Maybe the kid just wants snoopy to answer the question correctly. Didn't the kid say " I always thought there were candles in the box". Maybe, the kid just wants to please the interviewer right?
@TRueORo That's a very good point. Children are used to adults looking for the "right" answers. I also agree with mrjedidja who said maybe kids don't understand hypothetical questions. I understand what this experiment is trying to do, but there are too many variables to jump to a fixed conclusion.
There's something that this test, and the "mountain" test, don't take into account: At that age, kids have only been in situations like this when someone was doing a trick, playing a game or trying to "pull a fast one" on them. I have some vague memory of tests sort of like this being done on me as a kid and thinking that I was supposed to answer counter-intuitively to be right for some reason. If the kid could voice his perception it would start with, "Well, ma'am, Snoopy is a stuffed animal."
I have memories from when I was like 2-3yrs, when I used to intentionally push my 1yr old sister off the bad to make her cry. My mom would quickly come and I'd lie to her that she fell on her own. :P False beliefs yeah right.
A great follow-up to this experiment would be to ask the people years later if they remember this experiment, and ask them to recount why they answered the way they did. Most people start forming memories between 2-4 years old, and 3 is in that range
The apparent naivety of these 3-yr-old children can have several alternative explanations:
-They do not yet have a firm grasp of language
-They are too shy or proud to admit that they made a mistake
As someone who still remembers bits and pieces of my 3-yr-old life, I would have to say that these are far more likely explanations for their behavior than the lack of ability to understand false belief.
When my little brother was one or two, he hid a piece of food under the sheet in his playpen and asked for more. He knew he wasn't getting more until he'd finished the first one.
they can also lie cause they know right/wrong and can feel shame. They are ashamed of what they done and so they lie about it. Fun fact is that a 2year old doesn't focus on more then one thing at a time. He probably when he is ashamed doesn't think about the fact that his mother also knows a cookie is stolen.
What I do not agree with in this experiment is that it expects a child to pretend that a non-living object (snoopy) has perceptions and believes about reality. The ability to distinguish living from non-living things is so fundamental that even my 3-years-old cat seems to have it, and even more a human 3-years-old does so. So this is not an obvious test of ToM, but a test of how much a child is able to read mental states into an object that cannot act and move by itself.
The point here is that children do see that Snoopy does not move and act by itself, but is moved by someone else, in contrast to conscious, living objects. Furthermore, even if children CAN be misled, the question is rather if they NECESSARILY ARE. The experiment tacitly assumes that children either cannot distinguish living from non-living objects or that they are able to and also do pretend that Snoopy is a living object. The experimenter provides no proof for either assumption.
"Understanding other minds" is a skill that even cognitive neuroscientists never fully develop...
I think there's a few problems with this. It uses inductive reasoning - that is, there is an observation, but what does it actually mean? In addition, children don't respond the same way to children, known adults and adult strangers, so it would have to be done in various ways to even demonstrate what they "think." Finally, this is much too cultural bound to be applied to humans more broadly.
I think it's more or less memory. I think everything is memory. It takes them 4 years to acquire enough memory about the world to know that people think differently. When they're young, they don't have the vocabulary to understand things or the drive. At 2, I was stealing my cousin's chocolate bottles when she wasn't looking and replacing them with my own. I was fat and she was too thin, so our mothers were trying to fix the problem.
i wonder why two- and three- year olds lie, then? if they take a cookie when they aren't supposed to, and then their mother asks them about it, why would they lie if they think she knows everything that they know? O.o
I like your comment it got me thinking... I feel there is a difference i kind of can't explain.
The child knows that mum didn't see them taking the cookie, so she wouldn't know. You see I don't think this is a complex cognitive task. But to look from others' perspectives isn't easy for a 3 yr old..
@Ishraqaa I am only assuming but I would think that a childs mind is not complex enough to relate lying to the mother and theory of mind. I guess the child has experienced the desired effects of lying but the child still is developing and will later develop the ability to comprehend the minds of others.
@TheMorningStar1991 I believe thats how they learn. When you ask them "did you eat a cookie?" you're telling them "I don't know if you either did or did not eat a cookie."
I believe this is how they slowly form the conscience of the Theory of Mind, but it takes a lot of repetition for they to notice the pattern, so for these first years they'll both lie and ignore the Theory of Mind.
I was wondering this too. It could just be a matter of individual differences, but maybe it has more to do with behavioral or non-associative learning, rather than children making folk-psychological attributions to other people.
@TheMorningStar1991 your referring to different circumstance. The child will soon learn by means of operant or classical conditioning that lying will prove to be the better response. But i dont think they are saying the child believes everyone knows what they know. The child just tends to produce a perspective for others that is the same as their own. Or the child knows its done wrong and therefore denies it within themselves. But either way i don't think its an argument against this theory.
