How social status influences our understanding of others’ mental states

Michael T. Rizzo, Melanie Killen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The current study investigated whether children's relative social status within a context influences their ability to identify others’ mental states. Across two experiments, 3- to 7-year-olds (N = 103) were randomly assigned to hold either an advantaged or disadvantaged social status and were assessed on their ability to accurately identify others’ mental states (via false-belief and belief-emotion “theory of mind” assessments). When participants’ status was manipulated by a structural factor (gender; Experiment 1), participants with disadvantaged status were more likely than participants with advantaged status to pass the false-belief and belief-emotion assessments. When status was manipulated by an individual factor (performance; Experiment 2), participants with disadvantaged status were more likely to pass the false-belief assessment but not the belief-emotion assessment. Results provide the first empirical evidence that an individual's contextualized perspective (i.e., his or her social status situated within a given context) influences the individual's ability to identify others’ mental states.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)30-41
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Experimental Child Psychology
Volume169
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Contextualized perspective
  • Mental state understanding
  • Moral development
  • Social cognition
  • Social status
  • Theory of mind

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology

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