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There are two broad views of children's theory of mind. The mentalist view is that it emerges in infancy and is possibly innate. The minimalist view is that it emerges more gradually in childhood and is heavily dependent on learning. According to minimalism, children initially understand behaviors rather than mental states, and they are assisted in doing so by recognizing repeating patterns in behavior. The regularities in behavior allow them to predict future behaviors, succeed on theory-of-mind tasks, acquire mental state words, and eventually, understand the mental states underlying behavior. The present study provided the first clear evidence for the plausibility of this view by fitting head cameras to 54 infants aged 6 to 25 months, and recording their view of the world in their daily lives. At 6 and 12 months, infants viewed an average of 146.5 repeated behaviors per hour, a rate consistent with approximately 560,000 repetitions in their first year, and with repetitions correlating with children's acquisition of mental state words, even after controlling for their general vocabulary and a range of variables indexing social interaction. We also recorded infants' view of people searching or searching for and retrieving objects. These were 92 times less common and did not correlate with mental state vocabulary. Overall, the findings indicate that repeated behaviors provide a rich source of information for children that would readily allow them to recognize patterns in behavior and help them acquire mental state words, providing the first clear evidence for this claim of minimalism. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Six- to 25-month-olds wore head cameras to record home life from infants' point-of-view and help adjudicate between nativist and minimalist views of theory-of-mind (ToM). Nativists say ToM is too early developing to enable learning, whereas minimalists say infants learn to predict behaviors from behavior patterns in environment. Consistent with minimalism, infants had an incredibly rich exposure (146.5/h,560,000 in first year) to repeated behaviors (e.g., drinking from a cup repeatedly). Consistent with minimalism, more repeated behaviors correlated with infants' mental state vocabulary, even after controlling for gender, age, searches witnessed and non-mental state vocabulary.

Aging is associated with a decline in social understanding and general cognition. Both are integral to wellbeing and rely on similar brain regions. Thus, as the population ages, there is a growing need for knowledge on the types of activities that maintain brain health in older adulthood. Active engagement in music making might be one such activity because it places a demand on brain networks tapping into multisensory integration, learning, reward, and cognition. It has been hypothesized that this demand may promote plasticity in the frontal and temporal lobes by taxing cognitive abilities and, hence, increase resistance to age-related neurodegeneration. We examine research relevant to this hypothesis and note that there is a lack of intervention studies with a well-matched control condition and random assignment. Thus, we discuss potential causal mechanisms underlying training-related neuropsychological changes, and provide suggestions for future research. It is argued that although music training might be a valuable tool for supporting healthy neuropsychological aging and mental wellbeing, well-controlled intervention studies are necessary to provide clear evidence.

Older adults have both worse general cognition and worse social cognition. A frequent suggestion is that worse social cognition is due to worse general cognition. However, previous studies have often provided contradictory evidence. The current study examined this issue with a more extensive battery of tasks for both forms of cognition. We gave 47 young and 40 older adults three tasks to assess general cognition (processing speed, working memory, fluid intelligence) and three tasks to assess their social cognition (emotion and theory-of-mind). Older adults did worse on all tasks and there were correlations between general and social cognition. Although working memory and fluid intelligence were unique predictors of performance on the Emotion Photos task and the Eyes task, Age Group was a unique predictor on all three social cognitiaon tasks. Thus, there were relations between the two forms of cognition but older adults continued to do worse than young adults even after accounting for general cognition. We argue that this pattern of results is due to some overlap in brain areas mediating general and social cognition, but also independence, and with a differential rate of decline in brain areas dedicated to general cognition versus social cognition.

We examined Turkish participants’ mindreading accuracy toward ingroup versus outgroup targets. Three hundred and fifty-four Turkish participants were randomly assigned to one of three target groups: Turkish, Syrian, or Norwegian. The mindreading accuracy for these targets was measured along with the perceived cultural similarity of the target to the ingroup, as well as prejudice and threat perception. Participants evidenced higher mindreading accuracy toward Turkish targets compared with Syrian and Norwegian targets. Mindreading accuracy for the Syrian and Norwegian targets did not differ, but lower perceived similarity to the Turkish ingroup significantly predicted lower mentalizing for Syrian and Norwegians. In the Syrian target group, lower perceived similarity interacted with lower education and higher prejudice, resulting in a further reduction in mindreading. For Norwegian targets, lower similarity impaired mindreading through an interaction with higher threat perception. Results indicate that even when mentalizing capacity is mature, intergroup factors are linked with the deployment of mindreading.

