Relations between the development of false belief and scientific reasoning in Turkish preschoolers

Abstract

Previous studies have shown relations between the emergence of theory of mind capacities and children's scientific reasoning in Western samples. Previous studies have also shown that Turkish preschoolers have a different trajectory for theory of mind development than their Western counterparts. This study extends these previous findings to examine relations between the emergence of false belief understanding and different facets of scientific reasoning in Turkish preschoolers (aged 3 to 5), particularly focused on the difference between understanding others' false belief and one's own representational change. Study 1 revealed a positive relation between preschoolers' capacity to infer another's false belief and their experimentation skills when unconfounded interventions were presented to them. This finding did not extend to children's ability to report their own representational change. Study 2, however, showed that this relation with false belief did not extend to a case in which children had to design their own interventions to implement the control of variables strategy. The results suggest links between children's understanding of false belief and their nascent scientific reasoning among Turkish preschoolers.