Journal of Educational Psychology2000, Vol. 92, No. 4, 709-717

Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc0022-0663/00/$5.00 DOI: 1O.1037//O022-O663.92.4.7O9

Theory of Mind and Self-Concept in Preadolescents:Links With Gender and Language

Sandra Leanne BosackiBrock University

The investigation of the ability to attribute mental states to others and to see them as the basis for people'sactions has been referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM) research. This study assessed ToM, or socialunderstanding, in preadolescents and examined individual differences in the relations among socialunderstanding, self-concept, and language competence. One hundred twenty-eight preadolescents (64girls, 64 boys; mean age = 1 1 years, 9 months) completed tasks concerning self-concept and vocabularyand participated in a story-telling interview that assessed social and self-understanding. There werepositive associations between children's social understanding and (a) self-understanding, (b) self-perceptions of behavioral conduct, and (c) general vocabulary ability. Independent of vocabulary ability,girls scored higher than boys on both social and self-understanding tasks.

Although the investigation of self-concept and social under-standing in preadolescents began over 40 years ago (Bruce, 1958;Flapan, 1968), researchers remain puzzled as to how preadoles-cents learn to make meaning from their social experiences. Overthe past decade, developmental psychology has attempted to an-swer this question by envisioning the child as an interpretativepsychologist who depends on a mentalistic construal of reality tomake sense of the social world (Bennett, 1993). Often referred toas "theory of mind" (ToM) or "social understanding," this way ofviewing sociocognitive development provides a new framework toexplore how psychological understanding of self and others devel-ops (Astington, 1993; Harter, 1999; Wellman, 1990). In brief, theToM approach to social cognition claims that a largely implicitconceptual framework allows children to understand, explain, andpredict their own and other people's behavior and mental states(Barresi & Moore, 1996).

The most studied aspect of children's ToM development is theirrecognition of false belief (Wimmer & Pemer, 1983). At approx-imately 4 years of age, children understand that people act on theirrepresentation of the world, even in situations where it misrepre-sents the real situation. That is, at this age, children can representand reason from people's first-order beliefs: X believes P. From asyoung as age 5 or 6, children are able to represent and reason fromsecond-order beliefs: X believes that Y believes P. In contrast, the

The data reported in this article form part of a doctoral dissertationsubmitted to the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the Universityof Toronto. Portions of this article were presented at the 28th AnnualMeeting of Jean Piaget Society, Chicago, 1998, and the Biennial Societyfor Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1999. Ithank the students, educators, and parents who participated in this study. Iwould also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee: MaryLouise Arnold, Janet Wilde Astington, David Booth, Anne McKeough,Jack Miller, and David Olson.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to SandraLeanne Bosacki, Faculty of Education, Brock University, St. Catharines,Ontario, L2S 3A1 Canada. Electronic mail may be sent to sbosacki®ed.brocku.ca.

development of this ability to interpret embedded representationsor recursive statements such as "She thinks that he thinks that..."has received little attention in the literature. This is surprisinggiven that much of people's social interaction depends on whatthey believe about other people's beliefs (Astington, 1993). Theimportance of higher order or recursive reasoning has been shownin relation to children's ability to understand speech acts such aslies and jokes (Leekam, 1993) and in their ability to understandself-representational display rules (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999). Thismentalizing ability, beginning in early childhood, to recognize,represent, and understand others' thoughts and emotions providesthe sociocognitive foundation for the later development of socio-emotional competency (Dunn, 1995). Even so, there exists verylittle research to date on how preadolescents' knowledge of themental world is linked to their self-perceptions and self-knowledge(Flavell, 2000).

Self-Concept

Similar to ToM research, research on the self has been riddledwith theoretical and methodological conflict since the field's con-ception (Bruner, 1996). Given the various conceptual and meth-odological issues surrounding self-concept (Harter, 1999), for thepurposes of the present study, the "theory" view of self-conceptwas chosen. This theory of self-concept assumes that the concep-tual self is a multidimensional cognitive representation or theorythat is based on an understanding of one's own beliefs, desires, andintentions (Epstein, 1973). Although the notion of self-theories isnot new (see Epstein, 1973), most research on self- and personperception has been conducted by personality and social psychol-ogists, whose main interests often are trait characterizations andhow they relate to psychosocial variables such as temperament,social competence, and so on. (Flavell & Miller, 1998; Wellman,1990). Thus, the question of how children's developing ToMprovides the infrastructure for self-conception has not beenaddressed.

