Theory of mind and social withdrawal

Theoretically, socially withdrawn children are likely to have theory of mind (ToM) deficits because they receive less social input and thus have limited opportunity to develop an understanding of others. However, it is becoming increasingly recognized that social withdrawal is broad category of behaviours with different underlying motivations. Each of these behaviours is likely to have different impacts on different outcomes. As such, some types of social withdrawal may impact ToM more so than others. The present study sought to determine whether two different types of social withdrawal (social disinterest and conflicted shyness) are differentially associated with ToM. To this end, we created a novel self-report measure of conflicted shyness and social disinterest. This new measure was implemented alongside parent report measures and a progressive six-step ToM scale. A total of 65 children completed these measures. Findings suggest that the two are differentially associated with ToM such that social disinterest is negatively associated and conflicted shyness has no association. There were also a number of unexpected findings, namely social disinterest was negatively associated with age and conflicted shyness was positively associated with age. Explanations and interpretations of these findings in addition to theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed.