YOUNG CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE GENERALITY OF THEIR KINDERGARTEN SCRIPT: EFFECTS OF THEORY OF MIND

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of age and cognitive ability on preschoolers’ understanding of the generality of their kindergarten script. Four- and 5-year-old kindergarteners (N = 106) were asked to produce their own kindergarten script and a fictional person’s kindergarten script at regular intervals. In Experiment 1, it was found that only the 5-year-olds reported fewer acts in the fictional person’s script condition than in their own script condition, and a measure of theory of mind (ToM) and vocabulary test were associated with the difference between the two conditions. In Experiment 2, we replicated the results of Experiment 1 by comparing a friend in their kindergarten condition with the fictional person’s kindergarten condition. The findings suggest that 5-year-old children are capable of understanding the generality of their script among individuals, and their ToM is closely associated with the understanding of that generality.