709

710 BOSACKI

ToM and Self-Concept

According to ToM, people's understanding of themselves par-takes of, and is limited by, their knowledge and beliefs about themental world (Wellman, 1990), although there is little researchrelating self-concept to ToM understanding. Although the domainof self-research shares many conceptual similarities to that ofToM, self-concept has been studied mainly within the domain ofsocial-cognitive psychology (Flavell & Miller, 1998). The fewToM studies that have explored the self-other differentiation andsocial emotional development have largely dealt with preschoolchildren or young school-aged children (e.g., Astington & Jenkins,1999; Homer & Astington, 1995; Hughes & Dunn, 1999). Whenthis article was written, there existed only one study of linksbetween aspects of self-understanding and ToM (Banerjee & Yuill,1999). In that study, a positive link was found between youngchildren's understanding of self-presentational display rules andsecond-order representation (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999).

Preadolescent ToM: A Case for Complexity

Research on preadolescent social cognition includes studies onattribution and perspective or role taking (both of self and other;e.g., Damon & Hart, 1988; Selman, 1980), person perception (e.g.,Yuill, 1992), and empathetic sensitivity (e.g., Ferguson, Stegge, &Damhuis, 1991). There are some conflicting findings and linksbetween sociocognitive ability and self-concept. Some studiesreport positive links between psychological understanding of selfand others (Hatcher, Hatcher, Berlin, Okla, & Richards, 1990),whereas others report negative relations between mentalizing abil-ities and self-esteem (Veith, 1980). In some studies, sociocognitiveabilities and self-worth have been found to be independent (Mat-thews & Keating, 1995; Schultz & Selman, 1989), whereas otherstudies have found a positive link between cognitive abilities andself-concept. For instance, positive associations have been foundbetween attentional resources and self-complexity (Conway &White-Dysart, 1999), and performance on the Embedded FiguresTasks and self-esteem (Bosacki, Innerd, & Towson, 1997). Thus,such findings motivate additional examination of socioemotionalcorrelates of ToM in preadolescents (Hatcher & Hatcher, 1997).

Gender Issues

The process of learning to understand self and other within asocial context may be contingent on how a child's gender interactswith his or her environment (Edwards, 1993; Maccoby, 1998).According to the gender intensification hypothesis (Hill & Lynch,1983), during preadolescence, gender differences increase amonggirls and boys as a result of the increased pressure to conform totraditional gender role stereotypes. For example, during preado-lescence, traditional gender role behavior and ascription (i.e., fem-ininity = sociality, submissiveness; masculinity = autonomy, ag-gression) becomes intensified (Hill & Lynch, 1983; Tavris, 1992).

At approximately age 11, some girls (in comparison with boys)experience the following shifts in social cognition: a significantdrop in feelings and thoughts of self-worth (e.g., Edwards, 1993;Silverstein & Perlick, 1995), an increase in self-consciousness(e.g., Eder, 1989; Simmons, Rosenberg, & Rosenberg, 1973), andan increasingly negative sense of self-worth despite high academic

achievement (particularly among "gifted girls"; e.g., Matthews &Smyth, 1997). Boys score higher than girls on nonsocial spatialperspective-taking tasks (Coie & Dorval, 1973), whereas girlsscore higher than boys on social perspective taking, empathy, andperson perception (Cutting & Dunn, 1999; Honess, 1981). Simi-larly, there are gender-related differences between sociomoralreasoning and classroom behavior. In middle-school-aged chil-dren, there are relations between sociomoral reasoning and class-room behavioral conduct among boys only (Bear, 1989; Bear &Rys, 1994). More specifically, Bear (1989) found a positive linkbetween boys' social moral reasoning and conventional classroombehavior. That is, compared with girls, boys who displayed rela-tively sophisticated sociomoral reasoning were rated by theirteachers as more well-behaved.

Despite the conceptual similarities between sociocognitive rea-soning and ToM abilities, the exploration of gender-related differ-ences in ToM understanding has just begun. Of the few ToMstudies that test for gender effects, most report nonsignificantresults (e.g., Jenkins & Astington, 1996), although in two morerecent investigations, girls and women scored significantly higheron ToM-type tasks compared with boys and men (Baron-Cohen,Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997; Hughes & Dunn, 1999).

The Present Study

On the basis of the possibility that ToM provides the infrastruc-ture for self-concept (Wellman, 1990), I explored whether pread-olescents' ToM may promote a better understanding of the twomain tasks of early adolescence: (a) the intrapersonal task ofconstructing a coherent sense of self (Damon & Hart, 1988) and(b) the interpersonal task of understanding multiple and contradic-tory intentions of others (Chandler, 1987). Thus, the present studyexplores the links among three constructs important to ultra- andinterpersonal competence: (a) self-concept as defined as the abilityto judge one's competence in various domains (physical appear-ance, academics, athletics, sociability, and behavioral conduct) aswell as to describe and justify one's perceived worth as a person(global self-worth); (b) social understanding or ToM as defined bythe ability to understand multiple perspectives (conceptual roletaking or perspective taking), recognize and understand emotionalstates (empathetic sensitivity) and understand the concept of aperson as a psychological being with stable personality character-istics (person perception; see Chandler, 1987, for further discus-sion of this framework for a preadolescent ToM); and (c) generallanguage competence as defined by receptive vocabulary ability.

