The Idea of Theory of Mind in Fairy Tales The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland - Book Report/Review Example

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW A Literature Review of ‘Theory of Mind’ in Children’s Stories You’re Name University Abstract The ‘Theory of Mind’ has been associated for quite some time now with the attempts by psychologists to try and acquire an improved comprehension and interpretation into how children view literature designed specifically for them. Often, parents understand the underlying concept of a theme in a child’s story far quicker than a child him or herself does. This research focuses on how the idea of ‘Theory of Mind’ plays a part in children’s interpretations of literary stories such as fairy tales like ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and many others. The main point of this research is to show that children develop a sense of others through the stories that they read, becoming highly engaged in many of the literary stories which are expressed by their own recounting of what they have read and mimicking some of the behaviors of the characters. The utilization of ‘Theory of Mind’ allows psychologists and others to see how well children progress and adapt in their life from their interpretation of children’s stories. The research focuses on the sensory experience, the desires, the beliefs, and the knowledge that children gain from the stories of which they might bring into their real life situations. A Literature Review of ‘Theory of Mind’ in Children’s Stories Research Rationale The primary point of this research is to give credence to how ‘Theory of Mind’ depicts children’s understanding within the stories that they read. Although it is quite common to see a child mimic an action from literature, there is a pondering question to whether or not they are able to decipher between what is a metaphor, what is sarcasm, and what morality lies in some of the literature that they read. Introduction The ‘Theory of Mind’ has been found to be highly useful in bringing some illumination into how children develop some of the representational ideas that they have through reading children’s literature. Through observing children read and then following the period after they have read a form of literature, parents often find that they have learned new ideas about emotions, motivation, desires, and other representational identities through their engagement in reading. For instance, when a child is reading a story and comes across a sentence such as “the fox is chasing the chicken”, they automatically begin to try and distinguish why the fox might be chasing the chicken in their own mind, before they get to the part of the story that tells them why (Donaldson 1978). This could be defined as a developing theory of mind, which a child might be aware of and which they might not be. The Understanding of Theory of Mind and its Concept: Literature Review A literary study by Winner (1998) takes the concept of children’s literature and how children interpretate what they are reading to another level with her idea of how well they can understand the concepts of irony and the utilization of metaphors in children’s literature. It is believed that children around 6 years of age can understand metaphors but they do not comprehend some of the philosophical concepts nor do they interpret the concept of irony correctly in literature, at least not at such a young age. Winner’s study (1998) categorizes a large percentage of children’s literature as being defined as appropriate to certain ages and grade levels; therefore what a 12 year old can read and comprehend is not going to be in the same category for a child that is 8 years old. It is these ratings that bring interest and questions into the concepts of issues concerning intellectual, social, and moral development among children because literature has been realized to have a large pull in a child's cognitive development. The theorization of theory of mind defines that children develop their own thoughts and ideas about what type of behaviors are acceptable and also in how they should verbally communicate by the interpretation they have gained from the literature that they are associated with. Of course Winner (1998) claims that television and movies can have much the same affect on a child’s cognitive development but literature has a more in-depth effect on their behaviors and their literacy. In areas where issues of race, violence, and other concepts of morality appear, Winner (1998) brings in the thought of whether or not children can truly define the areas where concepts such as these are right or wrong. Such as in the story of Huckleberry Fin, there is a pronounced amount of belittling usage of racial language found in the literature. For children who read a story such as this and are not in the appropriate age level, they might socially interact with others in ways that are not morally correct but yet they have an interpretation that their word usage and behavior is ok because they read or visualized it being stated from a character in a book they read. This shows that children might not decipher the same meaning from a story such as this as an adult in today’s time would. In fact Winner (1998) points out that children might actually venture into utilizing words such as the “N word” to describe those with a darker skin tone from them without realizing the inappropriateness of some statements or actions because they read them in a story and assumed they were not offensive. Of course if the correct age level child read the same story they would be cognitively aware that vocalizing racial words such as from the story of Huckleberry Fin could be adverse towards other races and would therefore no better than to do so. This defines the different levels of comprehension among children, and using the theory of mind finds that while some children can theorize what they read more accurately and come to the conclusion of what is right and wrong, other children might not have the same type of mental capacity in distinguishing the differences. In actuality it is the theory in their own mind which is developing the thoughts and concepts about how others have feelings, desires, and tasks the same as themselves, and it is this same type of theorization that helps them facilitate their own selves in their environment. Within Whiten’s literature (1991) she gives good examples of how intellectual children really are and at what age they start acquiring their own knowledge of understanding on what they read and what the text is truly saying to them. Whiten follows a seemingly old traditional sense of the development of theory of mind as she looks towards cognitive psychologists like Piaget and others who first studied about the development of theory of mind and how children gradually develop TOM (1991). Initially when children read they gradually begin making mental representations concerning the characters and their actions, and soon learn how to manipulate objects in their environment around them by gaining the idea through reading. It is the same with social interaction according to Whiten (1991). Children observe, or rather in this case read and learn to develop their own ideas. Literature even teaches them things that many parents think they should not know about, such as racial inequality (example Huckleberry Fin), witchcraft (like Harry Potter), hardships in life (such as the Lemony Snickett series), and other more in depth real life occurrences that actually help