Development of Second-Order False Belief and Faux Pas Understanding in 7 to 9 Year-old Children

Second-order false belief(FB) tasks and Faux pas tasks were used to explore the development of theory of mind(ToM) in 90 children aged 7-9.The results showed significant differences existed between children aged 7 and 8 and between children aged 7 and 9,but not between children aged 8 and 9.All children performed better on second-order FB tasks than on faux pas tasks.Moreover,the scores on the two tasks correlated significantly(age controlled).In sum,8 years of age was another turning point in ToM and the concepts(belief,emotion,intention) of theory of mind correlated each other during 7 to 9 years of age.