@TheMorningStar1991 I'd say the lies of 3-years-olds have not got to do with ToM, but rather with the inability to distinguish between the reality that they perceive and their own fantasies. That is, when a 3-years-old tells its mother that it has not taken the cookies, then it in fact believes that it has not taken the cookies. And now comes ToM into play: when it believes that it has not taken the cookies (by saying this), then this is an objective reality that anybody else believes too.
@TheMorningStar1991 Its complicated but the children is a skill that they have developed through learning the behavious of their parents. They learn that they're mother will be angry with them and therefore give the answer that the mother would be happy with. But with false belief it also depends on the child... take for example my daughter she is 3 going to be four in two months and she reacts more closely with that of a five year old when asked the same questions.
@TheMorningStar1991 i feel it's an automatic response sad to say. just like they said, it's the fall of Man. it makes me a little sad that kids expect to be tricked
The no isn't to elude or trick. It's because they know that the action is wrong. They're simply saying no as they know it would be the correct answer/action. It's also a reaction to the parent's tone. Much as a dog will hide under a bed when the owner is angry without actually knowing what they did wrong. Quite often the No isn't even in response what what's happened (depending on devolpmental age).
It's not a conscious decision to lie. It's an unregulated autonomous defence mechanism. Regulation comes with the awareness of being able to comprehend how another person might see, think and believe. You become consciously aware that the other person will suspect you are lying, so the child regulates and overrules it's autonomous defence response.
@TheMorningStar1991 whether or not this hypothesis is true, it postulates that the child is unable to distinguish what the child knows from what other people know. That is not the same thing as believing the adult to be omnipotent
Also, I would be extremely reluctant to include lying in any other situation, as its mechanisms and motivation are so potent as to drown out other considerations; one of the major considerations of any experiment is to eliminate as many extraneous variables as possible
@VvAnarchangelvV I think I understand what you're saying, but your language is very verbose. Anyway, according to the video, a child thinks everyone knows what they know. They know that they have stolen a cookie, therefore an adult would also know that they have stolen a cookie.
Maybe a different explanation is correct, but if the video is accurate then that's what applies.
@NotSoOldHippy and Democrat Christians live in a constant state of false belief... ?? What does faith have to do with politics? I know many "liberal" Christians, and I know Republicans who are not Christians. Maybe you should develop some cognition about stereotypes... and false beliefs.
@caiboiboi It's an often used tool, shouldn't have any trouble finding an experiment involving it. Just go to google scholar and type in theory of mind.
@NotSoOldHippy How about liberal atheists who always stereotype Christians and Republicans?
ThePhillies19 6 days ago
@ThePhillies19 How about Christian Republicans who always stereotype all liberal atheists as people who would stereotype Christians and Republicans?
gorgolyt 6 days ago
Obama doesn't have theory of mind...he does not believe that people don't like him. Diagnose him with autism.
theraver2020 2 weeks ago
Sooo this is false mind???
IDM011 2 months ago
DAMN! That second baby was creepy lookin' as fuck.
pichirisu 3 months ago
There is no failure. There are brains.
ThePlanetHorizon 3 months ago
agree, my son lies to and he is 3.5 and i tried the test he failed lol :))
koshkadruid 4 months ago
this is a test for autism too
missineichen 4 months ago
Maybe the kid just wants snoopy to answer the question correctly. Didn't the kid say " I always thought there were candles in the box". Maybe, the kid just wants to please the interviewer right?
TRueORo 4 months ago
@TRueORo That's a very good point. Children are used to adults looking for the "right" answers. I also agree with mrjedidja who said maybe kids don't understand hypothetical questions. I understand what this experiment is trying to do, but there are too many variables to jump to a fixed conclusion.
wiiildfire 4 months ago
There's something that this test, and the "mountain" test, don't take into account: At that age, kids have only been in situations like this when someone was doing a trick, playing a game or trying to "pull a fast one" on them. I have some vague memory of tests sort of like this being done on me as a kid and thinking that I was supposed to answer counter-intuitively to be right for some reason. If the kid could voice his perception it would start with, "Well, ma'am, Snoopy is a stuffed animal."
