Helping as an early indicator of a theory of mind: mentalism or teleology?: Dataset 1

Abstract

Dataset 1 is a straight replication of the original true and false belief conditions in Buttelmann, Carpenter and Tomasello (2009). Materials were produced according to the description in Buttelmann et al. (2009) and we videotaped our procedure and received written feedback from the first author (David Buttelmann). Overall, 45 children between 18 and 32 months (Mage=24.47, SD=4.08, 20 girls) participated in the study. The age range was chosen to cover the range between BCT’s youngest in their sample of 18 month olds in Study 2 and their oldest in Study 1. Data were collected in the Theory of mind Child Lab of the University of Salzburg (n=20), the Parent-Toddler Group of the University of Stirling, (n=17) and in the Little Stars Nursery (n=8). Seventeen children had to be excluded because of parental/teacher error (3), fussiness (10), unclear responses (2), or because they did not respond to any helping request by opening or at least touching one of the boxes (2). The main finding in our study shows that children were more likely to help find a toy in the false belief than in the true belief condition. The data do not clearly speak against the null-hypothesis.