Child Development, July August 2011, Volume 82, Number 4, Pages 11631172

Theory of Mind and Social Interest in Zero-Acquaintance Play Situations

Chris Moore
Dalhousie University

Sandra Leanne Bosacki

Brock University

Shannon Macgillivray
Dalhousie University

Many studies have examined associations between childrens theory of mind and social behavior with familiar peers, but to date none have examined how theory of mind might relate to behavior toward unfamiliar peers in a play setting. Forty-four 4-year-olds (21 girls, 23 boys) participated in standard theory-of-mind tasks and in a play session with 3 or 4 other children who were unfamiliar. Children were also tested on general vocabulary ability. No relations were found between theory of mind and social engagement. However, positive associations were found between theory of mind and time spent observing, but not interacting with, other children. Possible explanations of the links between theory of mind, temperament, and social interest are considered.

Since the inception of research on theory of mind (Astington, Harris, & Olson, 1988; Wimmer & Perner, 1983), there has been a general assumption that this kind of social understanding must have implications for social behavior (Moore & Frye, 1991). It has been assumed that the ability to attribute inner states to oneself and others, and to understand the role played by those inner states on peoples behavior, allows more sophisticated forms of social interactive behavior, including perhaps role playing, cooperation, and deception. Indeed the early ideas that autism might result from a specic decit in theory of mind (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985) and that theory of mind might have evolved through adaptations of Machiavellian intelligence (Byrne & Whiten, 1988) depended on

This study was supported by a grant from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to the rst author and a grant from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Development Fund at Dalhousie University awarded to the second author. We are grateful to the children and parents who participated in this study. We thank Cherie Collicott, Karen Lemmon, Shana Nichols, Angela Ellsworth, Renata Militzer, Aurora Colon, Chris Merrick, Jon Sebesta, and Katie Walker for their work on this study. Thanks also to Henry Wellman and three anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chris Moore, Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada; or Sandra Leanne Bosacki, Faculty of Education, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, L2S 3A1, Canada. Electronic mail may be sent to moorec@dal.ca or sandra.bosacki@brocku.ca.

this notion that theory of mind was functional in the regulation of social behavior. At a general level of consideration, it is clear that human social behavior must encompass two phases of engagement. First, it is necessary to initiate interactions with individuals as yet unknown, what one may term zero-acquaintance interaction. Second, once the initial engagement has been achieved, the issue becomes how to maintain and regulate interaction with familiar individuals. Social-cognition may well be implicated in both phases. However, despite the clear importance of the rst phase of engagement, research on the relations between theory of mind and social behavior has focused exclusively on the second phase, that involving familiar individuals. Theory and research on the connections between childrens theory of mind and social behavior with familiar peers and or siblings is now well developed. For example, Carpendale and Lewis (2004) reviewed the theoretical perspectives that address the connections between theory of mind and social behavior. They proposed a social constructivist approach in that children learn about others mental states through social interactions, particularly verbally mediated ones, and this may explain how children develop a theory of mind. Furthermore,
2011 The Authors Child Development 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2011/8204-0011 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01602.x

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social interaction and understanding of others minds are presumed to be reciprocally interconnected in that the ability to read others mental states enables children to understand multiple perspectives and thus to communicate with others. Two decades of research supports this reciprocal interconnection between mental state understanding and social competence. For example, since the classic work of Dunn and her colleagues, it has been shown that theory of mind in young children is fostered by a greater number of, and more complex social interactive experiences with, siblings and peers (e.g., Dunn, 1988; Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, & Youngblade, 1991; Youngblade & Dunn, 1995). Exposure to mental state language (e.g., Hughes & Dunn, 1998; Jenkins, Turrell, Kogushi, Lollis, & Ross, 2003) and social play (e.g., Youngblade & Dunn, 1995) appear to be particularly important forms of experience. Various studies have attempted directly to examine the social behavioral correlates of theory of mind (see Astington, 2003). For most of this work the focus has been on preschoolers (Astington, 2003), although a few studies have focused on older children (e.g., Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Perhaps, the most straightforward empirical approach involves developing measures of social behavior from naturalistic observations and examining their correlations with theory of mind. For example, Astington and Jenkins (1995) examined 3- to 5-year-old childrens theory of mind in relation to their behavior in naturalistic play settings with familiar peers. The understanding of false belief was assessed using standard change of location and misleading contents tasks, as well as an unexpected picture task, similar in structure to the misleading contents task. Naturalistic social behavior was assessed by videotaping the children playing in groups of three or four in their day-care settings. The results showed that even after controlling for the effects of age and language ability, false belief performance was signicantly associated with the proportion of joint proposals in play and the proportion of role assignments. These results were the rst to document the association of theory of mind to social behavior in a naturalistic setting. In a follow-up study, Jenkins and Astington (2000) examined similar measures longitudinally in a sample of 20 preschoolers. Children were rst assessed between 34 and 45 months of age and then twice more at approximately 3.5-month intervals. Findings showed that theory-of-mind scores at younger ages predicted the social play variables at

