradigms used. Here we report a new paradigm to test false belief understanding in infants using a more active behavioral response: helping. Specifically, the task was for infants to help an adult achieve his goal – but to determine that goal infants had to take into account what the adult believed (i.e., whether or not he falsely believed there was a toy inside a box). Results showed that by 18 months of age infants successfully took into account the adult’s belief in the process of attempting to determine his goal. Results for 16-month-olds were in the same direction but less clear. These results represent by far the youngest age of false belief understanding in a task with an active behavioral measure.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.05.006