Theory Of Mind: Article Analysis

Theory of Mind (ToM) is when one has the capability to understand and recognize others mental states and be able to act in conformity to such understanding (Ding, et al., 2015). Such knowledge plays a large role not only in children's ability to lie, but also in their everyday social interactions with others. The better a child’s ToM, the more competent they will be with social interaction and popularity with other children (Ding, et al., 2015). By understanding the similarities and variations between other people's minds, children can learn that through lying, they can manipulate situations and outcomes to their advantage.
2. In the article When Children Learn About Other’s Minds, They Learn to Lie Markman (2015) analizes the idea of why and how children start to lie using Theory of Mind (ToM). He discusses how once a child learns that other people can have different beliefs they can make the connection that they can lie to manipulate these beliefs. To have the ability to deceive someone or lie, you need to discern that when false information is given, the person receiving the information to will believe what was told to them. Therefore, there is an understanding that your own belief can differ from someone else's belief (Markman, 2015). To explain
The method used a reward approach that would make children use their ToM to either lie or tell the truth. First, the children began with three warm up trials that required no deception on theirs or the experimenters part and for each trial the experiment was explained. The children would be shown two cups that concealed a single candy and asked to guess which cup the candy resided in. When the child guessed correctly, they got to keep the candy while if they guess incorrectly, the experiment would keep the candy. The warm up trials were beneficial for the child to fully understand the rules and incentives of the task to