older ages whereas social behaviors at the younger ages did not predict theory-of-mind performance at older ages. These results suggest that being more advanced on theory of mind may help to facilitate role play in peer play situations. Given the difculty of collecting naturalistic observations of real-life social behavior, some researchers have relied on reports of childrens social competence from adults that are familiar with the children (e.g., parents, teachers, etc.). For example, in two studies, Watson, Nixon, Wilson, and Capage (1999) tested 3- to 6-year-old children on standard false belief tasks. They also assessed the childrens general language skills and collected teacher ratings of the childrens social skills, using standard rating scales. Results showed signicant relations between false belief performance and social skills rating, even after taking into account the effects of age and language ability. If social understanding in the form of theory of mind is related to more sophisticated social competence, then a further interesting issue is whether children respond appropriately to their peers based on the latters level of social understanding. This question can be answered by using assessments of peer popularity. For example, peer popularity may be assessed by presenting young children with individual photos of the children in their peer group (e.g., day care or school class) and asking them to rate their peers by sorting the photos into three pilesthose that they like a lot, those that they are more neutral toward, and those they do not like. Slaughter, Dennis, and Pritchard (2002) reported two studies using this technique with children from 4 to 6 years. In both studies they found that theory of mind was the best predictor of popularity with familiar peers in children older than about 5 years. Thus, childrens ability to understand mental states appears to be linked with the ability to interact effectively with their familiar peers, which in turn may lead to possible peer acceptance and peer likability, and the development of friendships (Dunn, 2005). Yet, all of the studies to date have examined social skills in the context of interaction with familiar peers. As noted earlier, an additional fundamental issue is the extent to which theory of mind relates to social behavior in the context of unfamiliar peers, or zero-acquaintance situations. Whereas theory of mind may be important for regulating social interaction with familiar others, it may also play a role in the way young children initiate interactions and social engagement with unfamiliar peers. However, to date, there is no relevant research and, to our

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knowledge, no clear theoretical basis for predicting how theory of mind may inuence the way children engage with unfamiliar peers. The present study was therefore designed as an initial exploratory attempt to examine this issue. To examine social behavior in zero-acquaintance situations, we arranged for small mixed-gender groups of children unknown to each other to attend group play sessions in the laboratory. All were also tested individually on standard theory-of-mind tasks and verbal intelligence. During the play sessions, children were observed in groups of four or ve to allow for a variety of possible interactions, including dyadic and group play, as well as solitary play. Children at 4 years of age were chosen as this age typically shows greatest variation in standard theory-of-mind tasks (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Because the focus of our inquiry was on social behavior with unfamiliar peers, we were especially interested in whether level of theory of mind would predict childrens social interest versus solitary play, and the extent to which children initiated and participated in social interaction. Consequently, we tested children for their understanding of mental states in others (false belief; Perner, Leekam, & Wimmer, 1987; Wimmer & Perner, 1983) and in self (representational change; Gopnik & Astington, 1988). Finally, it is important to recognize that any observed links between theoryof-mind performance and social behavior may reect individual differences in language ability. Theory of mind has been reliably shown to be related to language ability (see Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007), and therefore, verbal intelligence was also measured.