SameThingSameThing 5 months ago
Maybe kids just don't understand hypothetical questions?
mrjedidja 5 months ago 2
I have memories from when I was like 2-3yrs, when I used to intentionally push my 1yr old sister off the bad to make her cry. My mom would quickly come and I'd lie to her that she fell on her own. :P False beliefs yeah right.
mrjedidja 5 months ago
ADOWABLEEEEEE
4Brownie4 6 months ago
A great follow-up to this experiment would be to ask the people years later if they remember this experiment, and ask them to recount why they answered the way they did. Most people start forming memories between 2-4 years old, and 3 is in that range
theguyi26 7 months ago
The apparent naivety of these 3-yr-old children can have several alternative explanations:
-They do not yet have a firm grasp of language
-They are too shy or proud to admit that they made a mistake
As someone who still remembers bits and pieces of my 3-yr-old life, I would have to say that these are far more likely explanations for their behavior than the lack of ability to understand false belief.
theguyi26 7 months ago 3
well thats's something to ponder whle going to sleep.
origamishishou 7 months ago
religion...
conman2317 7 months ago
Comment removed
PeeGeeBeeDee 8 months ago
Fall From Grace
The Cute lII Cracca Boy's Whole World Comes Tumbling Down (The End Of The Innocence). So Sad.
PeeGeeBeeDee 8 months ago
When my little brother was one or two, he hid a piece of food under the sheet in his playpen and asked for more. He knew he wasn't getting more until he'd finished the first one.
Megaritz 9 months ago
they can also lie cause they know right/wrong and can feel shame. They are ashamed of what they done and so they lie about it. Fun fact is that a 2year old doesn't focus on more then one thing at a time. He probably when he is ashamed doesn't think about the fact that his mother also knows a cookie is stolen.
filosoferendschaapje 9 months ago
from what i remember from psych 2- 3 year olds actually cant lie very well at all
triangletitties 11 months ago
@triangletitties spend more time with them haha
Houston810 9 months ago
What I do not agree with in this experiment is that it expects a child to pretend that a non-living object (snoopy) has perceptions and believes about reality. The ability to distinguish living from non-living things is so fundamental that even my 3-years-old cat seems to have it, and even more a human 3-years-old does so. So this is not an obvious test of ToM, but a test of how much a child is able to read mental states into an object that cannot act and move by itself.
fortaq 1 year ago
@fortaq
Don't anthropomorphize feline behaviors. In addition, children can be misled into believing Snoopy is real. hence Barney IS a real purple dinosaur.
youtoobesucks 9 months ago
@youtoobesucks
The point here is that children do see that Snoopy does not move and act by itself, but is moved by someone else, in contrast to conscious, living objects. Furthermore, even if children CAN be misled, the question is rather if they NECESSARILY ARE. The experiment tacitly assumes that children either cannot distinguish living from non-living objects or that they are able to and also do pretend that Snoopy is a living object. The experimenter provides no proof for either assumption.
fortaq 9 months ago
there're*
roselime24 1 year ago
"Understanding other minds" is a skill that even cognitive neuroscientists never fully develop...
I think there's a few problems with this. It uses inductive reasoning - that is, there is an observation, but what does it actually mean? In addition, children don't respond the same way to children, known adults and adult strangers, so it would have to be done in various ways to even demonstrate what they "think." Finally, this is much too cultural bound to be applied to humans more broadly.
roselime24 1 year ago
I knew there were candles in the box.
ThaMasterOfDisaster2 1 year ago 4
I think it's more or less memory. I think everything is memory. It takes them 4 years to acquire enough memory about the world to know that people think differently. When they're young, they don't have the vocabulary to understand things or the drive. At 2, I was stealing my cousin's chocolate bottles when she wasn't looking and replacing them with my own. I was fat and she was too thin, so our mothers were trying to fix the problem.
returnoftheramble3 1 year ago
i wonder why two- and three- year olds lie, then? if they take a cookie when they aren't supposed to, and then their mother asks them about it, why would they lie if they think she knows everything that they know? O.o
TheMorningStar1991 1 year ago 38
@TheMorningStar1991
I like your comment it got me thinking... I feel there is a difference i kind of can't explain.
The child knows that mum didn't see them taking the cookie, so she wouldn't know. You see I don't think this is a complex cognitive task. But to look from others' perspectives isn't easy for a 3 yr old..
Thanks :)
Ishraqaa 1 year ago
@Ishraqaa I am only assuming but I would think that a childs mind is not complex enough to relate lying to the mother and theory of mind. I guess the child has experienced the desired effects of lying but the child still is developing and will later develop the ability to comprehend the minds of others.
poisonpixel 1 year ago
@TheMorningStar1991 I believe thats how they learn. When you ask them "did you eat a cookie?" you're telling them "I don't know if you either did or did not eat a cookie."
I believe this is how they slowly form the conscience of the Theory of Mind, but it takes a lot of repetition for they to notice the pattern, so for these first years they'll both lie and ignore the Theory of Mind.
gustavotogni 1 year ago
@TheMorningStar1991
I was wondering this too. It could just be a matter of individual differences, but maybe it has more to do with behavioral or non-associative learning, rather than children making folk-psychological attributions to other people.
