| Summary: | Two groups of 5- to 8-year-olds, and a comparison sample of adults, were examined in an effort
to explore the developing relationships between false belief understanding and an awareness of the
individualized nature of personal taste, on the one hand, and, on the other, a maturing grasp of the
interpretive character of the knowing process. In Study 1,20 children between 5 and 8, and in
Study Two, a group of 15 adults, all behaved in accordance with hypotheses by proving to be
indistinguishable in their good grasp of the possibility of false beliefs, and in their common
assumption that differences of opinion concerning matters of taste are legitimate expressions of
personal preferences. By contrast, only the 7- and 8-year-old children and adults gave evidence
of recognizing that ambiguous stimuli allow for warrantable differences of interpretation. Study 3
replicated and extended these findings with a group of 48 5- to 8-year-old subjects, again showing
that while 5-year-olds easily pass a standard test of false belief understanding, only children of 7
or 8 ordinarily evidence an appreciation of the interpretative character of the knowing process. === Arts, Faculty of === Psychology, Department of === Graduate
|
|---|