Method Participants Participants were recruited from a database of parents who had expressed interest in participating in research in a small city in Canada. The sample included 44 children (21 females, 23 males), tested within 1 month of their fourth birthday. All participating children spoke English as a rst language and were of European-Canadian heritage and middle socioeconomic status. Design and Procedure Children visited the laboratory twice within a 2-week period within 1 month of their fourth birthday. The rst visit was an individual session,

during which the children participated in the Theory-of-Mind assessment as well as some other tasks, not reported here. The second visit was a group session, during which groups of four or ve children were scheduled to attend a play session in the laboratory. Each play group contained at least one child of each sex. All sessions were videotaped for subsequent coding. In addition, all participants had been tested on a measure of verbal intelligence (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test [PPVTIII], which measures vocabulary; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) at 3.5 years during a separate individual visit to the laboratory. During the rst visit, children were rst tested on a small battery of standard theory-of-mind tasks. The theory-of-mind tasks included a displaced objects task, and two misleading objects tasks. These tasks were modeled on standard formats in the theory-of-mind literature (e.g., Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Perner et al., 1987). For example, in the displaced object task, there were two containers and two toy characters (Sesame Street characters, Barney and Elmo). A toy car was hidden in one container by one character, who then left the scene. The other character then moved the car from the original container to the other container and left the scene. Finally, the rst character returned and the child was asked the test question, Where will he look rst for his car? The misleading object tasks were presented in both other (false belief) and self (representational change) formats (see Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Perner et al., 1987). Children were given a score of 1 for each test question answered correctly. Three measures were generated: False Belief (FB; possible range = 03), Representational Change (RC; possible range = 02), and total Theory of Mind (combination of FB and RC; possible range = 05). During the group visit, children were gathered together in a play area of a large room, divided into two halves. The play area was equipped with age-appropriate toys, including gender-typed (e.g., dolls, play kitchen, construction set, cars, and trucks) and gender-neutral (e.g., art supplies) toys. These materials afforded both shared and solitary play. As children arrived with their parents, they were led into the play area. Parents were asked to help their child settle by inviting them to play with any of the available toys or activities and then leave. The parents and two researchers sat in the other area of the room and interacted over refreshments. The two areas were divided by tall bookcases, so that parents and children could not see each other. Children were free to enter the parents

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area if they needed comfort, but parents were instructed to encourage their children to return to the play area as soon as they felt comfortable. Once all scheduled children were present, the videotaping of the session began. Play sessions lasted for approximately 30 min after which a snack was brought in for the children. The 30 min session length was chosen to provide ample opportunity for the children to sample different toys and activities and to interact with different peers. Coding of Play Session Behavior Coding of the play sessions occurred in three phases and was carried out by a primary coder who was blind to theory-of-mind performance. First, although the play area was arranged to be within the view of the single video camera, it was possible for children to go out of view of the camera by settling in a part of the room that was off camera or by leaving the play area to visit their parents. Therefore, the amount of time each child was visible on camera was determined. To be counted as on camera, the child and his or her activity had to be visible (time on camera ranged from 739 to 1,941 s, M = 1420 s). No child was excluded from subsequent coding because of limited time on camera. Second, for each child, the time on screen was coded by a single coder blind to theory-of-mind scores according to the following exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories (derived for the current study based on previous research; e.g., Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Social engagement. The child engages with one or more other children, as indicated by vocalizing, physical contact, emotional expression, or adoption of the same activity. As a side note, the number of different children each child engaged with was counted. A proportional score based on the number of possible play partners (number in the group minus one) was calculated for each child. Onlooker behavior. The child merely observes one or more other children in play. Child is not engaged in any play activity of his or her own and does not participate in the ongoing activity with other children. Onlooker may also refuse others efforts to include them in the ongoing play. Solitary activity. The child plays alone with a toy or activity. Solitary play was coded if the child was in close proximity with another child so long as there was no acknowledgment of the other child and the childrens activities were different. Other. Period when the child was transitional between activities (e.g., moving from one play sta-

