Inferring others' inner states: Different developmental trends across Britain and Japan?
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: Sch of Psychology
Abstract
Children's ability to understand the feelings, desires and thoughts of others is crucial in their capacity to interpret and predict the behaviour of others. Children who are better able to understand the minds of others tend to do well academically and are better able to navigate social situations. As such, a great deal of research has focused on exploring differences in children's development of understanding minds.
Does children's development in this area depend on culture and upbringing? If so, do children from different cultures develop an understanding of minds in different ways? Recent research has demonstrated that children from Britain outperform children from Japan on tasks designed to test children's ability to understand minds. This is surprising, given that in Japan, children are encouraged to think about the minds of others by their parents and teachers, perhaps to a greater extent than is typical in the UK. While it is possible that children in Britain are more able to understand the minds of others, it is also possible that the tasks designed to tap children's understanding of minds underestimate Japanese children's abilities, raising the possibility that better measures will reveal that Japanese children outperform British children. Another view is that while British children may outperform Japanese children early in childhood, children in Japan might demonstrate advantages later in development.
We plan a number of networking activities for two main goals: Firstly, to bring together researchers based in the United Kingdom (University of Nottingham and University of Cambridge) and in Japan (Osaka Shoin Women's University) to plan and write a high-quality joint research proposal to secure funds to investigate cross-cultural differences in children's developing understanding of minds. As a part of this preparation, we will create a measure of understanding minds that is appropriate for participants of different ages and from different cultures. We will also plan a series of studies designed to investigate children's performance on the new task and to explore reasons why cross-cultural differences might exist. It is possible that cross-cultural differences in children's understanding of minds might be due to differences in children's conversational environments in the home. Part of our scoping therefore, will be to investigate the utility of the latest technologies to record the form and content of conversations children have with their families in the home.
The second goal of these networking activities is to establish sustainable relationships between British and Japanese researchers, with the view to share skills and knowledge. Both the teams in the UK and Japan have numerous skills and expertise to bring to the project, and the series of planned visits will give opportunities to share these with members of the team. This will be to the particular benefit of the British and Japanese early career researchers partaking in the research visits. We also plan two workshops in the UK and in Japan, to bring together a wider audience of researchers to foster and sustain relationships and promote the exchange of skills and knowledge.
These networking events will enable the start of a long-lasting research collaboration between the UK and Japan. Should the research proposal we plan to develop be successful, the findings from this project will have great impact within the research community, for the general public, the community of childcare practitioners and within the community concerned with childhood disorders. We plan that the findings from this project will be shared with the research community by high-quality presentations and publications. Our collective connections with representatives from interested parties and commitment to engaging with the public at outreach events will ensure the findings reach a diverse audience.
Does children's development in this area depend on culture and upbringing? If so, do children from different cultures develop an understanding of minds in different ways? Recent research has demonstrated that children from Britain outperform children from Japan on tasks designed to test children's ability to understand minds. This is surprising, given that in Japan, children are encouraged to think about the minds of others by their parents and teachers, perhaps to a greater extent than is typical in the UK. While it is possible that children in Britain are more able to understand the minds of others, it is also possible that the tasks designed to tap children's understanding of minds underestimate Japanese children's abilities, raising the possibility that better measures will reveal that Japanese children outperform British children. Another view is that while British children may outperform Japanese children early in childhood, children in Japan might demonstrate advantages later in development.
We plan a number of networking activities for two main goals: Firstly, to bring together researchers based in the United Kingdom (University of Nottingham and University of Cambridge) and in Japan (Osaka Shoin Women's University) to plan and write a high-quality joint research proposal to secure funds to investigate cross-cultural differences in children's developing understanding of minds. As a part of this preparation, we will create a measure of understanding minds that is appropriate for participants of different ages and from different cultures. We will also plan a series of studies designed to investigate children's performance on the new task and to explore reasons why cross-cultural differences might exist. It is possible that cross-cultural differences in children's understanding of minds might be due to differences in children's conversational environments in the home. Part of our scoping therefore, will be to investigate the utility of the latest technologies to record the form and content of conversations children have with their families in the home.
