Word of the Week: Theory of Mind

Theory of mind is the ability to interpret the mental states of others, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. Theory of mind allows a person to understand others’ thoughts and intentions as well as explain and predict others’ behavior. It also allows a person to understand that someone may hold different beliefs than their own. Generally, theory of mind is important for having successful social interactions.

Theory of mind is closely connected with language development. They both develop around the same time, and it has been found that performance on language tasks and theory of mind tasks have a moderate to strong correlation. There are many explanations that exist to describe the relationship between the two. One theory is that learning the meaning of verbs that describe mental states, such as to think or to know, allows children to understand that others have their own thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. In other words, this theory says that children use their advancing linguistic skills to further develop their cognitive and social skills. It is also suspected that the relationship between language development and theory of mind is bidirectional—that is, both skills contribute to the advancement of the other, as opposed to one being the cause of the other.

Additionally, bilingual and multilingual children typically develop theory of mind before their monolingual peers. It is thought that children who speak more than one language must be more aware of the language abilities of the person with which they are speaking. These children must be able to recognize who understands what language, and alter their behavior to be able to successfully communicate.