Understanding of mind and social skills in adolescents

The present study was to investigate the developmental change of adolescent's theory of mind. In addition, the relations between theory of mind and the social competence were investigated. Sixty students in each the 6th and 8th grade group were participated in this study. Adolescents' understanding of mind were measured by four kinds of mindreading tasks; the second-order false belief tasks, understanding the ambiguous social behaviors tasks, understading the hidden meaning of a figurative statement tasks, and the “faux pas” tasks. Social skills were measured by social skill scales. Eighth graders performed better than the 6th graders on the understanding the ambiguous social behaviors tasks and faux pas tasks but not on the second-order false belief tasks and understanding the hidden meaning of figurative statement tasks. The results suggests that the mindreading ability continues to develop during the adolescence, especially the ability to interpret others' ambiguous social behaviors by reading their mental states and the ability to understand that a person says a faux pas it is due to a mistaken belief. In addition, the understanding the ambiguous social behaviors tasks was found to be the best task to predict social behaviors. The results suggests that the mindreading ability would be a significant explanatory factor on social competence.

keywords: adolescence, second-order false belief, ambiguous behavior, hidden meaning, faux pas, social behavior, adolescence, second-order false belief, ambiguous behavior, hidden meaning, faux pas, social behavior, 청소년기, 2차순위 틀린 믿음, 애매한 행동, 숨은 말 뜻, 헛디딤, 사회적 행동

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Article Contents

Vol.14 No.1

Understanding of mind and social skills in adolescents

Abstract

Reference

Korean Psychological Journal of Culture and Social Issues