To do so, I developed a task to assess ToM or mental-stateunderstanding in preadolescence and used the task to examine therelations among ToM, self-concept, and vocabulary ability, andwhether relations varied with gender.

Method

Participants

One hundred twenty-eight 6th-grade children, drawn from six elemen-tary schools in a mainly middle-class area, participated in this study (meanage = 1 1 years, 9 months; range = 10 years, 9 months to 13 years, 2months). There were 64 girls (mean age = 11 ,9; range = 10, 9 to 12, 5)and 64 boys (mean age = 11, 9; range = 11, 3 to 13, 2). The ethnic

THEORY OF MIND AND SELF IN PREADOLESCENTS 711

composition of the sample was 98% white Euro-Canadian, with 97% of theparticipating sample reporting English as their first language.

Procedures

The study consisted of two parts. The first stage consisted of an in-classgroup administration of two standardized measures (a self-concept ques-tionnaire and a vocabulary task). The second stage took place during thesame week as group administration and included the withdrawal of indi-vidual children from their classrooms to participate in a 20- to 30-mininterview. The first part of the interview consisted of two brief vignettesthat were read to the participants (order of stories was counterbalanced). Toassess understanding of the story characters' mental states and feelings,each vignette was followed by a combination of forced-choice and open-ended questions (see Bosacki & Astington, 1999, for examples). Thesecond part of the interview assessed participants' understanding of theiranswers on the previously completed Self-Perception Profile for Children(SPPC; Harter, 1985). Thus, on the basis of their answers on the SPPC, theparticipants were asked six questions, each pertaining to a specific domainof the SPPC (see the Appendix). On average, the interview lasted 20 to 25min. The entire interview was recorded on audiotape for subsequenttranscriptions and analyses consisting of two ambiguous social narrativesfollowed by questions to assess social and self-understanding. Thus, chil-dren completed the following measures (each measure is described in detailin the following section): (a) group-administered SPPC (Harter, 1985); (b)group-administered Gates-MacGinitie Vocabulary Test (MacGinitie &MacGinitie, 1994); (c) individually administered Social Understanding-Social Narratives (developed for this study by Bosacki, 1998); (d) individ-ually administered Self-Understanding Interview (questions based on re-sponses to Harter's SPPC).

Measures

Social understanding or ToM. To assess a preadolescent's ToM (his orher understanding of mental states and emotions), two brief vignettesconsisting of an ambiguous social situation (one story involves threeboys—the Kenny/Mark/Tom story—and one involves three girls—theNancy/Margie/new girl story) were created. Borrowing from (a) theoreticalwork that views ToM as a vehicle or instrument that is used to coconstructor narrate one's social reality (Astington, 1993; Bruner, 1996) and (b) thefew studies that have attempted to investigate an advanced ToM throughthe use of narratives (Charman & Shmueli-Goetz, 1998; Fox, 1991; Happe\1994), this task aimed to assess the ToM or mentalizing ability involved ininterpreting social meaning from ambiguous stories. The stories weresocially ambiguous on the basis of past research claims that interpretationsof ambiguous social situations are an effective method of eliciting chil-dren's ToM (Levinson, 1995). Each story was followed by four groups ofquestions (sections A-D) that represent the constructs of conceptual per-spective taking or the understanding of higher order mental states, empa-thetic sensitivity, person perception, and alternative thinking (see Bosacki,1998, for complete protocol; see Chandler, 1987, for an analysis of per-spective taking in these terms). Two comprehension questions were askedbefore the main questions to control for memory and comprehensioneffects. If the comprehension questions were answered incorrectly, theresearcher reread the story to the child.

To illustrate, the following story (Kenny/Mark/Tom) was read to thechild:

Kenny and Mark are co-captains of the soccer team. They have oneperson left to choose for the team. Without saying anything, Markwinks at Kenny and looks at Tom who is one of the remainingchildren left to be chosen for the team. Mark looks back at Kenny andsmiles. Kenny nods and chooses Tom to be on their team. Tom seesMark and Kenny winking and smiling at each other. Tom, who is

usually one of the last to be picked for team sports, wonders whyKenny wants him to be on his team.