FitterHappier1 1 year ago
@TheMorningStar1991 your referring to different circumstance. The child will soon learn by means of operant or classical conditioning that lying will prove to be the better response. But i dont think they are saying the child believes everyone knows what they know. The child just tends to produce a perspective for others that is the same as their own. Or the child knows its done wrong and therefore denies it within themselves. But either way i don't think its an argument against this theory.
TheNitschke22 1 year ago
@TheMorningStar1991 becaue the behaviour has been modelled for them by their parents, peers etc
robandre1 1 year ago
@TheMorningStar1991 I'd say the lies of 3-years-olds have not got to do with ToM, but rather with the inability to distinguish between the reality that they perceive and their own fantasies. That is, when a 3-years-old tells its mother that it has not taken the cookies, then it in fact believes that it has not taken the cookies. And now comes ToM into play: when it believes that it has not taken the cookies (by saying this), then this is an objective reality that anybody else believes too.
fortaq 1 year ago
@TheMorningStar1991 Its complicated but the children is a skill that they have developed through learning the behavious of their parents. They learn that they're mother will be angry with them and therefore give the answer that the mother would be happy with. But with false belief it also depends on the child... take for example my daughter she is 3 going to be four in two months and she reacts more closely with that of a five year old when asked the same questions.
MegaHazelnutt 11 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991 i feel it's an automatic response sad to say. just like they said, it's the fall of Man. it makes me a little sad that kids expect to be tricked
SuperHee2 9 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991
The no isn't to elude or trick. It's because they know that the action is wrong. They're simply saying no as they know it would be the correct answer/action. It's also a reaction to the parent's tone. Much as a dog will hide under a bed when the owner is angry without actually knowing what they did wrong. Quite often the No isn't even in response what what's happened (depending on devolpmental age).
Gabberz123 9 months ago 2
@TheMorningStar1991 fear. the survival instincts kick in.
MaKhudaAstum 7 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991
It's not a conscious decision to lie. It's an unregulated autonomous defence mechanism. Regulation comes with the awareness of being able to comprehend how another person might see, think and believe. You become consciously aware that the other person will suspect you are lying, so the child regulates and overrules it's autonomous defence response.
Evilrolfharris 7 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991 Because they don't understand other people's view. They don't understand why the parents want them to tell the truth.
SuperMrAtheist 7 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991 Same thing like a dog, when they do something wrong, they usually think you know, tail between legs head down etc.
ConstantlyRushing 7 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991 whether or not this hypothesis is true, it postulates that the child is unable to distinguish what the child knows from what other people know. That is not the same thing as believing the adult to be omnipotent
Also, I would be extremely reluctant to include lying in any other situation, as its mechanisms and motivation are so potent as to drown out other considerations; one of the major considerations of any experiment is to eliminate as many extraneous variables as possible
VvAnarchangelvV 6 months ago
@VvAnarchangelvV I think I understand what you're saying, but your language is very verbose. Anyway, according to the video, a child thinks everyone knows what they know. They know that they have stolen a cookie, therefore an adult would also know that they have stolen a cookie.
Maybe a different explanation is correct, but if the video is accurate then that's what applies.
4Gottlos 6 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991 maybe they wanna at least TRY to get out of it? lol :P
rebskie1 6 months ago
@TheMorningStar1991
Psychologists claim that this is simply a learned tactic of avoiding punishment.
Quite plausible ;)
KalifNiggi 2 months ago
Republican Christians *never* develop the ability.
NotSoOldHippy 1 year ago 93
@NotSoOldHippy LOL so true!!
superotter77 1 year ago
@NotSoOldHippy How about liberal communists atheits?
oglins1954 11 months ago
@oglins1954 you can't be a liberal communist.
000DarkNite000 9 months ago
@NotSoOldHippy and Democrat Christians live in a constant state of false belief... ?? What does faith have to do with politics? I know many "liberal" Christians, and I know Republicans who are not Christians. Maybe you should develop some cognition about stereotypes... and false beliefs.
bigskybcs 6 months ago 3
@NotSoOldHippy Maybe you should try to develop that ability, and put yourself in a republican Christian's place, and maybe not be so judgmental.
castlesuzie 3 months ago
They are called DEMOCRATS!
thisisOktawia17 3 months ago
I wouldn't call it a "mental eden".
JanisXAChambers 1 year ago 2
@JanisXAChambers Tell that to William Blake.
cookiesonsteve 1 year ago
@JanisXAChambers lol neither would I
cheeseylemon 1 year ago
What's the name of this show?
yaserxp 1 year ago
any chance of a referance for that experiment?
caiboiboi 1 year ago
@caiboiboi It's an often used tool, shouldn't have any trouble finding an experiment involving it. Just go to google scholar and type in theory of mind.
Ali3n9 1 year ago
Try Wimmer & Hartl (1991), they conducted a very similar experiment using Smarties and pencils.
BladesOfMunch 1 year ago