The Development of Mentalisation in Children From a Theory of Mind Perspective

For psychoanalysts, a key developmental question is how children's mentalisation capacities develop, that is, how they come to understand the feelings and intentions of others, as well as themselves, and how that understanding is integrated over the course of development into their feelings for and expectations of others. Broadly stated, this question has been the subject of productive lines of inquiry among cognitive and development psychologists. During the past 15 years, investigators from these disciplines focusing on the development of theory of mind have provided us with startling evidence of the abilities of very young children to understand their own behavior, as well as that of others, based on beliefs and desires. Furthermore, they have also presented fascinating observations and experiments suggesting that from early infancy we attribute intentionality to people. The term theory of mind has come to designate a specific domain of inquiry and research for philosophers, cognitive developmentalists, and primatologists, with the broad goal of understanding the ability, which may or not be exclusively human, to predict and explain the actions of self and others based on their knowledge, beliefs, and desires. Our aim in this review is to provide a summary of this body of work.