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The adolescent mind in school: theoryof mind and self-concept in Canadianand Polish youthSandra Bosacki a , Marta Bialecka-Pikul b & Marta Szpak ba Faculty of Education, Brock University , St. Catharines , ON ,Canadab Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University , Krakow , PolandPublished online: 14 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Sandra Bosacki , Marta Bialecka-Pikul & Marta Szpak (2013): The adolescentmind in school: theory of mind and self-concept in Canadian and Polish youth, International Journalof Adolescence and Youth, DOI: 10.1080/02673843.2013.804423

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The adolescent mind in school: theory of mind and self-conceptin Canadian and Polish youth

Sandra Bosackia*, Marta Bialecka-Pikulb and Marta Szpakb

aFaculty of Education, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada; bInstitute of Psychology,Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

(Received 20 February 2013; final version received 8 May 2013)

Recent research shows that the ability to understand the mental states of self and others[theory of mind (ToM)] develops throughout childhood into adolescence and maydiffer across cultures. Although links may exist between ToM understanding and otheraspects of social cognition including self-concept, there remains a lack of cross-culturalstudies that explore the reasoning about the relationships between self (intrapersonal)and other (interpersonal) understandings throughout adolescence. Accordingly, thisstudy explored the relationships between adolescents’ ToM and their self-concept inCanadian and Polish samples. Findings revealed significant negative relationshipsbetween ToM and self-perception among Canadian participants only. Analyses of ToMresponses revealing psychological explanations of social situations were the mostcommon in both Polish and Canadian participants. Compared to the Polish participants,Canadian children were more likely to refer to their self or personal experiences.Findings are discussed in terms of developmental and psychocultural differences.

Keywords: adolescence; theory of mind, self-concept; cultural differences

Introduction

Young people’s development is influenced by different social context, such as family,

community and school (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). During adolescence, the school context

plays a crucial role, especially given that youth spend a large proportion of their day in

school or pursuing school-related activities (Hughes, 2011). Within the school context, peer

relations play important role in adolescents’ lives (Larson, 2011), young people are

particularly concerned with how other people, their peers, perceive them (see e.g. Kiuru,

2008) as the thoughts of others influence their developing sense of self (Harter, 1999). Self-

understanding or conception of the difference among your knowledge of yourself, your

knowledge of other people, their knowledge of themselves and their knowledge of you may

play an important role in social interactions, especially in the interpretation of actions (Dunn,

Creps, & Brown, 1996). Many researchers theorise that we come to learn about self by

learning about others and vice versa (Barresi & Moore, 1996; Bronfenbrenner, 1977). More

specifically in terms of theory of mind (ToM) development, this is the ability to understand

not only different and more complex mental states but also mental processes, and stable

characteristics or personality traits of oneself and others that may be connected with

individual experience (Pillow, 2008; Selman, 1980). Researchers are now starting to explore

how adolescents think about the minds and emotions of self and others, also known as theory

of mind, how they perceive themselves as students (self-concept) and how these two aspects

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: slbosacki@gmail.com

International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 2013

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of social cognition are related. Thus, ToM may play a key role in adolescents’

sociocognitive development and school functioning.

Regarding academic competence, associations between ToM and the production of

stories and general language ability have been found (Astington & Jenkins, 1999). ToM

facilitates children’s ability to self-monitor their cognitive process and engage in reflective

thinking (Peskin & Astington, 2004). Taken together, these claims suggest that

understanding of mind is linked to higher-order thinking or more advanced mental-state

reasoning (Hughes, 2011). That is, children and adolescents who possess high levels of

ToM understanding may be more likely to ‘think about their own and others’ thinking’ and

engage in critical philosophical enquiry and shared dialogue during the school days

(Lohmann, Tomasello, & Meyer, 2005). In addition, ToM performance is positively

correlated with teacher ratings of the child’s social competence (e.g. Liddle & Nettle,

2006), and positive self-concept found to be the most important factor for adjustment and

for protection against common problem behaviour among adolescents (Ybrandt, 2008).

