CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

The Development of Theory of Mind: Historical

Reflections
Henry M. Wellman
University of Michigan

ABSTRACT—In this article, I reflect on theory of mind as a in to this day. But my research with Flavell was focused on
field, including how it arose and how it developed. My memory development and then metacognition, a topic that was
research has been intertwined with this process; beginning being created from scratch in my years at Minnesota.
right out of graduate school, my career developed along My interest in metacognition morphed into a more basic one
with the field, and I contributed to the field and its devel- involving what children think about the mind more generally,
opment at various points. So this essay also traces my path not just their ideas about memory and learning. This more aptly
as I strived, and still strive, to understand how theory of fed my Piaget-fueled intrigue with children’s concepts. At Min-
mind begins and unfolds in human development, what nesota, Carl Johnson and I began revisiting Piaget’s claims
forces shape that development, and what accounts best about children’s understanding of mind.
explain the timetables and progressions of theory-of-mind One thing that benefitted the field and me is that, early on,
understandings in humans. I end with my sense of where theory of mind attracted some unusually insightful scholars who,
theory-of-mind research is likely to head in the near while often at odds, were collegial and open to argument, data,
future. and alternative viewpoints; these included Paul Harris, Alison
Gopnik, Josef Perner, Alan Leslie, and Janet Astington. They
KEYWORDS—history; theory of mind
and others continued developing the topic while recruiting stu-
dents and junior colleagues to the endeavor, and seducing some
Edmund Wilson, the famous evolutionary biologist, reportedly senior scholars like Flavell.
told aspiring researchers that a good scientist should be bright In what follows, I outline where we have been, where we are,
enough to spot a promising research endeavor, but not so bright and my sense of directions for the future. My own insider
as to become bored doing it. For 35 years, I have not been appraisals clearly color this synopsis: Mine is not an unbiased
bored with theory of mind. perspective and this is not unbiased history.
There was a time before theory of mind, of course, both for
developmental science and for me. For graduate school, I chose ORIGINS, IN TWOS
the Institute of Child Development at Minnesota because, being
a preschool teacher, there I could opt for either an academic or The question of how people come to understand their own and
an early childhood education degree. Fortunately, my assigned others’ minds has a long history in philosophy and psychology.
advisor was John Flavell. He was the foremost expert on Piaget But two thrusts launched the field within developmental science.
outside of Geneva, but at that point I had not heard of Flavell or For some, like me, interests morphed from metacognition to
Piaget. I was quickly drawn to Piaget for his insistence on con- mind. For others, David Premack and Guy Woodruff’s (1) semi-
structionism to understand development, an approach I believe nal article, “Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?” set
things off. That phrase—theory of mind—caught on quickly, in
part, because it was catchy. But for some of us, it also aptly fit
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to an emerging theory theory: the theoretical claim that children’s
Henry M. Wellman, Department of Psychology, University of
conceptual development constitutes na€ıve theory development
Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 49109; e-mail: hmw@
umich.edu. (2–4). In my view, theory of mind remains the best example of a
foundational theory of everyday cognition, an early developing
© 2017 The Author
Child Development Perspectives © 2017 The Society for Research in Child Development na€ıve psychology that complements children’s na€ıve physics and
DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12236 biology (5).