Objectives We examined empathic accuracy, comparing young versus older perceivers, and young versus older emoters. Empathic accuracy is related to but distinct from emotion recognition because perceiver judgments of emotion are based, not on what an emoter looks to be feeling, but on what an emoter says s/he is actually feeling. Method Young (≤30 years) and older (≥60 years) adults (“emoters”) were unobtrusively videotaped while watching movie clips designed to elicit specific emotional states. The emoter videos were then presented to young and older “perceivers,” who were instructed to infer what the emoters were feeling. Results As predicted, older perceivers’ empathic accuracy was less accurate relative to young perceivers. In addition, the emotions of young emoters were considerably easier to read than those of older emoters. There was also some evidence of an own-age advantage in emotion recognition in that older adults had particular difficulty assessing emotion in young faces. Discussion These findings have important implications for real-world social adjustment, with older adults experiencing a combination of less emotional transparency and worse understanding of emotional experience.

We examined the relation between maternal responsiveness and children's acquisition of mental and non-mental state vocabulary in 59 pairs of mothers and children aged 10 to 26 months as they engaged in a free-play episode. Children wore a head camera and responsiveness was defined as maternal talk that commented on the child's actions (e.g., when the child reached for or manipulated an object visible in the head camera). As hypothesized, maternal responsiveness correlated with both mental and non-mental state vocabulary acquisition in younger children (approximately 18 months and younger) but not older children. We posit a diminishing role for maternal responsiveness in language acquisition as children grow older.

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) predict prejudice and discrimination in adults. To create analogous scales for children, we carried out four studies. First, we gave 112 adults from New Zealand (Study 1) and 146 adults from Turkey (Study 2) novel child-appropriate measures of RWA and SDO, along with the standard adult measures. The two RWA measures correlated more highly with each other than with the SDO measures, and the two SDO measures correlated more highly with each other than with the RWA measures. Study 3 tested 75 children aged 6 to 12, finding acceptable to good reliability for the two child scales. Child RWA (RWAc) and SDO (SDOc) decreased significantly over age. SDOc correlated with maternal SDO and RWA, and RWAc correlated with children's racial bias. Study 4 examined the RWAc scale with 39 children aged 5 to 11 years. There was good reliability for the RWAc scale and a correlation with anti-fat prejudice. Overall, the findings indicate that: (a) the scales are reliable, (b) SDOc correlates with parental attitudes, (c) RWAc correlates with children's prejudice, and (d) RWA and SDO are present early in life and decline with age., NA

The commentary by Baillargeon, Buttelmann and Southgate raises a number of crucial issues concerning the replicability and validity of measures of false belief in infancy. Although we agree with some of their arguments, we believe that they underestimate the replication crisis in this area. In our response to their commentary, we first analyze the current empirical situation. The upshot is that, given the available evidence, it remains very much an open question whether infants possess a rich theory of mind. We then draw out more general conclusions for future collaborative studies that have the potential to address this open question.

Repacholi and Gopnik (1997) found that the “broccoli” task revealed precocious understanding of desire in 18-month-olds. We review the findings of this study and six similar studies, and also present the results of a new broccoli task given at two time points. Repacholi and Gopnik’s findings for 18-month-olds stand out as an outlier. The broccoli task reveals some nascent understanding of desire in children aged about 24 months, but at best, only about 1/3 of such children show clear evidence of understanding, leaving much room for further development in children’s understanding of desire.

