The Development of False Beliefs and Concepts of Pretense in Young Children

유아의 가장 개념과 틀린 믿음 이해의 발달 및 그 상호관계 연구

The subjects of this study of the development of concepts of pretense and of false beliefs were 168 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds. There were 2 significant main effects for age and type of task both for pretend and false belief tasks. The older children performed pretend tasks and false belief tasks at a higher level than the younger children. Performance on pretend tasks was higher with alternatives than without them. On false belief tasks, there were differences in performance among the change of location, the change of content and the second order false belief tasks. Correlations between understanding of pretense and false beliefs were relatively high. These results suggest that the relationship between children's understanding of pretense and false belief varied by types of tasks.