Following correct responses to the comprehension questions, childrenwere asked the following questions to assess their ability to understandhigher order mental states in others, including the ability to understandmultiple perspectives (conceptual role taking): "Why did Mark smile atKenny?" "Why did Kenny nod?" "Why did Kenny choose Tom to be onthe team? How do you know this?" "Do you think that Tom has any ideaof why Kenny chose him to be on the team? How do you know this?" Toassess their ability to recognize and understand emotional states (empa-thetic sensitivity), children were asked, "How do you think Tom feels?Why?" To assess the ability to understand the concept of a person as apsychological being with stable personality characteristics (person percep-tion), children were asked to choose a character in the story and describehim. They were asked, "What kinds of things can you think of to describehim? What kind of a person do you think he is?" Finally, to assess theirability to imagine multiple perspectives and alternatives, children wereasked, "Is there another way that you can think about this story? If so,how?" Similar questions were asked for the Nancy/Margie/new girl story.The stories were read to the children in counterbalanced order.

Coding of social understanding stories. A coding scheme based oninterview transcripts was developed to obtain a total ToM score (seeBosacki & Astington, 1999, for further coding and psychometric details ofthis measure). Responses were coded on the basis of various codingschemes gleaned from both social-cognitive (e.g., Damon & Hart, 1988;Hatcher et al., 1990; Selman, 1980) and ToM literature (Happe\ 1994;Yuill, 1992) and represented the level of ToM understanding based on theincreasing conceptual complexity of the responses. Thus, the coding of theresponses reflected the child's ability to understand others' psychologicalworlds, moving from simple, obvious ("surface") characteristics to theintegration of multiple and paradoxical perspectives. In particular, 0 pointswere given for "I don't know" (or no answer) or tangential responses, 1point for responses that included behavioral or situational descriptions, 2points for responses that included mental states or acts of communicationor perception, and 3 points for responses that included an integration of twoor more mental states and related them to each other in a coherent manner(e.g., moral judgments or recursive psychological statements). Only onescore was given per response so that participants were given credit for theirbest answer. Thus, the total score represented a best estimate of theparticipants' ability to understand social situations. The items of each storywere summed, resulting in the maximum total score of 21 for each story,with a high score representing a more sophisticated understanding ofmental states and feelings (i.e., a more complex ToM). Interrater reliability(calculated with 38% of the transcripts) was high, with Cohen's kappa at.98 (range = .90 to 1.00) for the Nancy/Margie/new girl story and .99(range .95 to 1.00) for the Kenny/Mark/Tom story. Internal consistencywas lower, with Cronbach's alphas for the Nancy/Margie/new girl storyand the Kenny/MarkAbm story at .67 and .69, respectively. A total ToMscore was calculated from the sum of the two story totals (maximum totalscore of 42).

Self-concept. On the basis of its conceptual similarity to ToM (i.e.,cognitive representation of one's mental states directed toward oneself),and drawing on Damon and Hart's (1988) and Harter's (1985) theory thatself-concept consists of a cognitive component (self-understanding) and anaffective component (self-esteem), the present study assessed both aspectsof the self-concept. Self-esteem was measured with Harter's (1985) SPPC.The SPPC is a 36-item self-report questionnaire divided into six subscales,including scholastic competence, social acceptance, athletic competence,physical appearance, behavioral conduct, and global self-worth. For exam-ple, to assess self-perceived scholastic competence, children were asked tofirst choose which of the following sentences sounded more like them:"Some kids feel that they are very good at their school work" or "Otherkids worry about whether they can do the school work assigned to them."After the children had decided which sentence sounded more like them-

712 BOSACKI

selves, they were then asked to judge whether the statement was "reallytrue for me" or "sort of true for me." All questions followed the sameformat. The SPPC is frequently used in social-cognitive research amongpreadolescents (e.g., Evans, Brody, & Noam, 1995), with internal consis-tency reliabilities (Cronbach's alphas) for all subscales ranging between.71 and .86 (Harter, 1985); test-retest reliability ranges from .69 to .87,varying with subscale.

Self-understanding. To assess the children's particular theories or un-derstanding of competence in a given domain, children were given a brief,six-question semistructured interview (one question per domain). That is,children were asked to provide a justification for six of their SPPCself-statements. The six items were chosen by Harter (1985) to each bestrepresent one of the self-concept domains from the SPPC. Thus, for eachof the six SPPC items, the participants were asked the following keyquestion: "What is the main reason for why it's really true/sort of true that[item content]?" For example, to assess one's understanding of his or heracademic competence, if the participant chose that the statement "Somekids feel that they are very good at their school work" is really true for himor her, the researcher asked, "What is the main reason for why it is reallytrue that you do very well in your school work" (see the Appendix)? Thus,these justifications of self-beliefs may provide a more accurate picture ofhow children understand their own theories about their social selves,academic selves, physical selves, and so on. (Harter, 1985; 1999).