them theorize and rationalize on their own and come to their own understanding about what is morally acceptable and what is unjust and not ethical. Of course, as Whiten (1991) defines, children of varying ages and skill levels go through this in their own step by step process, some coming to understand certain philosophies of life quicker than other children do but the majority of children all develop the capability of TOM (Theory of mind). One main fact of life that they seem to quickly catch on to; at what appears to be a young age is the act of deception. Peskin (1996) makes the claim that even four year olds are able to somehow know when a person is being deceptive and when they are being honest as their actions change in the process. Through observation many young children learn about deception through play, such as hide and seek or peek a boo. However these are all in fun; the deceptive act means no harm here but young children soon learn that lies are bad and should not be told. For example, in make believe play there exists natural deception as a young child is playing dress up and trying to deceive another into thinking they are someone they are not (Peskin 1996). Of course this is the theory in the child’s mind and again it is all pretend but through interactions such as this and through reading literature that is filled with characters tricking others, etc; children soon become all to aware of how they can manipulate people and lie to get their way; with trickery and other methods, all from the theories that they themselves develop from what they do in everyday life. It’s hard to believe that a simple book can urge a child to tell a lie but in children’s stories such as “Lemony Snickett,” they do just this. It is of course the child’s own theory of mind that will depict whether they will mimic incorrect behaviors or if they will accept the notion that some things are wrong and should not be carried out period. Peskin (1996) is quick to point out that there is a great difference between what is falsified in stories and pretend play and what takes place from it in a child’s mind known as ‘pretense’ which ultimately is the idea that is caused to be formed from the reading of something deceptive or from acts such as dressing up to pretend, etc (Peskin 1996). Research has definitely found that children can remember reading deceptive contexts or interacting in activities that might represent a deception to someone else but those children in the age group of 4 (y.o.a.-years of age) don’t seem to have the cognitive ability to remember the pretense (the false belief) that occurred due to the literary context or the enactment that they or someone else might have carried out. In other words children this young don’t seem to be able to differentiate between what a pretense is nor what a belief is either. This type of ability only develops later in life, and defines that if children can’t understand these concepts at 3-4 years old then they have a hard time comprehending narratives in stories as well (Peskin 1996). Two other researchers who study children’s cognitive development and mental awareness of literary concepts in stories are Pellieter & Astington (2004) who examine how well children can actually relate a characters action to why they are taking place. This is almost like for every cause there is an effect, for instance, before a character engages in an activity there is a reason for them doing so which some children can decipher while some have more detailed trouble distinguishing in a story. The type of study that was carried out to determine how well kindergarten children could correctly depict characters actions and why they took place was put together through the usage of story telling bubbles using wordless picture books. The children were meant to look at the pictures and follow the actions of the characters through visual observation and then write in the bubbles what their own thoughts and ideas where as to why some of the actions took place (Pellieter & Astington 2004). The study found that the younger children did not use actual cognitive thought to describe the actions but instead simply relayed them back in a repetitious fashion which lead the researchers to believe that children this young (5- 6 years of age) did not rationalize characters actions the way older children would and therefore did not have the same developed theory of mind as older children do either. Their research study also emphasizes the fact that children rationalize thoughts at different grade levels and progress at different stages. Therefore, as has been said, various aged children are going to relay stories that they read back in different ways and they are not going to view the same narratives in the same way either. There are intriguing differences to be found in how theory of mind develops among children, and it has even been found that in some children who have developmental disorders, this theory never develops at all so they would not interpret the stories in any way relative to a child who has developed the idea of theory of mind ( Donaldson 1978). Moreover than anything else, children’s understanding of different concepts in stories is broken down into different developmental areas which include, reasoning, perception, beliefs, understanding of self, understanding of others, and their own rationale according to their level of knowledge. In conclusion, when trying to promote children’s understanding of various aspects in literature teachers and other professional educational instructors could do well to keep the following points in mind as it has been pointed out that this theory does not develop at the same rate in all children. Ask questions to elicit the child’s curiosity and stimulate their cognitive thinking Create some form of a time table that allows for thinking times Utilize structured dialogue Invite children to inform their own opinions and arguments on elements of literature Utilize story time effectively to make it draw upon students own ideas and perceptions Encourage the imagination Utilize creative activities to bring out the idea of possibility thinking in children (Taggart et al 2005). With finality, children understand different concepts in literature at different ages and in different ways, as has been validated in this literature review. Theory of mind is a boggling concept and what one might see as possible, another might not. The point is children’s literature has a heavy role in developing young children’s minds and they progress through their various developmental stages utilizing this form of instruction in a myriad of ways. Therefore, children’s literature will always have a strong part in developing individuality, and the theory of mind in each and every child. References Donaldson, Margaret. (1978). Children’s Minds. Glasgow: Fontana Publications. Pelletier, Janette & Astington, Janet. (2004). Action, Consciousness, and Theory of Mind: Children’s Ability to Coordinate Story Characters’ Actions and Thoughts. Early Education & Development, 15. Peskin, Joan. (1996). Child Development. Society for Research on Child Development, 67, 1735-1751 Taggart, G. & Ridley, K. & Rudd, P. & Benefield, P. (2005). Thinking Skills in the Early Years: A Literature Review. Slough: NFER. Whiten, C. (1991). Natural Theories of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell & Synergy Publications. Winner, Ellen. (1988). The Point of Words: Children’s Understanding of Metaphor and Irony. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Read More