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208 Henry M. Wellman

Two conferences in 1986 incubated the field further, one Researchers have looked at variations in upbringing to identify
organized by Astington and Gopnik at Toronto, one organized by both universal and culture-specific aspects of theory-of-mind
Harris at Oxford. Several of us attended both; the resulting conceptions and trajectories. They have also examined relations
papers were collected into a book (6), a rare edited volume that with languages being acquired. Research with monkeys, chim-
shaped research for years to come. Two early books, one by me panzees, and surprisingly, dogs has shed light on the nature of
(7) and one by Perner (8), helped create further interest. distinctively human theory of mind (harkening back to Premack
Finally, two aspects of mind were covered in early work: and Woodruff). That research has inspired theories, such as the
roughly, mental states and mental entities. Understanding men- social brain hypothesis (11), which argue that evolutionary
tal states was studied by assessing 3- to 6-year-olds’ apprecia- increases in social cognition fueled advances in human intelli-
tion of how agents’ beliefs and desires work together to produce gence more broadly. (For supporting information and references
intentional behavior (9), including actions driven by false beliefs for these areas, see ref. 12.) These discoveries attest to the
(10). Comprehending mental entities involved assessing chil- health of the field. Moreover, several of these topics are particu-
dren’s understanding that thoughts and physical objects (e.g., a larly rich in data and debate, allowing for deeper consideration
thought about a dog vs. a dog, or thoughts vs. close imposters, of past developments and pointing to directions for research.
such as air, shadows, and moving pictures) are two very different
sorts of things, one nonmaterial and mental, the other physical, Developmental Progressions in Understanding Theory of
tangible, and real (7). Contradicting Piaget’s claims about child- Mind
hood realism, young children were surprisingly good at both of Early on, many researchers studying theory of mind became
these nonobvious and abstract understandings. obsessed with false belief. False-belief tasks, as in Figure 1, can
be very simple, and have many variants appropriate to different
DEVELOPMENT cultures and contexts. This led to hundreds of studies and sev-
eral revealing meta-analyses e.g., (13). While false belief was, in
Development includes origins and change, and so does this hindsight, a lucky find, focus on a single task (even in aggre-
field. Over the years, research expanded in breadth and depth, gated batteries) is misleading and “not very developmental” (14,
producing studies on the development of theory of mind in p. 316). A wider developmental perspective was clearly needed.
infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and even late life; Theory-of-mind understandings begin in infancy, but also pro-
on emotion understanding; and on children’s conversations gress: Early understandings of intentional action give way to
about people and minds through the use of terms like think, later belief-desire systems of understanding, where children
want, feel, and guess. Researchers have also examined underpin- show knowledge that actions are produced from an agent’s
nings of theory-of-mind understandings in evolutionary pro- desires and beliefs in combination. At its simplest, we see peo-
cesses, neural processes, and developmental learning (including ple engaging in actions they believe will get them what they
computational models of constructivist learning); development want. Even preschoolers do this.
in typical and atypical populations (e.g., individuals with autism Clearly, such understandings must encompass notions about
or deafness); and individual differences in theory-of-mind devel- desires as well as beliefs, and researchers discovered early that
opment. children understood certain things about desires before achiev-
Individual differences are no more or less important than these ing parallel insights about beliefs. For example, as outlined in
other topics, but individual variation in reaching theory-of-mind Table 1, on simple tasks, children understand diverse desires
milestones helped address antecedents of theory-of-mind compe- before understanding diverse beliefs. A progression from reason-
tence, such as engagement in pretend play, having siblings, fre- ing about desires to reasoning about beliefs also characterizes
quency of engagement in explanatory conversations, and growing children’s conversations (15, 16).
up bilingual. The research has been not only longitudinal and More extended progressions of understanding further charac-
correlational, but also experimental, including microgenetic terize theory-of-mind development and have been useful in illu-
studies designed to accelerate the ordinary experiences that minating the origins and mechanisms of development and
arguably propel theory-of-mind acquisition. Similarly, such vari- change. Consider the theory-of-mind scale (17) that encom-
ation allowed investigators to show that theory-of-mind develop- passes carefully constructed tasks assessing children’s under-
ments have wide-ranging consequences, including significant standing of all the distinctions in Table 1. Studies using this
impacts on children’s friendships and popularity, engagement scale with hundreds of preschoolers in Australia, Canada, Ger-
in lying and deception, game-playing skills, strategies for many, and the United States show a consistent order of diffi-
persuading or arguing with others, and transition to school. culty, as seen going from top to bottom in Table 1. Validated
The list does not end there: Theory-of-mind advances predict progressions like this allow deeper examination of development,
children’s cognitive skills, such as their metacognitive strategies including the extent to which theory-of-mind developments are
(harkening back to metacognition), learning reading and mathe- culturally universal or specific, and do or do not depend on
matics content, and acceptance of feedback from teachers. specific childhood experiences.

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 Reflections 209

Figure 1. Two common false-belief tasks for children.

Note. False-belief tasks have many forms, but two common ones use changed locations (top) or deceptive contents (bottom). Younger children consistently
incorrectly say the character will search in the cupboard (where the target object really is) or will think the Band-Aid box has a toy truck inside.