Coding of Self-Understanding Interview

Similar to the social understanding stories, the coding of the self-understanding responses also reflected the child's ability to understandpeople's psychological worlds, moving from simple, obvious ("surface")characteristics to the interaction of several different abstract psychologicalconcepts and the integration of multiple and paradoxical perspectives. Toassess the complexity of a child's understanding of his or her self-theory(Harter, 1985), each of the six self-understanding statements were scored(on the basis of past research; e.g., Hatcher et al., 1990; Selman, 1980) ona scale ranging from 0 to 3. A score of zero was given if the child wasunable to answer or replied "I don't know." Responses were scored as 1 ifthey contained a self-description such as "I have lots of friends" or "I dowhat the teacher says" but did not give any explanation or interpretation ofthe description. Responses were scored as 2 if they contained a self-description followed by simple explanations such as "I have lots of friendsbecause I'm easy to get along with" or "I do well at school because I studyhard." Finally, responses were scored as 3 if they included a combinationof thoughts and feelings and/or an integration of psychological aspects ofboth self and other. For example, "I'm smart because I've never gottenunder a C. I try my hardest, that's the most important, that I try my hardestto make my parents proud." A total score was obtained (6 items X 3responses), resulting in the maximum total score of 18 for each interview,with a high score representing a more sophisticated self-understanding (i.e.,a more complex theory of self). Thirty-eight percent of the transcripts werecoded by a second, independent coder. Interrater reliability was high, withan average Cohen's kappa of .96 (range = .91 to 1.00 for the six individualitems). All discrepancies were resolved by consultation between the cod-ers. Internal consistency was acceptable, with an alpha of .72.

Language

ToM and self-concept measures are linked to both receptive and expres-sive language ability (e.g., Astington & Jenkins, 1999; Happg, 1994;Jenkins & Astington, 1996; Matthews & Keating, 1995). Hence, theGates-MacGinitie Vocabulary Test, Level D 5/6 (MacGinitie & Mac-Ginitie, 1994) was used to assess general receptive vocabulary compe-tency. This test is a valid and reliable measure of language proficiency,with a Kuder—Richardson Formula 20 reliability coefficient of .91 andstrong correlations with other reading tests such as the Iowa Tests of Basic

Skills, r = .80, and the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, r = .73(MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1994).

Results

Gender-Related Differences

There was a significant multivariate main effect for gender onthe SPPC scales (Wilks's A = .88), F(l, 127) = 2.80, p < .001. Infollow-up univariate analysis of variance for each of the self-concept subscales, there were significant main effects for genderfor behavioral conduct only (see Table 1), F(l, 127) = 5.49, p <.05. Compared with boys, girls scored significantly higher onbehavioral conduct. That is, girls perceived themselves as morewell-behaved. Boys scored higher than girls on physical appear-ance, F(l, 127) = 4.24, p < .05. Such results are congruent withHatter's (1985) original findings. However, my results are notconsistent with Harter's previous finding that boys scored signif-icantly higher than girls on athletic competence and global self-worth. Finally, girls and boys did not differ in their scores on theGates-MacGinite Vocabulary Test (see Table 1), F(l, 127) =0.66, ns.

With respect to the social stories, there was a main effect forgender in a multivariate analysis of variance (Wilks's A = 0.81),F(l, 127) = 7.04, p < .001, followed by significant univariategender main effects. To control for the possible confoundingvariable of language ability, a multivariate analysis of covariancewas performed in which the means of girls and boys on the socialstories were examined, with their Gates-MacGinitie VocabularyTest score acting as the covariate (see Table 1). Independent ofvocabulary ability, girls scored significantly higher than boyson both the total self- and social understanding score, F(l,

Table 1Means, Standard Deviations, and Gender

Effects for Main Variables

Variable

SPPC (possible range = 6-24)Behavioral conductAcademic competenceSocial acceptanceAthletic competencePhysical appearanceGlobal self-worth

SELF (possible range = 0-18)"TOMTOT (possible range = 0-42)b

GMAT (possible range = 0-45)

Girls(n = 64)

18.98(1.84)17.89 (4.46)18.63(4.13)18.13 (4.20)17.39 (4.55)19.81 (3.72)13.00(2.51)30.25 (4.64)29.52 (7.10)

Group

Boys(« = 64)

17.36 (4.00)*17.78 (3.75)17.52 (5.30)18.75 (4.08)18.51 (4.08)*19.41 (3.39)11.77(2.36)**26.00(6.21)**30.38 (7.67)

Note. Mean scores are shown, with standard deviations in parentheses.SPPC = Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985); SELF = totalself-understanding score; TOMTOT = total social understanding score;GMAT = total score from the Gates-MacGinitie Vocabulary Test(MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1994)." Scores derived from self-understanding scores. The higher the scores, thegreater the self-understanding. b Scores derived from social understand-ing stories. The higher the scores, the greater the social understanding.* p < .05. **p < .01.