tion to another before settling) or engaged with an adult (e.g., parent or researcher who entered the play area). Both duration in each category and the number of distinct episodes in each category were scored. Behavior in the three main categories could occur in quick succession or as extended episodes, and everything in between. For example, a child might be engaged in solitary activity, then look up and watch another child or childrens play for a few seconds, and then return to her solitary activity. Such a sequence would be coded as solitary activity, then onlooker behavior, and then solitary activity again. Alternatively, the focal child might be engaged in a long period of group play with different children and with the membership of the group changing over time. In this case, the whole period of group play would be coded as social engagement for that child. Once total times were calculated for each category, proportion totals were computed by dividing the amount of time spent engaged in each type of activity by the total amount of time on camera. Two such proportional duration measures were taken to reect social interest: those for social engagement and those for onlooker behavior. Also, an additional measure of onlooker behavior as a proportion of overall social interest was calculated by dividing onlooker duration by the sum of social engagement and onlooker behavior. Thus, there were three core measures of social interestSocial Engagement duration, Onlooker Behavior, and proportion of social interest that was onlooker behavior (Onlooker Proportion). We also included the proportional amount of time spent in Solitary Activity. Overall time spent in social engagement does not reect how that engagement came about. It is possible that children vary in their tendency to initiate social engagement and this tendency may also be associated with theory of mind. Furthermore, theory of mind might be related to childrens likelihood of responding to social initiations from other children. Therefore, a third phase of coding involved determining for each child for each social play episode, how the episode was initiated. In particular, the following four types of initiation were coded and counted. Initiator accepted. The child was the initiator of a social bid, including vocal, physical, or activitybased initiation. That bid was positively received and led to an episode of social engagement. Initiator refused. The child was the initiator of a social bid. That bid was not positively received and no extended bout of social engagement resulted.

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Recipient accepted. The child was the recipient of a social bid by another child and accepted that bid. Recipient refused. The child was the recipient of a social bid by another child and refused that bid. The two initiator measures were combined into a proportional measure of accepted initiations (initiator accepted initiator accepted + initiator refused), and similarly the two recipient measures were combined into a proportional measure of accepted initiations (recipient accepted recipient accepted + recipient refused). Reliability Coding A second coder, also blind to theory-of-mind score, coded one third of the participants (N = 15) for reliability. The duration measures for the two coders were correlated and showed excellent reliability (intraclass correlation coefcients): Social Engagement = .97, Onlooker Behavior = .99, Solitary Activity = .96, Other = .85. The coding of initiation of social episodes yielded a reliability between the two coders of kappa = .70.

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for the Theory of Mind, Social Behavior, and Control Variables (N = 44) Standard deviation

Variable Theory of mind False Belief Representational Change Total Theory of Mind Social behavior Social Engagement Onlooker Behavior Solitary Activity Onlooker Proportion of social interest Number of play partners (proportion of group) Initiation of social engagement Initiator accepted Initiator refused Initiator proportion of accepted initiations Recipient accepted Recipient refused Recipient proportion of accepted initiations Control measure PPVTIII (raw score)

Mean

Range

1.95 0.80 2.75 0.50 0.05 0.40 0.12 0.78

1.01 0.85 1.54 0.30 0.10 0.29 0.23 0.25

03 02 05 0.010.96 0.000.57 0.000.94 0.000.93 0.251.00

3.68 1.66 0.70 2.77 0.68 0.85

3.20 2.44 0.33 1.76 1.22 0.24

013 011 01 08 05 01

Results Descriptive statistics for the main duration measures are shown in Table 1. All measures showed excellent variability making them suitable for correlational analyses. Distributions were examined for outliers and one case was found. For the Onlooker Behavior measure, one child scored more than 5 SD (.57) above the mean, so this case was excluded for analyses involving this measure. All other cases were within 2 SD of the variable means. A series of correlational analyses was performed. The rst examined relations among the theory-of-mind measures and the proportional durations and number of episodes spent in each category of play session behavior, the second examined relations among the theory-of-mind measures and the social initiation and response measures, and the third examined relations among the theory-of-mind measures and proportional number of play partners. To examine the associations between theory of mind and play session behavior, zero-order and partial correlations (controlling for gender and PPVTIII raw score) among the theory-of-mind measures (FB, RC, and Theory of Mind total) and the time spent in the core measures of social interest (Social Engagement, Onlooker Behavior, and Onlooker Proportion) as well as in solitary activity (Solitary Activity) were calculated (see Table 2).

51.55

15.90

1690

Note. PPVTIII = Peabody Picture Vocabulary TestIII.

