A meta-analysis of sequences in theory-of-mind understandings: Theory of mind scale findings across different cultural contexts

In 2004, Wellman and Liu demonstrated that theory of mind (ToM) – the awareness of how mental states such as desires, beliefs, and intentions govern actions – develops via a progression of understandings, and pioneered a 5-item ToM Scale to measure those sequential developments. This ToM Scale has now been translated into many non-English languages and used worldwide. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantitatively summarize the now-abundant ToM Scale findings (across 91 studies and 10,321 2- to 10-year-old children) and describe how children worldwide progress through a sequence of ToM understandings in early development. Results showed that the ToM Scale successfully captures a robust developmental progression of ToM understandings. It also captures universality and cultural-specificity in ToM development: while ToM universally develops in a progressive sequence where initial insights lead to later ones, children from individualistic and collectivist countries progress through two slightly different sequences shaped by cultural learning.