THEORY OF MIND AND SELF IN PREADOLESCENTS 713

127) = 7.00,respectively.

p < .01, and F(l, 127) = 23.58, p < .01,

Vocabulary, ToM, and Self-Concept Correlations

Regarding links with language and self-perceptions, Table 2includes a significant positive association between perceived be-havioral conduct for boys, but not for girls (i.e., rs = .37 and —.03,respectively), z = 2.33, p < .05. As boys' language scores in-creased, their scores on self-perceived behavioral conduct alsoincreased. Table 2 also contains a significant negative correlationbetween vocabulary ability and self-perceived athletic competencefor boys (r = — .32, p < .05; as boys' language scores increased,their self-perceptions of athletic competence decreased). The cor-responding correlations for girls was not significant and was in theother direction (i.e., r = .21, p < .10). The difference between thegirls' and boys' correlations was significant, z = -5.40, p < .01.There was a significant positive correlation between vocabularyability and self-understanding (r = .31, p < .05) for the boys. Asboys' scores on the self-understanding scores increased, so didtheir general language ability (see Table 2). The correspondingcorrelation for the girls was not significant, r = .04, ns.

ToM and Self-Concept

To test the relation between ToM and self-concept, Pearsoncorrelations were calculated between the total social stories score

Table 2Pearson Correlations Among Social Understanding, Self-Understanding, and Language Ability

Variable

SPPCBehavioral conductAcademic competenceSocial acceptanceAthletic competencePhysical appearanceGlobal self-worth

SELFTOMTOT

SPPCBehavioral conductAcademic competenceSocial acceptanceAthletic competencePhysical appearanceGlobal self-worth

SELFTOMTOT

SELF

Girls (n = 64)

- .03- .09

.10

.21+

.18- .09

——

Boys (n = 64)

.37**

.08- .06

.03- .13- .05

——

TOMTOT

.09

.03- .02

.01

.01- .03

.46***—

.30**

.14

.02

.14

.07

.09

.61***—

GMAT

.07

.13

.02

.21+

.04

.04

.04

.45***

.32**

.14- .06-.32**

.17

.17

.31**

.29*

Note. Correlations remained significant (p < .05) when vocabulary abil-ity was partialled out. SELF = total self-understanding score; TOMTOT =total social understanding score; GMAT = total score from the Gates-MacGinitie Vocabulary Test (MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1994); SPPC =Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985).t/> < .10 (marginally significant). *p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p <.001.

(TOMTOT) and the six subscales of the SPPC (see Table 2). Thecorrelation between the TOMTOT and behavioral conduct wassignificant for boys, r(62) = .30, p < .05, but not for girls, r(62) =.09, ns.

As predicted, there were significant positive correlations be-tween the total social stories score (TOMTOT) and the totalSelf-Understanding Interview score for both boys (r = .61, p <.01) and girls (r = .46, p < .01). That is, children who providedmore sophisticated justifications for their self-statements alsoscored higher on the social stories. Given the link between thegeneral language ability and the social and self-understandingscores, partial correlations were conducted with Gates-MacGinitieVocabulary Test scores held constant. The correlations betweensocial understanding and self-understanding remained independentof vocabulary ability, partial r = .60 for boys and partial r = .45for girls; both ps < .05. Thus, independent of general languageability, children with higher self-understanding scores alsoachieved higher social story scores.

Self-Concept (Self-Esteem and Self-Understanding)

To investigate the various dimensions of the self-system (cog-nitive and affective), correlations were calculated between the totalSelf-Understanding Interview score (cognitive component) and theSPPC subscales (affective component). As summarized in Table 2,the only significant link existed between self-understanding andperceived behavioral conduct in boys, r = .37, p < .01: Boys whorated themselves as relatively well-behaved on the SPPC alsoprovided relatively sophisticated responses in the Self-Understanding Interview.

Discussion

The hypothesis that preadolescents' ability to understand themental states of others would be related to their self-concept andlanguage competence was partially supported. First, independentof vocabulary ability, ToM was linked to self-understanding. How-ever, ToM was related to only self-perceived behavioral conduct.Also, few links were found between self-esteem and self-understanding. Second, vocabulary ability was related to bothToM and self-understanding, but it was only weakly related toself-perceptions. Third, significant gender differences were foundin (a) individual differences for ToM and self-concept and (b) linksamong ToM, self-concept, and vocabulary ability. Each of thesethree main findings is discussed in turn.