Although past research shows that ToM and self-concept are foundational to children’s

and adolescents’ educational experiences, little is known about the nature of the

relationships between ToM and self-concept among adolescents. Indeed, there remains a

dearth of studies that explore whether reasoning about self (intrapersonal) and others

(interpersonal) are reciprocal and interdependent, or remain isolated and independent from

one another (Hughes, 2011). It is thus not clear whether ToM is related to the adolescents’

self-concepts. Applying this exploration of the role of school culture in ToM and self-

development to the larger cultural context, even less is known regarding the role of

cultural influences on children’s ToM and self-development in schools within different

cultural contexts such as North American and European countries (Hughes, 2011). To

address this gap in the research, the purpose of this study is to explore relationships

between children’s ToM and self-perceptions across two cultural contexts, Canada and

Poland. Our main research question is: What are the relationships between ToM and self-

concept in Canadian and Polish youth?

There are various social-cognitive concepts that constitute the developing ToM in later

childhood and adolescence (Peterson, Wellman, & Slaughter, 2012). The concept that has

been most thoroughly investigated is that of false belief, involving recognition that an

individual’s behaviour is based on how he or shementally represents theworld, rather than on

objective reality. A meta-analysis revealed that children in Western industrialised countries

generally acquire false belief at the age of 3–5 years (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001).

Research suggests that ToM development may depend on the maturity of ToM module

(Leslie, 2000), and all children, regardless of cultural context,may acquire false belief concept

at the age of 3–5 years. Indeed, there are some evidence that indicate that false belief

understanding follows a similar developmental trajectory in diverse cultural groups including

children fromTribal PapuaNewGuinea (Vinden, 1999), remoteWest Africa (Avis &Harris,

1991), rural Peru, traditional agrarian Samoa, and modern urban India and Thailand

(Callaghan et al., 2005).However, some studies have revealed that children fromSamoa have

difficulties in passing false belief test (Mayer, 2012), and Liu, Wellman, Tardiff, and

Sabbagh’s (2008) meta-analysis showed that Chinese children in comparison with North

American counterparts displayed 2-year delay in false belief understanding.

Those variations in false belief understanding could conceivably reflect cross-cultural

contrasts in socialisation practices that emphasise different facets of social-cognitive

understanding. Given that socialisation practices aim to prepare children to function

effectively within the societal context (Keller, 2012), children’s understanding of causes

of behaviour may differ depending on cultural context they live in. A clear example of

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this cultural difference in social cognition is the way people explain observed behaviours.

The ‘fundamental attribution error’ (also known as ‘correspondence bias’), which is a

tendency to overestimate dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed

behaviours of others and underestimate situational or context-focused explanations, is

fundamental only in Western individualistic cultures and not in collective cultures

(Miyamoto & Kitayama, 2002).

Regarding culture-based differences in false belief understanding, Samoa people

believe that one cannot know what is in another person’s mind. That is, Samoans assert the

‘opacity of other minds’ (Robbins & Rumsey, 2008). It is thus possible that the common

assumption about the nature of the mind results in forms of interaction that are more rule-

based and not much dependent on referring to people’s mental states. Similarly, in China

and Iran, more so than in the West, the early mastery of traditional knowledge and skills is

emphasised, and children are socialised to honour elders and their wisdom (Sharifzadeh,

2004). These cultural contexts may, therefore, supply rich everyday exposure to concepts

of knowledge access, and relatively less exposure to the diversity of people’s beliefs.

In contrast, in Western cultures such as Australia, Canada and the USA, research suggests

that some parents may place high value on children learning self-assertion skills very early

(e.g. Goodnow, Cashmore, Cotton, & Knight, 1984), so that children are able to learn to

express their opinions and challenge the viewpoints of parents, teachers and peers

(e.g. Vinden, 1999). Daily experience in these cultural contexts may thus promote

relatively early understanding that different people can entertain diverse beliefs about the

same reality.

Both Canada and Poland offer interesting and complex new cultural contexts, in which

the ToM and self-concept development in adolescents is examined. In Canada, the

multicultural and multilingual cultural context provides a complex learning environment

for adolescents to learn diverse attitudes and beliefs towards self and others. Canada is

considered as a western individualistic culture, whereas Poland, which historically and

geographically stood between East and West, is considered as the culture with

intermediate levels of collectivism and individualism (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier,

2002). As individualism implies that, e.g. ‘abstract traits (as opposed to social, situational

descriptors) are central to self-definition’ and ‘judgment, reasoning, and causal inference

are generally oriented toward the person rather than the situation or social context because

the decontextualized self is assumed to be a stable, causal nexus’ (Oyserman et al., 2002,

p. 5), the cultural differences between Canada and Poland may be reflected in self-concept

and the way people explain social situations.