The second goal of these networking activities is to establish sustainable relationships between British and Japanese researchers, with the view to share skills and knowledge. Both the teams in the UK and Japan have numerous skills and expertise to bring to the project, and the series of planned visits will give opportunities to share these with members of the team. This will be to the particular benefit of the British and Japanese early career researchers partaking in the research visits. We also plan two workshops in the UK and in Japan, to bring together a wider audience of researchers to foster and sustain relationships and promote the exchange of skills and knowledge.
These networking events will enable the start of a long-lasting research collaboration between the UK and Japan. Should the research proposal we plan to develop be successful, the findings from this project will have great impact within the research community, for the general public, the community of childcare practitioners and within the community concerned with childhood disorders. We plan that the findings from this project will be shared with the research community by high-quality presentations and publications. Our collective connections with representatives from interested parties and commitment to engaging with the public at outreach events will ensure the findings reach a diverse audience.
Planned Impact
In addition to the research community, we identify three groups who will benefit from this research. They include the general public, the educational community, and the community concerned with atypical development.
General public. The knowledge generated from the research proposal will be of benefit to the general public. The notion of diversity has been of increasing importance for people to live in harmony in modern societies. Appreciating other people's inner states is a vital skill as it fosters the exchange of ideas and thoughts, making our society more harmonious and prosperous. This project will increase awareness and understanding of cross-cultural differences and similarities for the general public; this is an essential step forward in promoting inclusion in multicultural groups.
We aim to share our project with children and adults at public engagement events designed to disseminate findings and engage the public in the types of research being conducted in universities. Public events we will engage with include: 'Science Week', 'Science in the Park', the 'Research Café' and 'A Pint of Science' events offered within the UK.
Educational community. The findings of this project will be of interest to both parents and professionals (e.g., educators). The work will provide knowledge about the role and importance of cross-cultural differences in a key aspect of child development. The transfer of this knowledge will be of benefit to those in the care of children by promoting awareness of individual differences in child development. Childcare and educational professionals may also integrate this knowledge into their practice; for example, teachers' knowledge of cross-cultural differences in children's understanding of other people could be considered when assessing pupils' social and emotional development.
As such, the findings from the proposed collaboration will be communicated in the UK and in Japan by brief reports available to participating schools, website posts, and by liaising with representatives of interested parties by exploiting the collaborators' contacts with professionals in the educational community (for example, within the Association of Private Kindergartens in Osaka, Japan, and the Doctorate in Educational Psychology Programme in Nottingham, UK).
Community concerned with atypical development. Our findings will be beneficial to communities concerned with atypical development, including representatives of self-advocacy groups, parent-advocacy groups and clinicians. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, often demonstrate difficulties in understanding the minds of others. As such, the findings will be of interest to representatives of the autism community, who are motivated to understand the challenges faced by autistic people.
For clinicians, the findings from the project proposed within this collaboration will provide knowledge of typically developing populations across cultures, which is essential for determining atypical development within a particular context. If developmental trajectories in understanding minds do differ across cultures then it is possible that the emergence of autism will be different in different cultures. Moreover, understanding the contribution of the linguistic environment to theory of mind development could also inform interventions aimed at improving understanding of other minds in conditions like autism.
Our collaborators' links with both autism research groups and with members of the autism community will promote new insights into this research. We will also host workshops designed to engage both autism practitioners and autistic people to provide a platform for knowledge transfer between professionals, autistic people and members of our team.
General public. The knowledge generated from the research proposal will be of benefit to the general public. The notion of diversity has been of increasing importance for people to live in harmony in modern societies. Appreciating other people's inner states is a vital skill as it fosters the exchange of ideas and thoughts, making our society more harmonious and prosperous. This project will increase awareness and understanding of cross-cultural differences and similarities for the general public; this is an essential step forward in promoting inclusion in multicultural groups.
We aim to share our project with children and adults at public engagement events designed to disseminate findings and engage the public in the types of research being conducted in universities. Public events we will engage with include: 'Science Week', 'Science in the Park', the 'Research Café' and 'A Pint of Science' events offered within the UK.
Educational community. The findings of this project will be of interest to both parents and professionals (e.g., educators). The work will provide knowledge about the role and importance of cross-cultural differences in a key aspect of child development. The transfer of this knowledge will be of benefit to those in the care of children by promoting awareness of individual differences in child development. Childcare and educational professionals may also integrate this knowledge into their practice; for example, teachers' knowledge of cross-cultural differences in children's understanding of other people could be considered when assessing pupils' social and emotional development.
