Persuasion skills in children and chilldren from 6 to 12 years old. The role of the theory of mind and linguistic competition

Article Sidebar

PDF (Español (España))
Published: Jul 13, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17060/ijodaep.2019.n1.v2.1405
Keywords:
persuasion language theory of mind primary school

Main Article Content

Carmen Barajas
Universidad de Málaga
Mª José Linero
Universidad de Málaga
Carolina Cedeño
Universidad de Málaga

Abstract

The objectives of this study are: a) to analyze the persuasive ability (selfish and prosocial) of the children of Primary Education and b) its relation with the linguistic competence and the understanding of the mind. Method: 103 children from 6 to 12 years old were administered the PPVT-III test, a battery of ToM tasks and two tasks of persuasive production (one selfish and one prosocial). Results. In prosocial persuasion children produce more different arguments and positive valence; instead, with regard to quality, the production of mentalist arguments in both types of persuasion is similar. In addition, children with greater linguistic and mentalist competence (especially attribution of emotional rather than epistemic states) produce more varied and higher quality persuasive arguments (valence is only related to mentalist competence); specifically, the attribution of emotions linked to beliefs is related to the variety of arguments of selfish persuasion, and the attribution of emotion to the victim of a faux pas with the variety and valence in prosocial persuasion. These data can be useful to guide the promotion of prosocial peer influence at school age.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Barajas, C., Linero, M. J., & Cedeño, C. (2019). Persuasion skills in children and chilldren from 6 to 12 years old. The role of the theory of mind and linguistic competition. International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology. Revista INFAD De Psicología., 2(1), 85–98. https://doi.org/10.17060/ijodaep.2019.n1.v2.1405
Issue
Vol. 2 No. 1 (2019): Childhood and Developmental Psychology
Section
Articles
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
 
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following terms:

 

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

 
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
 
c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
 
The authors are responsible to obtain the appropriate permissions to reproduce material (text, images or graphics) from other publications and to quote their origin correctly.
 

References

Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A.M., y Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”? Cognition, 21, 37-46.

Baron-Cohen, S., O Riordan, M., Stone, V., Jones, R. y Plaisted, K. (1999). Recognition of faux pas by normally developing children and children with Asperger sindrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29, 407-418.

Bartsch, K. y London, K. (2000). Children s use of mental state information in persuasion. Developmental Psychology, 36(3), 352-365.

Bartsch, K., Cole, J. y Estes, D. (2010). Young Children s Persuasion in Everyday Conversation: Tactics and Attunement to Others Mental States. Social Development, 19(2), 394-416.

Bartsch, K., London, K. y Campbell, M.D. (2007). Children`s attention to beliefs in interactive persuasion tasks. Developmental Psychology, 43, 111-120.

Cassidy, K. W., Werner, R. S., Rourke, M., Zubernis, L. S. y Balaraman, G. (2003). The relationship between psychological understanding and positive social behaviors. Social Development, 12 (2), 198-221.

Gasser, L y Keller, M. (2009). Are the competent the morally good? Perspective taking and moral motivation of children involved in bullying. Social Development, 18(4), 798-816.

Happé, F. G. (1994). An advanced test of theory of mind: Understanding of story characters’ thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults. Journal of autism and Developmental disorders, 24(2), 129-154.

Hummer, P., Wimmer, H. y Antes, G. (1993). On the origins of denial negation. Journal of child language, 20(3), 607-618. Newton, P., Reddy, V y Bull, R. (2000). Children’s everyday deception and performance on false belief tasks. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(2), 297-317.

Núñez, M. (1993). Teoría de la mente: Metarrepresentación, creencias falsas y engaño en el desarrollo de una psicología natural. Tesis doctoral sin publicar. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Perner, J., Leekam, S. y Wimmer, H. (1987). Three-year olds difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5, 125-137.

Reddy, V. (2007). Getting back to the rough ground: Deception and ‘social living.’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 362, 621–637.

Slaughter, V., Peterson, C. y Moore, C. (2013). I Can Talk You Into It: Theory of Mind and Persuasion Behavior in Young Children. Developmental Psychology, 49(2), 227-231.

To, C., Yim, S., Lam, G. y Iao, L. (2016). Persuasion in Chinese School-Age Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 31(3), 231-240.

Wellman, H. y Liu, D. (2004). Scaling theory of mind tasks. Child Development, 75, 759-763.

Wilson, A. E., Smith, M. D y Ross, H. S. (2003). The nature and effects of young children’s lies. Social Development, 12(1), 21-45.