Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm

David Buttelmann*, Malinda Carpenter, Michael Tomasello

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Recently, several studies have claimed that soon after their first birthday infants understand others' false beliefs. However, some have questioned these findings based on criticisms of the looking-time paradigms used. Here we report a new paradigm to test false belief understanding in infants using a more active behavioral response: helping. Specifically, the task was for infants to help an adult achieve his goal - but to determine that goal infants had to take into account what the adult believed (i.e., whether or not he falsely believed there was a toy inside a box). Results showed that by 18 months of age infants successfully took into account the adult's belief in the process of attempting to determine his goal. Results for 16-month-olds were in the same direction but less clear. These results represent by far the youngest age of false belief understanding in a task with an active behavioral measure. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)337-342
Number of pages6
JournalCognition
Volume112
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2009

Keywords

  • False belief
  • Helping
  • Theory of mind
  • Infancy
  • MIND
  • ATTRIBUTION
  • COGNITION

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this