As such, the findings from the proposed collaboration will be communicated in the UK and in Japan by brief reports available to participating schools, website posts, and by liaising with representatives of interested parties by exploiting the collaborators' contacts with professionals in the educational community (for example, within the Association of Private Kindergartens in Osaka, Japan, and the Doctorate in Educational Psychology Programme in Nottingham, UK).
Community concerned with atypical development. Our findings will be beneficial to communities concerned with atypical development, including representatives of self-advocacy groups, parent-advocacy groups and clinicians. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, often demonstrate difficulties in understanding the minds of others. As such, the findings will be of interest to representatives of the autism community, who are motivated to understand the challenges faced by autistic people.
For clinicians, the findings from the project proposed within this collaboration will provide knowledge of typically developing populations across cultures, which is essential for determining atypical development within a particular context. If developmental trajectories in understanding minds do differ across cultures then it is possible that the emergence of autism will be different in different cultures. Moreover, understanding the contribution of the linguistic environment to theory of mind development could also inform interventions aimed at improving understanding of other minds in conditions like autism.
Our collaborators' links with both autism research groups and with members of the autism community will promote new insights into this research. We will also host workshops designed to engage both autism practitioners and autistic people to provide a platform for knowledge transfer between professionals, autistic people and members of our team.
| Description | There were two key objectives: One was to bring together researchers from Britain and Japan in the area of social development through a series of workshops and other activities; another was to develop experimental materials to investigate difference sin developmental trends across Britain and Japan in the ability to interpret signals in other people's behaviour. With respect to the first objective, we held a workshop in the UK (Stoke) in September, attended by 20 Japanese delegates (early and mid-career researchers in social development) and roughly the same number of UK delegates. This is followed by a delegation of 6 people from the UK visiting Japan at the beginning of March 2020 to deliver a similar workshop, to deliver a symposium at the conference under the auspices of the Japan Society for Developmental Psychology (JSDP) and to deliver a keynote address at this conference. This will be followed by a similar workshop in London, September 2020, which will be attended by at least 20 Japanese delegates and 20 delegates based in the UK. In addition, the project has enabled a series of high level meetings with the Chair and Committee members of JSDP plus officers of the British Psychology Society. A memorandum of agreement is close to being signed by these two parties to pursue activities that will facilitate research collaborations between UK and Japan of the kind proposed in the grant application. With respect to the second objective, The PI has spent more than two months in Japan over the past 12 months and CI Tsuji has spent one month in the UK. During this time, with the help of UK collaborators, we have designed a scheme for creating experimental materials and the practical work connected with this will be complete by the end of June, 2020. These materials will quite likely be of the highest quality for making informative comparisons between children in the UK and Japan for measuring an aspect of social development. Update: Unfortunately, due to lockdown and travel restrictions, this latter part of the project has been on hold for nearly one year. It has not been possible to use lab facilities since March 2020 and therefore it has not been possible to create experimental materials and neither has it been possible to share these with collaborators in Japan; other activities in connection with these materials, including training in research techniques, have also been postponed. However, University of Nottingham School of Psychology has been extremely supportive in renewing a budget to part-fund the creation of experimental materials. This budget remains available until July 2021. |
| Exploitation Route | Active collaborations are being established by researchers in the UK and in Japan. This is apparent in joint symposia at international conferences, joint grant applications in the planning and joint publications. The experimental materials will be used as the basis for a future grant application by the PI plus collaborators in the UK and in Japan; The materials will also be used on another ESRC funded project: ES/T00049X/1 |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Education |
| Description | Japan Society for Developmental Psychology (JSDP) |
| Organisation | Japan Society for Developmental Psychology |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Supplying a workshop, a symposium and keynote addresses to the JSDP annual conference |
| Collaborator Contribution | Contributing delegates to workshops and events funding by this research project |
| Impact | Outputs have not yet sufficient time to materialise. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary, covering psychology, education and mental health. Note that a formal agreement is pending, even though I ticked 'no' in the box below asking about this. |
| Start Year | 2019 |