Based on a psychocultural approach to development that supports the assumption that

Polish and Canadian adolescents grow up in different cultural and linguistic contexts

(Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Bruner, 1996), one prediction is that adolescents’ social-cognitive

development of ToM understanding and self-concept may differ. Although cross-cultural

studies exist on adolescent’s self-esteem (Harter, 1999), and cross-cultural studies on

ToM understanding including studies on children’s mastery of the litmus ToM indicator,

false belief, has been examined in a variety of cultural contexts (Avis & Harris, 1991;

Callaghan et al., 2005; Vinden, 1999; Yazdi, German, Defeyter, & Siegal, 2006), no

previously published studies have examined differences in Canadian and Polish

adolescents’ social or ToM understanding. Thus, this study highlights how adolescents in

Canada and Poland interpret and explain ambiguous social situations within a ToM

framework, and if this ability is related to self-concept, how does it differ between two

culturally different groups. Thus, this study aimed to explore the following research

questions: first, do Polish and Canadian adolescents interpret social situations differently

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based on a ToM model, second, what is the relationship (if any) between ToM and self-

concept and, third, is the relationship between ToM and self-concept different between the

Polish and Canadian samples?

Method

The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between ToM and self-concept in

both Canadian and Polish adolescents. To address this question, two separate studies were

conducted with similar measures (ToM and self-concept), with the ToM and self-concept

measure translated into Polish for the Polish sample. The Canadian and Polish participants

are described in the following, in addition to the methods and procedure used in both

countries.

Participants

Canadian sample

As part of a larger longitudinal study of children’s ToM and its relationship with social-

cognitive and emotional competencies (Bosacki, 2008), this study involved 28 mainly

Euro-Canadian children (14 females, 14 males, range: 10–13 years, M ¼ 10 years, 4m)

from two schools within middle socio-economic status, semi-rural neighbourhoods.

Polish sample

As part of a larger study of ToM and its relationship with attachment and self-concept,

this study included 23 Polish students (18 females, 5 males, range: 16–17 years,

M ¼ 16.6).

Procedure

Upon obtaining ethical clearance from the universities, school board, principals, teachers,

parents and students, each year adolescents completed standardised pencil-and-paper

measures and participated in individual interviews.

Data collection occurred during two time points. The first time point consisted of a

group, in-class session where trained female researchers group administered a self-report

questionnaire to assess adolescents’ perceptions of self (Harter, 1985, 1988). To facilitate

task completion, researchers provided explicit written (on the blackboard) and verbal task

instructions to the children. Participants completed the task individually within the

classroom, and researchers monitored the class session and addressed any questions that

participants had as they completed the task. This task was completed within a 30-minute

class period.

The second time point involved an individual session in which children were involved

in interviews to explore their ToM understanding as measured by two socially ambiguous

stories. Interviews were conducted in a small room outside of the classroom, and all

interviews were audiotaped for subsequent transcription and analysis. The interview

session was approximately 20–30minutes in length. All tasks were administered by

experienced female researchers, and as research participants, children were reminded

that their responses would remain confidential and that they had the opportunity to ask

questions or stop at any time during the research.

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Measures

Self-concept

To assess children’s sense of general self-worth and self-competence in the domain

of academic skills, age-adequate versions of Harter’s (1985, 1988) Self-Perception

Profile (SPP) were used. It was Harter’s (1985) Self-Perception Profile for Children

(SPPC) (Canadian sample) and Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA; Cieciuch

& Rusjan, 2010; Harter, 1988) (Polish sample). Based on past literature (Cassidy, 1999;

Harter, 1999), this study focused on three aspects that some researchers consider

particularly relevant to children including perceived behavioural conduct, physical

appearance and global self-worth. Consequently, depending of the version of SPP, 18

(SPPC) or 15 (SPPA) items were used (six or five items for each of three aspects of self-

concept). Each item consists of the pair of statements, and children select the most liked

option (e.g. ‘Some young people have many friends’ vs. ‘Other young people do not have

many friends’) and then indicate whether the statement is somewhat true or really true for

them (‘completely like me’ or ‘a little like me’). A value of ‘4’ for each item denotes the

highest level of self-worth and a ‘1’ denotes the lowest level. The result in each aspect of

self-worth may thus range from 6 to 24 in SPPC and 5 to 20 in SPPA. Regardless of the

version of SPP, the higher the result, the higher the self-worth.

