The mechanism of deception and understanding of mind : Is young children's deception based on the inference of other's mind?

Research Project

Project/Area Number	10610112
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	教育・社会系心理学
Research Institution	Osaka Kyoiku University
Principal Investigator	KIKUNO Haruo Osaka-Kyoiku University, Department of Education, Associate professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (00149551)
Project Period (FY)	1998 – 1999
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1999)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000) Fiscal Year 1999: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
Keywords	deception / theory of mind / understanding of mind / young children / observation / behavior / kindergarten / development / 騙す / 他者 / 気持ち / 推測 / 表象 / 認識 / 柔軟性 / 理解
Research Abstract	The aim of this study was to clarify the mechanism of young children's deception ; it was to clarify how young children deceive the other's mind based on the hypothesis of the theory of mind. Especially, this study examined whether young children can deceive if they can acknowledge the other's mind, and whether young children can deceive after they infer the other's mind. In this study it was examined whether young children behave understanding mind including deception whether the deception is related to the understanding of the mind by observing young children. So the behavior of three, four, and five years old children in kindergarten was observed. The result suggested that the deception would be related to the ability of understanding of other's mind. The second purpose of this study was when young children can deceive. This problem was examined by analyzing the behavior of three, four and five year old children. The result showed that children more than four years old can understand the deception. These results suggest that the acknowledgement of deception would be related to the understanding of the mind. However, these results also suggest that the acknowledgement would not always be same with the understanding of the mind. Rather, it suggested that the deception would be independent to the understanding of the mind. The cause of this result was discussed.