Question

Jimmy is a 3.5-year-old boy from Brisbane, Queensland. Both of his parents are Australians of European descent and he is raised in a monolingual, English-speaking environment with three older siblings. Jimmy lives in an upper-middle class suburb where most of the community members are also Australians of European descent who only speak English. Jimmy attends a local preschool on weekdays.

Jiro is a 3.5-year-old boy from Tokyo, Japan. Both of his parents are Japanese and he is raised in a monolingual, Japanese-speaking household as an only child. Most of the local community also speaks in Japanese, but Jiro attends an international preschool where the teachers and children are from diverse backgrounds and communicate exclusively in English.

Pretend that you are going to administer the Sally-Anne false belief test to these two children. After presenting children with the Sally-Anne scenario, you ask them two questions: 1) Where is the marble actually? (True Belief); 2) Where will Sally look for the marble? (False Belief).

Using your knowledge from the lectures in this course, please answer the following questions:

True Belief

What abilities do you need to answer the True Belief question correctly? Explain how exactly these abilities play a role in answering the True Belief question correctly.

Do you think Jimmy will be able to answer the True Belief question correctly? Why or why not?

Do you think Jiro will be able to answer the True Belief question correctly? Why or why not?

False Belief

What abilities do you need to answer the False Belief question correctly? Explain how exactly these abilities play a role in answering the False Belief question correctly.

Do you think Jimmy will be able to answer the False Belief question correctly? Why or why not?

Do you think Jiro will be able to answer the False Belief question correctly? Why or why not?

Answer 1

The abilities that is required to answer True Belief question correctly is good attention and observational skills.

Both Jimmy and Jiro will be able the True Belief as children of this age have good attention and observational skills.

The abilities required to answer False Belief question children the ability to understand from the perspective of others, they require empathy, and an ability to understand others point of view, intentions desires etc. The set of these abilities is called "Theory of Mind".

There are less chances that both Jimmy and Jiro would answer the false question accurately. This is because of their age. Children at this age are more egocentric and fails to take others perspective or "Theory of Mind".