Theory of mind

Gleaned from past research, to assess ToM adapted versions of two brief vignettes

consisting of an ambiguous social situation were used (social ambiguous stories;

Bosacki, 2000, 2008; Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Borrowing from theoretical work that

views ToM as a vehicle or instrument that is used to co-construct or narrate one’s social

reality (Astington, 1993; Astington & Pelletier, 1996), and studies that investigate an

advanced ToM through the use of narratives (Hughes, 2011), this task aimed to assess

the ToM involved in interpreting social meaning from ambiguous stories. The stories

were socially ambiguous because past research has found children’s interpretations of

ambiguous social situations to be an effective method of eliciting children’s

representational understanding of mind and emotion (Dodge & Frame, 1982). Thus,

this task was developed to strike a balance between projective, open-ended narrative

tasks (e.g. Fox, 1991; Selman, 1980) and more forced-choice, experimental tasks (see

e.g. Baron-Cohen, 2010).

The two stories involved one scenario for girls (an unfamiliar girl approaches two

friends already engaged; two boys on a sports team need to choose another boy for their

team). However, no reason was given in this story to explain why the actors did not speak

to the recipient. Thus, participants had to infer the reason that the actors disregarded

the recipient.

In both Canadian and Polish samples, the same measures were used, although some

changes were made for the Polish sample to make it more age-appropriate and culturally

relevant. To increase cultural relevance, the context of the story was adapted to focus on the

workplace instead of school, and language differences were also made accordingly to adapt

from English to Polish (e.g. woman instead of girl). The original stories were translated into

Polish, then changed and retranslated into a new version. The author of the stories accepted

the modified version. See Appendix 1 for stories used in Canadian and Polish samples.

The stories were followed by the control questions that were to check whether

participants remember the story’s content, and then the actual questions that assess how

participants explain and predict characters’ behaviours. The main test questions referred to

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the behaviour of story characters (‘what will she/he/they do . . . ’?) and the reason why they

behave that way (‘why did he/she/they do that . . . ?’). Questions in Polish and Canadian

samples are provided in Appendix 1.

Coding

The Polish and Canadian samples followed similar story tasks and the conceptual rules for

coding (Bosacki, 2000). More specifically, for both samples, responses to each question

were coded according to their accurateness (mental state and emotional labelling) and their

level of conceptual sophistication (understanding of the socially ambiguous situation or

what causes emotions for both self and peer). Due to the translation and adaptation of the

English-version measure to Polish, some of the coding procedures were adapted to apply

to the Canadian and Polish tasks accordingly. For example, for the Canadian sample, the

task was adapted from a larger version that contained more detailed questions regarding

social and moral understanding (see Bosacki, 2000, for further details). For the purpose of

this study, the questions that were reported in this study were the most similar to the

questions used in the Polish sample to attempt to replicate the measure.

For Polish sample, similar to the Canadian sample, responses were coded according to

the reference to mental states and the level of conceptual sophistication (see Appendix 1

for stories). In the case of questions 1 and 3 (prediction of characters’ behaviours), the

reference to mental states was assessed (yes/1 or no/0). The questions 2 and 4 (justification

questions and explanation of behaviours) were coded according to their level of

conceptual sophistication. A code of 0 was provided for intangential or ‘I don’t know

responses,’ 1¼ behavioural/physical responses such as ‘Tom would walk away and play

elsewhere,’ 2¼psychological responses that would include references to at least one to

two psychological or emotional states such as ‘Tom thought that Kenny and Mark were

unfair,’ 3¼integrated psychological response that would be a sophisticated response

involving a complex (3 or more) and/or contradictory combination of psychological

emotional terms (e.g. ‘Tom felt that Kenny and Mark were angry with him and wanted to

trick him into thinking they were his friends’). Consequently, in one of the two stories,

participants could get 0–2 points for including mental states in predicting behaviours

(answers 1 and 3) and 0–6 points for the quality of each explanations (answers 2 and 4).

The aggregate results lead to a range of 0–8 points in one story, 0–16 points in the whole

two-story task for the Polish sample and 0–42 in Canadian sample (see Bosacki, 2000;

Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Regardless of the range of results, in each study, higher

scores reflect higher ToM understanding. Thus, two measures were conceptually the same.