ToM and Self-Concept

A robust positive relation was found between ToM and self-understanding, or the cognitive aspect of self-concept (Damon &Hart, 1988). The ability to articulate one's ToM of other people isrelated to one's ability to articulate one's "theory of self." Thisfinding is consistent with positive connections between self- andother understanding (Banerjee & Yuill, 1999; Hatcher et al., 1990;Homer & Astington, 1995; Wimmer & Haiti, 1991) and with the"theory-theory" explanation of social understanding: One's organ-izing principles of how people think, feel, and behave stem fromsocial-cognitive reasoning or "theory-making" capacities (e.g.,Wellman, 1990). According to this view, the ability to mentally

714 BOSACKI

represent and understand multiple perspectives operates similarlyfor both self and other in that it helps to create theories for both selfand other. Thus, the relation between preadolescents' theories ofself and others may have been due to both theories stemming froma common underlying cognitive framework.

Alternatively, the relation between the ToM measure and theself-understanding measure can be explained in terms of the morerecent sociocultural narrative ToM (e.g., Astington, 1993; Bruner,1996). According to this view, the concepts of other and self areactually one and the same. Both phenomena are considered pro-cesses in which self is created through interactions with other(Bruner & Kalmar, 1997; Fivush & Buckner, 1997). Thus, peo-ple's sense of self is created from their social experience, includingtheir perceptions and understandings of others as psychologicalbeings. In either case, the correlation between self- and otherunderstanding in this study suggests that preadolescents' under-standing of self and other are intricately intertwined, constantlybuilding on each other's experience.

Self-Perceptions and Self-Understanding

Although no specific prediction was made, this study exploredthe different aspects of self-concept by assessing both the affective(self-perceived competence or self-esteem) and cognitive (self-understanding) self-concepts. Consistent with the view that theconceptual self is multidimensional and complex (e.g., Bruner &Kalmar, 1997; Harter, 1999), in general, self-esteem scores werenot related to self-understanding scores. Perceived behavioral con-duct was the only subscale significantly associated with self-understanding. In general, the lack of relation between self-concept (SPPC) and the self-understanding measure supports theview that self-concept is not only multidimensional with respect tocontent (e.g., Harter, 1999) but also has qualitatively differentaffective and cognitive components (Damon & Hart, 1988). Thus,how individuals view themselves may not be related to how theyfeel about themselves. For example, in the present study, a childcould have scored high on the self-understanding interview (i.e.,possess a sophisticated or complex self-theory) but may havereported negative feelings about himself or herself in particularareas (i.e., scored low on the SPPC). Hence, similar to the multi-dimensional notion of ToM, the concept of self may also consist ofan intricate network of separate but connected representations(e.g., Markus & Nurius, 1986).

Role of Language in Understanding Mental States in Selfand Other

The finding of links between ToM and self-understanding isconsistent with previous outcomes (Astington & Jenkins, 1999;Cutting & Dunn, 1999; de Villiers, 1999; Happ6, 1995; Jenkins &Astington, 1996) and thus suggests that language plays an impor-tant role in preadolescents' ToM and self-understanding, althoughthe relation in this study between self-understanding and languagewas very weak for girls. General vocabulary ability seemed not tobe related to girls' ability to articulate their self-theories.

Gender Issues

The gender-related differences found in the present study illus-trate the complex role gender plays in social cognition. Indepen-

dent of vocabulary ability, girls performed significantly higher onthe social and self-understanding tasks, consistent with Hatcher etal.'s (1990) findings that girls scored higher than boys on bothsocial and self-understanding tasks. This gender difference is con-sistent with previous demonstrations that girls score higher thanboys in psychological understanding tasks such as conceptualperspective taking, empathetic sensitivity, and person perception(e.g., Hatcher et al., 1990; Honess, 1981). Specifically with respectto ToM research, the present study adds to the growing evidenceof superiority among girls in the area of mental state attribution orpsychological mindedness (Baron-Cohen et al., 1997; Hughes &Dunn, 1999).

Why did girls, compared with boys, score relatively high onboth the social and self-understanding tasks? Perhaps children aresubjected to societal voice and ear training that teaches them howto interact socially and to behave according to social convention(e.g., Tavris, 1992). Gradually, children are said to internalizethese traditional social role expectations, which are said to increaseduring preadolescence (Hill & Lynch, 1983). Thus, on the basis ofthe gender role stereotype of understanding thoughts and feelingsof others as a "feminine" ability (Unger & Crawford, 1992), girlsmay actually acquire more training in this ToM ability.

