Theory of Mind and Developmental Psychology

A set of flashcards covering key concepts from developmental psychology and theory of mind based on lecture notes.

Theory of Mind includes recognizing that others have intentions, desires, and beliefs

Humans (including infants) interpret others as mental agents.

Evidence includes infants attributing goals to agents and predicting behavior based on unseen mental states (e.g., belief). This foundational capacity allows social reasoning and interaction.

Ascribing intentionality is automatic and ubiquitous

People spontaneously interpret behavior as intentional, even when unnecessary. Infants treat moving objects as agents and adjust interactions accordingly, suggesting this process is unconscious and constant.

Infants can recognize goal-directed behavior

Experiment: Babies watched a rod reach toward an object. When the rod suddenly changed its path irrationally, infants looked longer.
Result: Longer looking times indicate surprise → infants expected consistent, goal-directed action.

Infants distinguish agents from inanimate objects based on order vs disorder

Evidence:

• Inanimate objects → associated with disorder (e.g., wind scattering leaves)

• Agents → can create order
  Experiment: Infants looked longer when an inanimate object created order.
  Conclusion: Infants expect agents (not objects) to produce structured outcomes.

Infants expect agents to act efficiently toward goals (Theory of Efficient Action)

Experiment: Babies saw a ball jump over an obstacle. Later, the obstacle was removed but the ball still jumped.
Result: Infants were surprised (longer looking), indicating expectation of efficiency.
Conclusion: Infants assume agents minimize effort and act rationally.

Infants can infer hidden obstacles using efficient action reasoning

Evidence: When an agent takes an indirect path, infants infer unseen constraints (like barriers).
They integrate:

• Goal

• Environment

• Movement
  → to infer unseen causes.

Infants may have a theory of mind, but this is debated (two interpretations)

1. Mentalistic: Infants represent beliefs and desires

2. Non-mentalistic: Infants track goals and actions without mental states
   Conclusion: Evidence is inconclusive.

Children under 4 struggle with false-belief tasks

Sally-Anne Task:

• Sally hides object → Anne moves it

• Children asked where Sally will look
  Result: Children <4 say “box” (reality), not “basket” (belief)
  Interpretation: Difficulty understanding others’ false beliefs.

Infants can pass non-verbal false-belief tasks

Experiment: Infants watched scenarios where an agent held false beliefs.
Result: Infants looked longer when agents acted inconsistently with their beliefs.
Conclusion: Infants expect agents to act on false beliefs → early theory of mind.

Some animals understand others’ perception (Theory of Perception)

Scrub Jay Experiment:

• Birds hid food in locations unseen by others

• Re-cached food if previously stolen from
  Conclusion: Jays track what others can see and know.

Rhesus monkeys may lack a theory of mind

Experiment:

• Monkeys observed agent choosing boxes

• True belief: surprised by wrong choice

• False belief: no reaction
  Conclusion: Monkeys track reality, not beliefs.

Apes may possess a form of theory of mind

Experiment: Eye-tracking in false-belief scenarios

• Apes anticipated actions based on agent’s belief
  Alternative explanation: Could rely on memory of perception, not mental states.

Basic emotions are universal and evolutionarily adaptive

Evidence:
Ekman’s 6 emotions (anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise)

• Shared across cultures/species

• Have survival functions (e.g., fear → escape)

Infants can distinguish emotional expressions

Caron et al. (1988):

• 7-month-olds distinguished anger, happiness, sadness

• Even across different faces
  Conclusion: Early emotional perception ability.

Infants understand emotional congruency

Wu et al. (2017):

• Babies saw emotional expression + object

• Looked longer at mismatched pairings
  Conclusion: Infants expect emotions to match context.

Infants experience pain and require anesthesia

Anand (1980s):

• Surgery without anesthesia → high stress, 25% mortality

• With anesthesia → lower stress, <10% mortality
  Conclusion: Infants experience pain, not just reflex.

Animals experience pain that influences behavior

Fish Experiment:

• Morphine vs placebo

• Placebo fish showed distress behaviors
  Conclusion: Pain affects motivation and behavior.

Pain in animals is not just reflexive

Hermit Crab Study:

• Shocked shells

• Crabs weighed shell quality vs pain
  Conclusion: Pain enters cost-benefit decisions.

Emotions influence cognitive bias in animals

Rat Experiment:

• Trained with reward locations

• After stress → pessimistic choices
  Conclusion: Emotional states alter decision-making.

Animals show empathy-like responses

Evidence:

• Rats stop actions that harm others

• Increased pain responses when cage-mates suffer
  Conclusion: Sensitivity to others’ distress.

Infants show early moral preferences

Helper vs Hinderer Experiment:

• Babies preferred helper character

• Reached for or looked longer at “good” agents
  Conclusion: Early moral evaluation.

Infants reward good agents and punish bad ones

Experiment:

• Babies gave rewards to helpers

• Took rewards from hinderers
  Conclusion: Sense of fairness and justice.

Altruism requires specific evolutionary conditions

Requirements:

1. Desire to help

2. Ability to detect cheaters

3. Punishment of cheaters

4. Benefits to punishers
   Conclusion: Explains persistence of altruism.

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Animals engage in altruistic helping

Rat Experiment:

• Rats freed trapped companions

• Even without reward
  Conclusion: Helping is not purely self-serving.

Animals engage in mutual cooperation

Examples:

• Orcas hunting

• Hyenas planning

• Grouper + eel hunting (5x success)
  Conclusion: Cooperation increases survival.

Animals exhibit reciprocal altruism

Examples:

• Grooming

• Food sharing

• Warning calls
  Conclusion: Cooperation over time benefits all.

Animals prefer attractive, familiar, and similar others

Evidence:

• Fish avoid diseased individuals

• Infants prefer familiar race/language

• Animals prefer similar group members
  Conclusion: Social preferences are adaptive.

Language is a key cue for social group membership

Kinzler et al. (2007):

• Children preferred native speakers over same-race non-native speakers
  Conclusion: Language outweighs physical traits.

Infants recognize social group membership

Powell & Spelke (2013):

• Babies expected group members to share goals
  Jin & Jaillargeon (2017):

• Expected in-group helping
  Conclusion: Early group cognition.

Social learning occurs through multiple mechanisms

Four mechanisms:

1. Innate cues

2. Attention cueing

3. Emulation

4. Imitation
   Each supported by cross-species experiments.

Imitation supports human cultural transmission

Evidence:

• Children copy irrelevant actions

• Infants imitate intentionally inefficient actions
  Conclusion: High-fidelity copying enables culture.

Natural pedagogy is uniquely human

Evidence:

• Infants respond to eye contact, tone, teaching cues

• Generalize learned information broadly
  Experiments:

• “Blicket” study: children generalize taught properties

• Kovacs study: communicative cues guide learning
  Conclusion: Humans are adapted for teaching and learning.

The infant mind is not a blank slate

Infants are born with:

• Social reasoning

• Emotional systems

• Learning mechanisms
  These are products of evolution.

Humans share many traits with animals but also differ fundamentally

Shared: perception, emotion, cooperation
Unique:

• Language

• Culture

• Complex morality

• Teaching systems
  Conclusion: Human cognition builds on animal foundations but extends further.