Individual differences in theory of mind and children’s advanced scientific reasoning in elementary school

Recently, there has been an increased interest in the associations between theory of mind (ToM), the ability to infer others’ mental states, and academic functioning in middle childhood including scientific reasoning. This study follows this trend and addresses two gaps in the literature. First, it examines whether individual differences in ToM primarily relate to children’s acquisition of advanced scientific reasoning or also help them overcome less-sophisticated conceptions. Second, it investigates the associations between scientific reasoning and distinct aspects of the multidimensional construct of ToM (here we assessed recursive ToM, interpretive ToM, and social awareness ToM). Participants were 84 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds (41 F, 43 M) attending elementary school in northern Italy. Children were assessed for their ToM, scientific reasoning, inhibitory control, and verbal and non-verbal ability. Results showed that ToM was uniquely correlated with children’s acquisition of advanced conceptions of scientific reasoning but not with the overcoming of naïve and intermediate levels of understanding. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that this finding applies to all three ToM components and that the association between ToM and advanced scientific reasoning was independent of children’s general cognitive development (inhibitory control, and verbal and non-verbal ability). Overall, our findings suggest that ToM paves the way for more sophisticated reasoning in the science domain and that several distinct mechanisms may underlie this effect.