Reading minds by reading books. The relationship between the reading habits and second order theory of mind performance of school aged children in Romania
Summary
Abstract: The present study looked into the relationship between second order theory of mind abilities and the reading habits of 54 Romanian children between 7-12 years old. Second order theory of mind is a more advanced form of theory of mind, and it is broadly defined as the ability to infer what one person thinks about another person’s thoughts and mental states. Method: Children were interviewed individually in sessions of approximatively 45 minutes. Theory of mind performance was assessed through shortened versions of two instruments: Strange Stories (Happe ́, 1994) and Faux Pas (Baron-Cohen, 1999). Fourteen short stories, which children read out loud, were followed by a few questions which assessed their understanding of the situations in the stories. Children also completed a questionnaire composed of a broad range of closed and openended questions which looked into their reading habits. Four factors were identified: “time spent reading”, “number of books read”, “pleasure of reading” and “preference for books with ToM profile”. The four factors accounted for 75% of the total variation. Results: As expected, scores for the Strange Stories instrument tend to increase with the age of children, with a faster increase in the case of girls. Contrary to our expectations, there was no statistically significant age effect for the faux-pas stories. Positive correlations were found between the scores for the Strange stories instrument and two factors related to the reading habits of children: “Time spent reading” (0.31, p = .024) and “Number of books read” (.25, p = .07). Conclusion: The present study found that there is a positive effect of reading on the theory of mind scores of school aged Romanian children.