THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT ON THE PERFORMANCE IN A FALSE BELIEF TASK - A STRUCTURAL-ANALYSIS

In this study, 200 children (age range 2;6-5;6 years) were tested by u sing a standard task aimed at assessing their understanding of other's false belief. The children were then divided into two groups: those w ho passed and those who failed. Later, those children who had failed t he first test, were put into different groups and tested again under d ifferent conditions. This was done in order to check the effect of rep resentational and motivational Variables related to personal involveme nt on performance in the second task. The results showed a tendency to wards an improvement of performance in the second task, when the follo wing two conditions were simultaneously satisfied: (1) children were r etested with a familiar peer instead of puppets; and (2) children were actors who took part in the action instead of remaining external spec tators of the scene. A tentative explanation of the findings on the ba sis of the representational complexity of the different false belief t asks was proposed.