In addition, for both samples, the object of reference (story reference or self-experience) in

given answers were also coded. For example, the answer ‘It’s something I would do to be

nice’ would be coded as a psychological response and self-experience.

Results

The results first outlined the descriptive statistics for the entire study (both Canadian and

Polish samples), followed by separate inferential statistics for each sample. Based on the

aggregate scores for ToM and self-concept, high scores represented a more sophisticated

understanding (Table 1).

Canadian sample

Children’s total ToM scores were significantly correlated with perceptions of: behavioural

conduct (e.g. how well-behaved do you think you are?; r ¼ 20.506, p ¼ 0.01) and global

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self-worth (e.g. how happy are you with yourself as a person?; r ¼ 20.430, p ¼ 0.036).

A marginally significant negative correlation was found between children’s perceptions

of physical self and their total ToM score (r ¼ 20.380, p ¼ 0.05). Examination of self-

perception and ToM scores revealed no significant differences.

Analysis of the type of ToM responses to the ‘why’ questions (e.g. Why did Nancy/

Margie or Kenny/Tom behave the way they did?) showed that just over half of the

responses involved psychological explanations among Canadian adolescents (40–64%)

(Table 2). Interestingly, regarding ToM justifications, the majority of Canadian

participants (68–82%) often referred to self-experience (e.g. That’s what happens to

me) for their ToM justifications.

Polish sample

No correlations were found between ToM and: behavioural conduct, physical appearance,

global self-worth (r ¼ 0.09, p ¼ 0.49; r ¼ 20.15, p ¼ 0.68; r ¼ 20.18, p ¼ 0.39).

Analysis of the type of ToM responses to the ‘why’ questions (e.g. Why did they do this?)

showed that the psychological explanations (50–75%) dominated Polish adolescents

(Table 3). Interestingly, regarding ToM justifications, the whole tested group referred to

the story content.

Table 1. Means and standard deviations of ToM and SPPC in Canadian and Polish adolescents.

Variable Canadian sample (n ¼ 28) Polish sample (n ¼ 23)

Total ToMa 39.00 (3.42) 9.96 (2.29)Self-perceptionsb

Behavioural conduct 15.08 (3.08) 15.78 (3.00)Physical appearance 15.12 (2.35) 11.78 (4.38)Global self-worth 15.95 (1.62) 13.57 (3.42)

a Total ToM score; range: 0–42 (Canadian sample) and 0–16 (Polish sample); higher scores reflect higher ToMunderstanding.b SPPS and SPPA; range: 0–24 and 0–20; higher scores reflect higher self-perceptions.

Table 2. The frequency of types of answers in ‘why’ questions among Canadian adolescents.

‘Why’ questions (x.y – the y why question in story x)

Type of answer 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2

Tangential 0 0 0 0Situational/behavioural 11 10 17 13Psychological 14 14 10 11Integrated psychological 3 4 1 4

Table 3. The frequency of types of answers in ‘why’ questions among Polish adolescents.

‘Why’ questions (x.y – the y why question in story x)

Type of answer 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2

Tangential 1 0 1 1Situational/behavioural 3 5 3 5Psychological 17 15 12 15Integrated psychological 2 3 6 1

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Discussion

This research explored relationships between adolescents’ ToM and their self-concept in

two separate cross-cultural samples in Canada and Poland. Thus, the main goal of this

study was to explore how adolescents in Canada and Poland interpret and explain

ambiguous social situations within a ToM framework, and if this ability is related to self-

concept, how does it differ between two culturally different groups. Thus, this study

aimed to explore the following research questions: first, do Polish and Canadian

adolescents interpret social situations differently based on a ToM model, second, what is

the relationship (if any) between ToM and self-concept and third, is the relationship

between ToM and self-concept different between the Polish and Canadian samples? The

results are discussed in terms of the aforementioned questions followed by limitations

and implications for developmentally and culturally appropriate practice and future

research.