Table 1
The Theory-of-Mind Scale Items.
Task Brief description
1. Diverse desires Child judges that two persons (the child versus someone else or two other people) have different desires
about the same object (e.g., one likes broccoli and the other does not).
2. Diverse beliefs Child judges that two persons have different beliefs about the same object, when the child does not know
which belief is true or false (e.g., one thinks an occluded box holds a car and the other thinks it holds a
ball).
3. Knowledge access Child judges another person’s ignorance about the contents of a container when child knows what is in the
container (e.g., child knows drawer hides a toy dog, but child judges that another person who has never
seen inside does not know what is there).
4. Contents false beliefa Child judges another person’s false belief about what is in a distinctive container when child knows what is
in the container (e.g., child knows a familiar Band-Aid box has a truck inside, but judges what someone
else who has never seen inside will think it contains).
5. Hidden emotion Child judges that a person can feel one thing but display a different emotion (e.g., character feels sad but
can look happy on his face).
a
Other false-belief tasks can be used. For several reasons (17) contents false belief is the task included in the standard five-step scale.

One possibility is that early theory-of mind achievements rep- part, by comparing Western and Chinese children. Many schol-
resent maturational unfolding of some theory-of-mind device or ars contrast an Asian focus on people sharing group commonali-
module. If so, then sequences and timetables for theory-of-mind ties and interdependence with a Western focus on people as
developments should be universal. Alternatively, perhaps the- distinctively individual and independent. Indeed, in conversa-
ory-of-mind understandings are the products of social and evi- tion with young children, Chinese parents comment frequently
dential experiences that vary from child to child and across on knowing (18), including consensual knowledge that everyone
communities. Tests of such alternatives were undertaken, in should learn, while American parents comment more on

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210 Henry M. Wellman

thinking (15), including differences in thoughts among different looks opaque yet is easily seen through, 18-month-olds
individuals. follow the head turns of adults wearing that blindfold. Thus, by
Accordingly, Chinese preschoolers show a consistent but dif- 12–18 months, infants have a sense that people’s visual experi-
ferent theory-of-mind sequence from that of Western children in ences control their gaze (which represents more than just overt
which knowledge access and diverse beliefs are reversed (19). eye or head directedness).
After early understanding of basic aspects of desire, Western In the last 10 years, researchers have claimed that infants go
children first appreciate differences in beliefs, whereas Chinese beyond an understanding of intentional actions and experiences:
children first appreciate acquisition of and access to knowledge By 10–15 months, they recognize that people act on the basis of
—as do children in Iran (20) and Turkey. The two sequences their beliefs and false beliefs. The top of Figure 2 presents an
are crucially different (indicating experience-dependent pro- initial influential task by Kristine Onishi and Renee Baillargeon
cesses of theory-of-mind learning) yet notably similar (indicating (25). Other demonstrations have accumulated step by step.
robust, universal theory-of-mind development). Although these studies are clever and revealing, how their
Theory-of-mind timetables differ as well, sometimes dramati- findings should best be interpreted remains controversial.
cally. An early discovery that false-belief understanding is sub- For example, such findings are often interpreted in deeply
stantially delayed in autistic children led to the theory-of-mind nativist fashions as revealing initial understandings that emerge
hypothesis for autism (21). But autism, with its neurologically without learning. But recent research with deaf infants of hear-
based, across-the-board delays, could have its own delayed mat- ing parents shows that they do not show the same false-belief
urational timetable. Yet deaf children, who do not suffer from responses that hearing infants do (26). In my view, experience-
the same central neurological impairments and retardation as dependent (constructivist) learning characterizes theory-of-mind
children with autism, also often have serious theory-of-mind understanding from its beginning. Regardless of whether these
delays. studies reveal that infants truly understand false beliefs, they
About 95% of deaf children are born to hearing parents and confirm that infants typically understand agents as goal directed,
(unlike deaf children of deaf parents) grow up with early experi- that agents’ changing experiences yield for them awareness or
ences that are very different from their hearing peers. For exam- unawareness of key events, and that aware and unaware agents
ple, hearing parents mostly communicate didactically with their act differently.
young deaf child using simple signs or gestures to refer to One pressing question from this research with infants con-
objects. Moreover, their deaf children are likely to have cerns how infants’ understandings relate to later theory-of-mind
restricted play with others, resulting in less access to free-flow- accomplishments (which, recall, shape children’s social actions
ing social–communicative interactions, and little exposure to and interactions profoundly). At the least, we now know that
discourse about internal states like thoughts and emotions. Deaf individual differences in infants’ social-cognitive understandings
children of hearing parents are substantially delayed in under- longitudinally predict differences in the timing of preschoolers’
standing false beliefs, like children with autism (22). More com- theory-of-mind achievements (27, 28).
prehensively, they have consistently delayed sequences of
understandings on the theory-of-mind scale, taking 12 or more Chimpanzees and Dogs
years to progressively achieve theory-of-mind insights that What sorts of theory-of-mind achievements are apparent in our
hearing children achieve in 4–6 years (23). closest primate relatives? This provocative question, posed by
Premack and Woodruff, has an extended history. For many
Infants’ Theory of Mind years, the conclusion was: none (29, 30). Primates performed
Theory-of-mind research began with older children and scrolled poorly on all sorts of tasks (many with parallels in research on
backward toward infancy. The earliest examples of psychologi- human infants) designed to demonstrate awareness of the inter-
cal construals of people appear in infants’ understandings of nal states of others. But this early research used cooperative–
intentional action and experience; by the end of the first year, communicative paradigms, where success depended on appreci-
children begin to treat themselves and others as intentional ating that someone’s goal was to help (e.g., share food with the
agents that have internal experiences. chimpanzee). In competition paradigms, chimpanzees performed
Consider infant gaze following. Conceivably, infants may just more optimally. For example, take a situation in which a piece
automatically match an adult’s gaze, without any deeper under- of food is placed between a dominant and a subordinate chim-
standing. In fact, young infants often gaze follow adults wearing panzee and, because of various visual obstacles, the two have
blindfolds. Yet, when 12-month-olds have experience with differing awareness of the food; when subordinates can see two
blindfolds occluding their own vision (24), they are significantly pieces of food and the dominant chimpanzee sees only one, sub-
less likely to follow a blindfolded adult’s gaze. By 18 months, ordinates preferentially target the less-risky food that the domi-
infants do not often gaze follow a blindfolded adult—presumably nant chimpanzee cannot see. Studies suggest that chimpanzees
they now understand that blindfolds occlude visual experience. demonstrate these preferences because they understand some-
But when they have experience with a special blindfold that thing about the link between seeing and knowing (31): They