Several modern theories on the origins of human empathy and morality hold that empathic understanding is innate and use research on emotional contagion to support this claim. However, all studies on emotional contagion are limited and far from conclusive. In this article, we argue that the findings from these studies could be explained alternatively in terms of neonates responding to nonemotional acoustic features of the cries they hear rather than to the emotional distress the cries convey. We highlight several areas of concern in the literature and show how research findings on emotional contagion fit comfortably within the alternative framework of acoustic features. Beyond its implications for the literature on emotional contagion, the questions we raise have implications for theories on the origins of morality and empathic understanding. Given the recent proliferation of these theories, this highlights the need to examine with greater scrutiny the evidence that supports them, particularly studies on emotional contagion.

High levels of circulating anti-Mullerian hormone are unique to developing males, but the function of anti-Mullerian hormone in boys is unknown. In mice, anti-Mullerian hormone contributes to the male biases in the brain, but its receptors are present throughout non-sexually dimorphic portions of the brain. In humans, the speed of maturation is the most overt difference between girls and boys. We postulate that this is because anti-Mullerian hormone slows the maturation of the male human brain. One hundred and fourty three 5-year or 6-year-old boys and 38 age-matched girls drew a person and donated a blood sample. The children’s drawings were blind-scored to generate a maturity index. The level of anti-Mullerian hormone and the other Sertoli cell hormone, inhibin B, were measured by ELISA. The relationship between the children’s age, hormones and maturity index were examined by linear regression analysis. The girls drew more complex and realistic person than the boys (32%, p = 0.001), with their drawings also being larger (39%, p = 0.037) and more coloured-in (235%, p = 0.0005). The maturity index in boys correlated with age (+r = 0.43, p

Research has typically used cross-sectional designs to draw conclusions on the development of helping. This study aimed to examine the development of instrumental and empathic helping behaviors as they emerge, and assess how self-recognition might moderate this progression. Seventy-two children (14- to 25-months at T1) were assessed over four monthly sessions. Participants' individual response patterns showed instrumental helping to be a necessary precursor to empathic helping for 55.77%-67.92% of children who helped during the study. Self-recognition emerged before empathic but not instrumental helping, yet did not directly influence helping behavior.

Using a between-groups design and random assignment, this study examined 214 Turkish children's (M = 11.66 years) mindreading and general reasoning about in-group members (Turks), similar out-group members (Syrians within Turkey) and dissimilar out-group members (Northern Europeans). Children heard four mindreading and four general reasoning stories with in-group or out-group members as targets. Whereas children's general reasoning about three groups was equivalent, accuracy of mental state inferences differed by target with more accurate mindreading of in-group targets compared to both sets of out-group targets. In this Turkish sample, mindreading of Syrian targets was the least accurate. Prejudice and perceived realistic threat predicted lower mindreading. These findings have important implications for understanding how similarity and intergroup processes play a role in children's mindreading.

Recently, some authors have suggested that age-related impairments in social-cognitive abilities-emotion recognition (ER) and theory of mind (ToM)-may be explained in terms of reduced motivation and effort mobilization in older adults. We examined performance on ER and ToM tasks, as well as corresponding control tasks, experimentally manipulating self-involvement. Sixty-one older adults and 57 young adults were randomly assigned to either a High or Low self-involvement condition. In the first condition, self-involvement was raised by telling participants were told that good task performance was associated with a number of positive, personally relevant social outcomes. Motivation was measured with both subjective (self-report questionnaire) and objective (systolic blood pressure reactivity-SBP-R) indices. Results showed that the self-involvement manipulation did not increase self-reported motivation, SBP-R, or task performance. Further correlation analyses focusing on individual differences in motivation did not reveal any association with performance, in either young or older adults. Notably, we found age-related decline in both ER and ToM, despite older adults having higher motivation than young adults. Overall, the present results were not consistent with previous claims that motivation affects older adults' social-cognitive performance, opening the route to potential alternative explanations.

This study used a story-telling task to examine 112 Chinese children's (M = 8.37 years, range: 5 to 13.25 years) prosocial behavior toward Chinese and White members harmed intentionally by another story character or accidentally. Children rewarded story characters with stickers following each story. Overall, there was an in-group bias such that children were more prosocial (awarded more stickers) with Chinese individuals hurt intentionally versus accidentally. This tendency was present at all ages. In addition, there was a tendency for girls' in-group favoritism to increase with age, whereas it decreased with age for boys.