Overall, this study suggests that relationships between ToM and self-concept may

differ between the Canadian and Polish samples. Regarding the first research question, the

results show that the majority of Canadian participants tried to understand a social

ambiguous situation through references to their own experiences, whereas the Polish

sample did not refer to personal experiences in the interpretations of ToM stories. We

imagine that there may exist many explanations to make sense of this finding. First,

children in the late childhood and pre-adolescent age may rely on their own experiences as

a basis for understanding other people (Harter, 1999). If it is so, that result would support

the simulation approach (e.g. Harris, 2000) in which social cognition depends upon the

process of projecting one’s own experience. A second significant result found that,

compared with the Polish participants, a positive association was found between ToM and

self-concept among the Canadian participants only.

Developmentally, Canadian participants were on average younger in age than the

Polish participants. It is possible that the younger Canadian participants explained social

situations using their own experiences (by simulation). In contrast, the older Polish

participants, on the basis of generalisation, explained social situations without direct

reference to their personal experiences. This difference between the findings in the two

samples, especially lack of correlation between ToM and self-concept in older group, may

be related to important developmental changes that occur during adolescence. Generally,

we could interpret this finding as an expression of the process of diversification of

two developmental trajectories – self-concept development and ToM development.

In particular, we want to point the well-documented interpretation that, during

adolescence, the maturation of brain structures is related to changes in cognitive

functioning and also social cognition (see e.g. Blakemore, 2007; Burnett, Sebastian,

Cohen Kadosh, & Blakemore, 2011; Moriguchi, Ohnishi, Mori, Matsud, & Komaki,

2007). The development of abstract thinking may play a crucial role in the transition from

self-experience-based ToM to more general (or abstract) ToM (see also Nelson, 2007). As

we could not directly test for age differences in this study, future research needs to explore

the developmental changes that may influence the relationships among sociocultural and

neurocognitive functioning, ToM and self-concept across the lifespan and in multiple

cultural contexts.

As mentioned earlier, the present findings also support the psychocultural theoretical

framework that emphasises the importance of social context in self-development (Barresi

& Moore, 1996; Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Culturally, in Poland, compared with Canada,

there may be possible power differentials within the researcher–participant relationships

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given that the Polish cultural context may emphasise a greater sense of collectivism as

opposed to individualism that may be more focused in Canada (Oyserman et al., 2002).

Given this possible power differential, Polish youth may be less likely to refer to the self

or a more personal interpretation of the ToM stories, as a sign of respect towards the

researcher who may be perceived as an authority figure.

In contrast, Canadian youthmay feelmore comfortablewithin the participant–researcher

relationship as the Canadian culture may place an emphasis on individualism as compared

with collectivism, and thus more likely to refer to their individual experiences. Nevertheless,

given that for the Canadian and Polish samples we did not collect data about the

individualistic/collectivistic orientations of the parents (e.g. self-reported parenting practices

and attitudes), we realise that the family structure and parental beliefs may have influenced

our results. Thus, we must interpret our findings with caution and support future research.

In addition to cultural and developmental limitations, the use of translated measures

(from English to Polish) may have influenced the results as the tasks were adapted and

translated from a Canadian-English version to a Polish version. Furthermore, the general

language competence and working memory of all participants may have influenced the

results and would be useful to include in a future study. For example, according to

previous research (Bialystok, 1999; Kovacs, 2009), ToM should be explored in various

cultural contexts in which children speak more than one language because the ability to

speak more thank one language may influence ToM performance directly and indirectly

(via better executive function in bi- and multilinguals).

Moreover, given that according to the previous research conversation with parents

and peers may play a role in the development of ToM and self-concept (Dunn, 1994;

Ensor & Hughes, 2008; Harter, 1999; Nelson, 2005), there remains a need to explore the

relationships among multilingualism, ToM and self-concept in Canadian and Polish youth

as well as in other countries. To help educators learn about the role of family relationships

and language in children’s ToM and self-development, future research needs to explore

the role parental language and educational background, and cultural beliefs may play in

young people’s self-concepts and ToM understanding.

Apart from the limitations, the current study furthers the discourse onToMdevelopment

cross-culturally by highlighting the complexity of socioemotional experiences during the

transition from late childhood to adolescence, in particular regarding issues of ToM and

self-perceptions. Consistentwith the claim among researchers (Denham, 1998;Dunn, 2008;

Hughes, 2011), the results of this study warrant further investigation and may encourage

further longitudinal study of the relationships and the associations among ToM

understanding and metacognitive and social-cognitive abilities (e.g. self-understanding,

moral sensibility, understanding and creation of humour/jokes, verbal aggression and

teasing, irony and sarcasm, and lying) among adolescence across different cultural contexts

(Oberle et al., 2011).