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 Reflections 211

Figure 2. Schematic display of conditions used in two different infant violation-of-expectation studies.
Note. A smiley face means the target agent is present, looking at an event phase; a crossed-out face means agent is absent (and cannot see). In (25): If infants
expect the agent to search in a prior location (on the basis of a false belief), then according to violation-of-expectation logic, they should look longer at the
reach white test event (not expecting the agent to search at the correct new location); 15-month-old infants did so.

adjust their behavior not only on the basis of what dominants deepening appreciation of the mind as different from the brain.
can currently see, but also on the basis of what dominants have When asked whether they can perform various kinds of func-
and have not seen in the past. Rhesus monkeys also show tions without a brain, and separately without a mind (34, 35),
impressive sensitivity to others’ perceptual experiences in com- the youngest children respond identically about the brain and
petitive situations. mind, and they conceive of the mind/brain as needed exclu-
Unlike chimpanzees, domestic dogs perform well on simple sively for purely mental acts. Only by fifth grade or so do chil-
tasks where they read the cooperative–communicative intentions dren become generally aware that the brain differs from the
and experiences of humans. One influential hypothesis is that mind.
dogs evolved this human-infant-like social-cognitive prowess in For me, one of the most intriguing later developments con-
their long history of domestication, with the key being the cerns children’s increasing willingness to entertain ideas of
domestication of their temperaments (to be nonaggressively, extraordinary minds and capacities. Initially, Justin Barrett (36)
nonfearfully attentive to humans; 32). This temperament hypoth- demonstrated that as children come to appreciate the constraints
esis led to research with young children. Children (even infants) of ordinary human knowledge and belief—for example, that peo-
who are nonaggressively, nonfearfully attentive to others perform ple can have false beliefs—they recognize that God could have
more optimally on theory-of-mind tasks. And they do so concur- more extraordinary powers. Many findings have followed from
rently and also in longitudinal research where early measures of this, charting children’s understanding of omniscience, afterlife,
observant-reflective social temperament predict theory-of-mind souls, and the like (35, 37). The school-age years are pivotal for
achievements several years later (33). children’s understanding of such extraordinary experiences
(even for those children in devout homes who receive instruction
Developments Beyond Preschool and exposure to these ideas very early in life; 38). These studies
Children’s understanding of mind and of people develops in show that extended progressions in children’s theories of mind
important respects beyond the ages of 5 or 6 years. For exam- are built on early preschool understandings that provide the
ple, only after the preschool years do children develop a foundation for children’s construction of later ideas, including

