Zihin anlama becerisinin değişken doğası: Zihin anlama becerisi hedef kişinin özelliklerine göre değişir mi?

This study examined to what extent children's mental state understanding vary as a function of perceived similarity, prejudice and threat perception towards out-group and social identity. The sample included 214 Turkish children (Mage = 11.66 years, SD = 0.84; range = 9 years 7 months -13 years). We measured children's mental state understanding and general reasoning ability (as a control variable) by using the Strange Stories task, which consisted of intra-cultural and cross-cultural mind reading and control stories. Children were randomly assigned to one of the three groups where they heard four mind reading stories and four control stories: Children in the Turkish target group read four mind reading and four control stories about Turkish characters and objects seen in the Turkish culture, children in the Syrian target group read four mind reading and four control stories about Syrian characters and objects in Syrian culture, and children in the Dutch/Norwegian target group read four mind reading and four control stories about Dutch/Norwegian characters and objects commonly seen in Dutch/Norwegian culture. We examined children's perceived similarity with Syrian and Dutch/Norwegian culture, prejudice, discrimination, and threat perception towards Syrian and Dutch/Norwegian, and children's social identity via standardized scales and tasks. Children's second-order false belief understanding, attentional control, empathy, expressive language and receptive language ability, direct contact, and negative indirect contact with out-groups were also measured as control variables. Results showed that there was no significant difference in general reasoning accuracy (control stories) between the three groups. Children in the Turkish target group made significantly more accurate mental state inferences than children in two other groups. Furthermore, children in the Syrian group were significantly less accurate when ascribing mental states to targets compared to children in the Dutch/Norwegian target group. Findings revealed that children in the Syrian target group had significantly higher prejudice, discrimination and perceived threat than children in the Dutch/Norwegian target group. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that prejudice and perceived realistic threat significantly predicted lower ToM performance for children who were in the Syrian group, while only perceived symbolic threat significantly predicted lower mental state understanding of children in the Dutch/Norwegian group. These findings have important implications to understand how similarity and intergroup processes (e.g., prejudice, threat perception) might have a role in children's mental state understanding.