The finding that girls scored significantly higher than boys onperceived behavioral conduct is consistent with girls' perceptionsof themselves as more well-behaved and compliant than boys(Harter, 1985). In contrast, the present results contrast with pastfindings of girls perceiving themselves more negatively and beingmore likely to suffer from related self-concept disorders such asdepression and disordered eating (Brown & Gilligan, 1992;Edwards, 1993; Pipher, 1994). The only self-concept subscale thatprovided some support for low self-worth in girls was the physicalappearance subscale. Boys scored significantly higher than girls onphysical appearance and perceived themselves as more physicallyattractive and happier with their physical appearance than girls,consistent with other reports about preadolescent body image:Girls are more negative and sensitive than boys about their phys-ical appearance (e.g., Johnson, Roberts & Worell, 1999).

The finding that perceived behavioral conduct was related toboth self- and social understanding only among boys is consistentwith boys having higher levels of moral reasoning related to higherlevels of rule-conforming classroom behavior (Bear & Rys, 1994).Why did boys who scored relatively high on the ToM task alsoperceive themselves as more well-behaved, and furthermore, whywas this effect not found among the girls? These gender differ-ences can be explained in terms of stereotypical social role expec-tations. Traditional gender role stereotypes perpetuate the viewthat girls are more likely to follow convention and passively obeyauthority, whereas boys have been viewed as unconventionaland are encouraged to question or rebel against the status quo(Smetana, 1993).

Alternatively, the lack of correlations among the girls couldhave been due to the lack of variability in the girls' scores.Although this accounts largely for the low correlation among girls,it does not explain why girls with varying degrees of socialunderstanding showed similar ratings of perceived behavioral con-duct. As suggested by Bear and Rys (1994), perhaps due tosocialization, conventional behavior may be more script-determined, and thus habitual, among girls than among boys,requiring little social-cognitive processing.

THEORY OF MIND AND SELF IN PREADOLESCENTS 715

Educational Implications and Future Directions

This study sought to chart new territory in ToM ability amongpreadolescent girls and boys. The illustration of gender patternsamong sociocognitive reasoning and language ability highlightsthe necessity for future social cognitive research to include genderand language as contributing factors. The present study also high-lights the crucial role that language plays in the mental life of thepreadolescent. The finding that, for girls, vocabulary ability waslinked to social understanding but not self-understanding suggeststhat language may help girls to gain insight into the minds ofothers but not their own. That is, although language may providea vehicle through which the theories of others' minds and feelingsare created (e.g., Bruner & Kalmar, 1997), among preadolescentgirls, language may be of greater use in the creation of theories-of-others than theories-of-self. Consequently, ToM researchersneed to draw from psycholinguistic literature (e.g., Levinson,1995; Tannen, 1994) and begin to integrate language tasks (recep-tive and expressive).

In agreement with Bruner (1996), this study emphasized thecritical role the self-concept plays in preadolescent children'sschool experiences and helps to remind educators that preadoles-cence is a pivotal time in self-development. Educators need to becognizant that early adolescence is a time when girls and boysexperience increased social consciousness and social pressures toconform to gender-stereotypic norms. This study may help toincrease educators' awareness of how gender-stereotypic beliefsmay affect preadolescents' social cognition. I interpret these find-ings to mean that educators should minimize the extent to whichthey use gender-stereotypic language and behavior within theclassroom.

Given the limitations of the present study (e.g., correlationaldesign, lack of memory and expressive language tasks, ethnicallyand economically homogeneous sample), interpretations of thepresent findings are made with caution. This study does raise thepossibility, however, that mental world knowledge may differ forgirls and boys (Byrne & Shavelson, 1996). The measure developedfor this study is potentially an important tool to study mindreadingability in preadolescents.

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THEORY OF MIND AND SELF IN PREADOLESCENTS 717

Appendix

Self-Understanding Interview

Further Assessment of Self-Concept(Justification of Self-Beliefs)

To attain a deeper understanding of the child's self-concept and thereasons for his or her self-judgments, following the administration of theSPPC (Harter, 1985), each child is asked six questions based on the child'sresponses on the SPPC (one question on each domain; SPPC Items 25, 8,3,34, 17, and 30). Each question is framed in the following manner: "Whatis the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you are[item content; e.g., good at your school work, don't have many friends,etc.]?"

1. What is the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you:do very well at your classwork OR don't do very well at your classwork?(SPPC Item 25)

2. What is the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you:have a lot of friends OR don't have very many friends? (SPPC Item 8)

3. What is the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you:do very well at all kinds of sports OR don't feel that you are very goodwhen it comes to sports? (SPPC Item 3)

4. What is the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you:think that you are good looking OR think that you are not very goodlooking? (SPPC Item 34)

5. What is the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you:usually act the way you know you are supposed to OR often don't act theway you are supposed to? (SPPC Item 17)

6. What is the main reason for why it is really true/sort of true that you:are very happy being the way you are OR wish you were different? (SPPCItem 30)

Received December 29, 1999Revision received May 15, 2000

Accepted May 15, 2000 •

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