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212 Henry M. Wellman

their receptivity to and assimilation of sociocultural teachings, tasks). We need a progressive developmental picture. Research
doctrines, and ideas about God, superheroes, Santa Claus, and on infants’ social-cognitive learning would also be helpful. In
more. initial studies, infants applied statistical learning to acquire
information about social agents and even to infer their mental
GOING FORWARD states (41). How much of infant theory-of-mind development
might this account for?
It is easy to think of key issues for further research. More
research is needed on how theory of mind operates in adult- Cognitive Neuroscience
hood, including late life—researchers are just beginning to Investigations with adults demonstrate that theory-of-mind rea-
consider if theory of mind is party to the general declines of soning involves a network of neural regions, most consistently
cognitive aging or resistant to decline. Systematic research on the medial prefrontal cortex, and the left and right temporopari-
how early theory-of-mind differences affect children’s later etal junction, but also several temporal lobe sites (42). These
educational achievements (e.g., in reading, math, and science) regions are recruited when adults engage in mental-reasoning
has only begun (for a review see 39). Understanding extraor- tasks, and they are impaired in autistic adults.
dinary minds goes beyond agents like God and superheroes. Even if findings from studies with adults were crystal clear—
Consider robots and personified smart technological devices and they are not—they could not provide an understanding of
(e.g., Siri, Echo, Alexa); children live in a world that increas- brain and cognition earlier in development. Thus, direct neu-
ingly includes such devices. How do they think and feel rocognitive examinations of younger children are needed—
about such devices and how does this affect their interactions especially in children from 2 to 6 or 7 years, when developmen-
with and learning from them? tal changes are pronounced. Such developmental neuroscience
is just beginning (43, 44). Emerging research has already begun
Infants to show developmental changes in preschoolers in the theory-of-
Despite the boom in research with infants, it is deeply incom- mind network, which would seem unlikely if that network were
plete: Both developmental research and research specifying mature from the start and if theory of mind after infancy merely
where infants fail as well as succeed are needed. Too often, reflected changes in executive functions or language, as some
demonstrations that infants apparently understand X (false propose (45). Changes in this network are also emerging in older
belief, say) do not test or report boundary-setting conditions children, with the potential for more effectively illuminating the-
where the same infants fail. ory-of-mind changes after the preschool years.
For example, if infants understand false belief in Baillargeon-
type paradigms (see the top of Figure 2), they also must Nonhumans
understand that seeing leads to knowing and not seeing leads to Research on the theory-of-mind accomplishments (and limits) of
ignorance. But a few studies suggest they do not, including the chimps and dogs is also not yet very developmental. Mostly,
tasks used by Beatte Sodian and Claudia Thoermer (40) at the such studies have looked at adult animals. How have their now-
bottom of Figure 2. In a true-belief condition for that study (not mature capacities developed? Perhaps insights that humans
shown in Figure 2), children watched an agent that saw all the acquire easily early in life are mostly late-developing insights
movements of a toy that first went into a gray box but then trans- for chimps and dogs. Developmental research with animals
ferred to a white box (paralleling the Onishi and Baillargeon would help us understand more optimally the phylogenesis and
false-belief task, except the agent saw everything). Accordingly, ontogenesis of social cognition. More detailed information on
infants then looked longer at the reach-gray test event (because, other nonhuman species would also be informative. Recent work
given a true belief, the agent should search where the toy actu- with birds seems particularly striking (46).
ally is). Furthermore, in the ignorance condition, infants appar-
ently understood that not seeing leads to ignorance because they CONCLUSIONS, SO FAR
did not look longer to either test event (ignorant agents could
search anywhere). However, the true-belief-after-delay condition Over 30 years, the field of theory of mind has emerged, devel-
shows they probably do not fully understand that seeing leads to oped, and changed. So have I, although I remain not bored with
knowledge (or true belief). In that case, although the person saw it all. Instead, I am impressed and energized by how much has
the ball go into the gray box, infants did not look longer at the been accomplished. We began in the 1980s focusing on
white box test event. The agent saw all the relevant movements, preschoolers, but now chart theory-of-mind achievements from
and was absent for an irrelevant short time when nothing hap- infancy through adulthood, from the nursery to the schoolyard to
pened, but infants failed to understand the agent’s true belief. the classroom and into the highways and byways of social life.
Infant successes occur amid as-yet-unknown failures. We began with behaviors and now probe neural networks,
Moreover, studies with infants typically report on 15-month- genes, and social networks. We began looking at children in a
olds alone, or 18-month-olds alone (and moreover, on different few Western locales and now look worldwide. We began with

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 Reflections 213

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