Although, as in much earlier research (e.g., Gopnik & Astington, 1988), they were moderately correlated, r(42) = .367, p = .014, FB and RC scores were examined separately as well as together because they were assumed to reect the theoretical distinction between representing others mental states versus own mental states. The results showed that successful performance on Theory of Mind as a whole was signicantly correlated with the tendency to engage in onlooking: partial correlations controlling for gender and verbal intelligence, r(39) = .38, p = .015 for Onlooker Behavior and r(39) = .32, p = .042 for Onlooker Proportion. These associations appeared to be more the result of links with FB understanding, for which the correlations were signicant, than RC understanding for which the correlations were positive but not signicant. The correlations among Social Engagement and Theory of Mind, both as an aggregate variable and in terms of FB and RC separately were weak and not signicant (see Table 2). Interestingly, performance on the RC tasks but not on the FB tasks or Theory of Mind in general showed some relation with behavior during the

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Table 2 Zero-Order and Partial (Controlling for Gender and PPVTIII) Correlations Among Social Behavior Measures and Theory of Mind Scores False Belief Social Engagement Zero order (df = 42) Partial (df = 40) Onlooker Behavior Zero order (df = 41) Partial (df = 39) Onlooker Proportion Zero order (df = 41) Partial (df = 39) Solitary Activity Zero order (df = 42) Partial (df = 40) Play partners Zero order (df = 42) Partial (df = 40) Control measure PPVTIII (raw score) Representational Change Theory of Mind total PPVTIII

).12 ).12 .39* .32* .38* .32* ).05 ).01 .08 .01 .36*

.23 .25 .31 .28 .23 .19 ).37* ).37* .16 .12 .21

.04 .07 .42* .37* .37* .32* ).24 ).23 .14 .08 .36*

.03

.03

.04

).10

.18

Note. PPVTIII = Peabody Picture Vocabulary TestIII. *p < .05 (two-tailed).

play sessions. Children who scored well on the RC tasks tended to spend less time in solitary activity, partial correlation controlling for gender and verbal intelligence, r(40) = ).37, p = .017, and, although it was not statistically signicant, more time in social engagement (see Table 2). It should be noted that two of the tasks that were constituents of the FB measure were similar in format to the RC tasks, whereas one (displaced object) was quite different. To check whether the different pattern of correlations with play session measures for FB and RC tasks was in part due to task format, we also generated a FB measure that included the misleading object tasks and excluded the displaced object task and again examined the correlations with the play measures. These results showed the same pattern as for the FB measure. Partial correlations with Onlooker Behavior and Onlooker Proportion controlling for gender and PPVTIII, were signicantly positive or close to, r(39) = .31, p = .046, and r(39) = .29, p = .07, respectively, but those with Social Engagement, r(40) = ).01, and Solitary Activity, r(40) = ).12, were not. Correlations between the theory-of-mind measures and number of episodes of each category of play session behavior were also calculated. These results showed a similar pattern as for the duration measures, with signicant correlations only between Onlooker Behavior and FB, r(44) = .37, p = .014, and Theory of Mind total, r(44) = .34, p = .026.

To test whether onlooking tended to lead to social engagement, episodes of onlooker behavior that led to episodes of social engagement were compared to episodes of onlooker behavior that led to episodes of solitary play. Across all children, there was a mean of .32 (SD = 0.64) transitions from onlooking to social engagement, compared to a mean of 1.95 (SD = 3.23) transitions from onlooking to solitary play. A proportional measure of these transitions, calculated by dividing the onlookersocial engagement transitions by the sum of both types of transition and using only participants who showed at least one episode of onlooker behavior, was positively but not signicantly correlated with any of the theory-of-mind measurespartial correlations controlling for gender and language ability: with FB, r(21) = .18, p = .401, with RC, r(23) = .15, p = .487, and with Theory of Mind total, r(23) = .21, p = .326. Next, correlations among the theory-of-mind measures and the social initiation and response measures were calculated again controlling for verbal intelligence. These correlations are also shown in Table 3. None of the analyses showed signicant associations. Thus, more advanced theory of mind was not linked to more social bids, either initiated or received, whether successful or not. As a nal exploration into play session behavior, correlations were also calculated between theory of mind and the proportion of potential play partners with whom children interacted. There were no sig-

Theory of Mind and Social Interest

Table 3 Zero-Order and Partial (Controlling for Gender and PPVTIII) Correlations Among Measures of Initiation and Receipt of Social Bids and Theory of Mind Scores False Belief Initiator accepted Zero order (df = 42) ).26 Partial (df = 40) ).20 Initiator refused Zero order (df = 42) ).21 Partial (df = 40) ).20 Proportion of accepted initiations Zero order (df=42) ).05 Partial (df = 40) ).08 Recipient accepted Zero order (df = 42) .02 Partial (df = 40) ).02 Recipient refused Zero order (df = 42) ).05 Partial (df = 40) .03 Proportion of accepted initiations Zero order (df = 42) .04 Partial (df = 40) ).06 Representational Change Theory of Mind total

1169

.04 .11 .12 .16 ).02 ).03 .03 .01 .05 .10 ).19 ).27

).15 ).06 ).07 ).03 ).05 ).07 .03 ).00 ).01 .08 ).08 ).20

Note. PPVTIII = Peabody Picture Vocabulary TestIII.

nicant correlations between theory-of-mind measures and the proportional number of possible play partners with whom the children actually interacted (see Table 2).

