English- and Cantonese-speaking children's understanding of emotions and false belief.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 63
ISBN-13: 9780494163528
Description: Monolingual English-speaking (n = 25,  M age = 5 years 6 months) and bilingual Cantonese-speaking ( n = 25, M age = 5 years 5 months) children's understanding of emotions and false belief were examined. Children were administered theory-of-mind (ToM) tasks from the Wellman & Liu (2004) Theory-of-Mind scale. These tasks examined children's understanding of false belief, belief-based emotions and real-apparent emotions. Bilingual Cantonese-speaking children completed ToM tasks in both English and Cantonese. English-speaking children completed the same number of tasks but in English only. Children's receptive language abilities were also assessed by completing the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (3rd Edition) (PPVT-III). Cantonese-speaking children completed the PPVT-III in English and a translated version in Cantonese. English-speaking children completed the PPVT-III both times in English. Although no significant cultural differences were seen in children's performance across false-belief and belief-emotion tasks, English-speaking children did significantly better then their Cantonese-speaking counterparts on the real-apparent emotion task. This suggests that compared to Cantonese-speaking children, English-speaking children have a more advanced understanding of how facial expressions may not reveal true emotions. Cultural similarities and differences are discussed in relation to specific cultural pathways responsible for ToM development.
Notes: Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, page: 3006.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

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