Theory of mind in the Pacific. Reasoning across cultures

This book is the result of intensive collaboration between anthropologists and psychologists on the scientific discipline of cross-cultural research on social cognitive development. Five interdisciplinarily composed research teams allotted to five Pacific societies were interested in the question of when and how children come to assign mental states to others. The ascription of desires or beliefs to other people is a milestone of human sociality. It allows us to understand, explain, and predict human behavior. During the last 20 years, research on children’s knowledge about the mental world, better known as theory of mind research, has become a central topic in developmental psychology and the role of cultural impact is subject of various theoretical and hitherto spare empirical accounts. Given fundamental differences between the culture of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia with regard to factors that are supposed to influence the development of social cognitive abilities, this research project, combining profound anthropological analysis of different Pacific cultures with thoroughly conducted experimental work by developmental psychologists provides deeper insight in current debates on the ontogeny of theory of mind competencies.