Discussion The main purpose of this study was to explore the relations between childrens theory of mind and their behavior with unfamiliar peers in a zeroacquaintance play session at an age where the social-cognitive abilities are in transition (Wellman et al., 2001). For peer behavior, we examined social interest, as manifested both through actual social interaction with peers and through onlooker behavior, or how much time children spent observing but not engaging directly with others. We also measured the tendency to play alone, or solitary activity, in the children. Three main ndings emerged from the results. First, despite nding high variability in performance on the theory-ofmind tasks, no associations were found between theory of mind and proportion of time spent in, and number of episodes of, actual social engagement, number of interactive partners, or the number of social bids made or received. Second, there

were positive associations between theory of mind and proportion of time spent in, and number of episodes of, onlooker behavior. Third, there was a negative correlation between performance on Representational Change tasks in particular and time spent in solitary activity. These ndings will be discussed in turn. Regarding the lack of association between theory of mind and social engagement, this study complements earlier studies of the link between theory of mind and social behavior (e.g., Astington & Jenkins, 1995; Jenkins & Astington, 2000; Slaughter et al., 2002; Watson et al., 1999), which have generally found that more advanced theory of mind predicts more sophisticated social skills. These earlier studies have shown such an association using a variety of methods and grades of coding of social behavior; however, in all of them the children have been familiar to each other. The important difference between this study and others is that in the present study, the children did not know each other. Therefore, it appears that the previously reported associations between theory of mind and social skills may emerge only as children become more familiar with each other and develop friendships. In contrast, when children are unfamiliar to each other, the initiation and maintenance of actual social engagement appear to depend little on social-cognitive factors. Although this is a null result, it nevertheless adds to our understanding of the role of theory of mind in the organization of social behavior. It suggests that theory of mind does not predict the initial negotiation of social relations in situations with unfamiliar peers. It is possible that the initial social engagement between unfamiliar peers may depend more on temperamental or trait characteristics, such as surgency. We recommend that future studies on zero-acquaintance peer interaction should include measures of temperament (e.g., the Child Behavior Questionnaire; Putnam & Rothbart, 2006; Rothbart, Ahadi, Hersey, & Fisher, 2001). Despite this null result between theory of mind and social engagement, the present study demonstrated a positive association between theory of mind and a different measure of social interest onlooker behavior. Although onlooker behavior was considerably less frequent than social engagement or solitary activity, it exhibited good variability with some children demonstrating no onlooking while others showed substantial amounts. Children who had more advanced theory of mind tended to spend more episodes and proportionally more of the play session observing but not interacting with

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the other children. This association was of the same order of magnitude as the associations found in previous studies of social-cognition and social behavior and was maintained even when gender and verbal intelligence were controlled for. The exact nature of the link between social understanding and onlooking is unclear from this correlational study conducted only at one time point. One possibility, of course, is that both theory of mind and onlooking may depend on a common underlying ability. Here, we have shown that verbal ability, reliably shown to be associated with theory of mind in this and many other studies (see Astington & Baird, 2005), does not appear to account for the correlation. If we assume that social interest and theory of mind are in some way causally related, then there are two further possibilities: Theory of mind may lead to social interest, or social interest may enhance theory of mind. Unfortunately, the design of the present study does not allow us to disentangle these different causal accounts, nor is there much evidence in the literature to offer guidance on interpretation. Nevertheless, we will consider both possibilities here. First, children who develop theory of mind earlier, when placed in a novel situation with unfamiliar peers, may prefer to spend more time observing these peers in their initial encounters, perhaps in preparation for more adapted social engagement. From the current study, we do know that onlooker behavior did not appear to increase the likelihood of social engagement within the single session we observed. However, the timescale of possible effects of onlooking on subsequent social engagement may not have been captured by a single play session. It would be of particular interest to observe the same groups of initially unacquainted children as they get to know each other and begin to develop relationships across multiple play sessions to examine whether children who have more advanced theory of mind and show more onlooker behavior go on to demonstrate either more or less sophisticated social interaction in subsequent sessions. The second possible causal connection between theory of mind and social interest is that children who are socially interested yet initially more reserved spend more time watching and learning about others and that this advances their social understanding. If we assume that onlooker behavior is indicative of a temperamental tendency to be more shy or socially withdrawn, then a recent study by Wellman, Lane, LaBounty, and Olson (2011) is consistent with this account. Wellman