The present research makes two significant contributions to the current discourse on

social cognition in adolescence. Theoretically, it highlights the complex relationships

between higher-order ToM understanding and perceptions of self in Canadian and Polish

youth. Given the applications of the results to an educational context, practically the

results of the study provide empirical groundwork for cross-cultural educational

programmes that may aim to foster cultural competence and social-cognitive skills. The

present findings shed new light on patterns of cross-cultural comparisons in ToM as well

as revealing cross-cultural variation in other social-cognitive concepts that may influence

ToM and reflect variation in adolescents’ school experiences.

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Acknowledgements

Portions of the present study (Canadian sample) were supported in part by a standard research grantto the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#410-2003-0950). Many thanks to the participating schools for their support, and to Spogmai Akseer, KamillaAkseer, Tabasum Akseer, Mandy Frake, Wenchun Han, Pam Klassen-Dueck, Mary Grace Lao,Brianne Litke, Shelley Smith, Katie Sykes, and Amanda Varnish for their help with data collectionand data coding.

Notes on contributors

Sandra Bosacki teaches in the Faculty of Education at Brock University. Her main research interestsinvolve social and emotional development in children and adolescents within the educationalcontext.

Marta Bialecka-Pikul is a research fellow and lecturer in the Institute of Psychology of JagiellonianUniversity (Krakow, Poland). As a developmental psychologist she is interested mainly in cognitiveand social development especially in theory of mind in lifespan perspective.

Marta Szpak is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Psychology of Jagiellonian University (Krakow,Poland). Her main interests concern the development of mentalization and consequences of itsdistortion for mental and social functioning.

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Appendix 1

Nancy/Margie

Nancy and Margie are watching the children in the playground. Without saying a word, Nancynudges Margie and looks across the playground at the new girl swinging on the swing set.Then Nancy looks back at Margie and smiles. Margie nods, and the two of them start offtoward the girl at the swingset. The new girl sees the strange girl walk towards her. She’d seenthem nudging and smiling at each other. Although they are in her class, she has never spokento them before. The new girl wonders what they could want.

Kenny/Mark

Kenny and Mark are co-captains of the soccer team. They have one person left to choose forthe team. Without saying a word, Mark winks at Kenny and looks at Tom who is one of thelast children left to be chosen. Mark looks back at Kenny and smiles. Kenny nods and choosesTom to be on their team. Tom sees Mark and Kenny winking and smiling at each other. Tom,who is usually one of the last to be picked for team sports, wonders why Kenny wants him tobe on his team.

Details for the specific coding procedures can be found in previous research (e.g. Bosacki,2000; Bosacki & Astington, 1999).

Nancy/Margie (Polish version)

During lunch break, Nancy and Margie are watching other workers in the canteen. Withoutsaying a word, Nancy nudges Margie and looks across the canteen/eatery at the new girl

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eating. Then Nancy looks back at Margie and smiles. Margie nods, and the two of them startoff towards the girl. The new girl sees the strange women walk towards her. She’d seen themnudging and smiling at each other. Although they are in her team, she has never spoken tothem before. The new girl wonders what they could want.

Comprehension/memory questions

1. Does the new girl see Nancy and Margie nudging and smiling at each other?

Yes/No

2. Has the new girl ever spoken to Nancy and Margie before? Yes/No

Test questions

1. What do you think will happen next?

2. Why Margie and Nancy will do this?

3. Could you tell other end of the story?

4. Why Margie and Nancy will do this?

Kenny/Mark (Polish version)

Kenny and Mark are co-captains of the soccer team. They have one person left to choose forthe team. Without saying a word, Mark winks at Kenny and looks at Tom who is one of thelast players left to be chosen. Mark looks back at Kenny and smiles. Kenny nods and choosesTom to be on their team. Tom sees Mark and Kenny winking and smiling at each other. Tom,who is usually one of the last to be picked for team sports, wonders why Kenny wants him tobe on his team.

Comprehension/memory questions

1. Does Tom see Mark and Kenny winking and smiling at each other? Yes/No

2. Is Tom usually the first person to be picked for team sports? Yes/No

Test questions

1. What do you think will happen next?

2. Why Kenny and Mark will do this?

3. Could you tell other end of the story?

4. Why Kenny and Mark will do this?

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