et al. were guided by the hypothesis that just as domestication of less aggressive, more docile canids, including dogs and foxes, has led to greater social sensitivity in these canid species (see Hare & Tomasello, 2005), so ontogenetically, a less aggressive and more reserved disposition may lead children to acquire social understanding faster. They tested children at both 3.5 and 5.5 years of age on standard theory-of-mind tasks and also assessed their temperament using both the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1992) and the Child Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart et al., 2001) and reported that indeed theory-of-mind performance was superior in children with less aggressive and more shy or withdrawn temperaments. Of most importance for disentangling direction of causality, they found that temperament at 3.5 years signicantly predicted theory of mind at 5.5 years but that theory of mind at 3.5 years did not predict temperament at 5.5 years. We do not know with certainty whether children with shy or reserved temperaments would tend to spend more time in onlooker behavior in our zero-acquaintance situations, but our results and those of Wellman et al. provide a further warrant for the examination of temperament in relation to social-cognition and to social behavior in such situations. Although it was not explicitly predicted, and therefore must be treated with caution, this study produced a signicant negative correlation between the proportion of time spent in solitary activity and performance on the Representational Change component of the theory-of-mind tasks. Children who scored well on the Representational Change tasks tended to spend proportionally less time in solitary activity. It is also important to note that although the correlations were not signicant, performance on Representational Change tasks was positively associated with social engagement, so here there is some indication that a preference for social rather than solitary activity in the play session was associated with more advanced understanding of Representational Change. Why it was only performance on the Representational Change tasks that was correlated with low levels of solitary activity is unclear. These tasks examine childrens awareness of their own mental states rather than those of other people. It is well known that performance on False Belief tasks and on Representational Change tasks are typically correlated (e.g., Gopnik & Astington, 1988) but not at levels suggesting that these tasks measure exactly the same thing. Therefore, in the absence of further investigation the best one may conclude is that it does not appear to be the case

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that being more focused on solitary activity yields a superior awareness of ones own mental states. We believe that our results, while somewhat preliminary, provide an important basis on which to move forward in the study of theory of mind in relation to peer interaction in zero-acquaintance contexts. It will be important for future work to incorporate a developmental dimension. Our results apply to the relatively narrow period of transition in performance on classical theoryof-mind tasksthose indicative of the change to a so-called representational theory of mind (e.g., Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Perner, 1991). But theory of mind obviously shows a more protracted development during and after the preschool period. Therefore, it is possible that a different or more comprehensive assessment of theory of mind would have revealed different patterns of associations with social interest at different developmental points. Certainly, our ndings that the different aspects of theory of mind showed distinctive patterns of association with the different types of activity in the play sessions suggests that that a more rened approach to theory-of-mind measurement might allow a more nuanced picture of how social understanding is reected in social behavior with unfamiliar peers. As a next step, we would recommend that any future studies use a broader measure of theory of mind, such as the Theory of Mind Scale of Wellman and Liu (2004), which contains a battery of different theory-of-mind tasks, suitable for a broader age range. In this way, it may be possible to map out more clearly how different aspects of theory of mind relate to different aspects of social behavior at different ages. Finally, the pattern of association between theory of mind and different aspects of behavior in zeroacquaintance play settings highlights the importance of examining both mentalizing abilities and perhaps personality factors as contributors to the development of social behavior in the preschool years. Thus, future research could explore how theory of mind and social personality factors interact in the establishment of childrens peer relationships. For example, it is known that children who are perceived to be either shy and reserved or quiet may be less likely to enter social situations (e.g., Coplan & Armer, 2005). What role might theory of mind play under these conditions? If indeed, as the present study might suggest, such children tend to be more advanced in their social understanding, then we need to nd out whether this advanced theory of mind is a contributor to their reserved behavior, or whether it can be used in remediation

to encourage more effective social interaction in children whose shyness is distressing.

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