Aging is characterized by a well-documented worsening of general cognition, and also a decline in social understanding such as the ability to recognize emotions or detect socially inappropriate behavior (faux pas). Several studies have demonstrated that lifestyle factors (diet, exercise, social integration, smoking) tend to offset general cognitive decline, and we examined whether they also help to offset age-related declines in social cognition.There were 56 participants aged 60 years or over. General cognition was measured using a matrices task and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Emotion recognition was measured by the matching of faces to emotion sounds and bodies to sounds. Faux pas recognition was measured by 16 videos, examining participants' ability to differentiate appropriate and inappropriate social behavior. Diet, exercise, social integration, and smoking habits were measured via questionnaires.For general cognition, diet, pr = .32, p.02, smoking, pr = -.32, p = .02, and education, pr = .48, p.001, explained unique variance in matrices performance. For social cognition, even after accounting for participants' education, age, exercise habits, smoking, and social integration, a healthy diet explained independent variance in the ability to identify appropriate social behavior, pr = .29, p = .04.We replicated previous research in finding that lifestyle factors were related to fluid intelligence. In addition, we obtained the novel finding that a healthy diet is associated with better recognition of faux pas in older adults, likely acting through facilitation of brain health, and providing initial support for a means of enhancing social functioning and well-being in old age.

Anti-fat prejudice (weight bias, obesity stigma) is strong, prevalent, and increasing in adults and is associated with negative outcomes for those with obesity. However, it is unknown how early in life this prejudice forms and the reasons for its development. We examined whether infants and toddlers might display an anti-fat bias and, if so, whether it was influenced by maternal anti-fat attitudes through a process of social learning. Mother-child dyads (N=70) split into four age groups participated in a preferential looking paradigm whereby children were presented with 10 pairs of average and obese human figures in random order, and their viewing times (preferential looking) for the figures were measured. Mothers' anti-fat prejudice and education were measured along with mothers' and fathers' body mass index (BMI) and children's television viewing time. We found that older infants (M=11months) had a bias for looking at the obese figures, whereas older toddlers (M=32months) instead preferred looking at the average-sized figures. Furthermore, older toddlers' preferential looking was correlated significantly with maternal anti-fat attitudes. Parental BMI, education, and children's television viewing time were unrelated to preferential looking. Looking times might signal a precursor to explicit fat prejudice socialized via maternal anti-fat attitudes.

This study investigated whether differences in the type of strategy used, or age-related differences in intensity of facial reactivity, might contribute to preserved emotion regulation ability in older adults. Young (n = 35) and older (n = 33) adults were instructed to regulate their emotion to positive and negative pictures under 3 conditions (watch, expressive suppression, cognitive ‘detached’ reappraisal). Participants were objectively monitored using facial electromyography (EMG) and assessed on memory performance. Both age groups were effectively, and equivalently, able to reduce their facial expressions. In relation to facial reactivity, the percentage increase of older adults’ facial muscle EMG activity in the watch condition was significantly reduced relative to young adults. Recall of pictures following regulation was similar to the watch condition, and there was no difference in memory performance between the 2 regulation strategies for both groups. These findings do not support the proposal that the type of strategy used explains preserved emotion regulation ability in older adults. Coupled with the lack of memory costs following regulation, these data instead are more consistent with the suggestion that older adults may retain emotion regulation capacity partly because they exhibit less facial reactivity to begin with. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

It has been argued that children who possess an advanced theory of mind (ToM) are more likely to act prosocially, yet the empirical findings are mixed. To address this issue definitively, a meta-analytic integration of all prior literature that met appropriate inclusion criteria was conducted. In total, 76 studies including 6,432 children between 2 and 12 years of age contributed to these analyses. Collapsed across all studies, a significant association emerged (r = .19), indicating that children with higher ToM scores also received higher scores on concurrent measures of prosocial behavior. The magnitude of this effect was similar across ToM assessments requiring identification of others' cognitions versus emotions, and it existed irrespective of whether the ToM measure imposed demands on false belief reasoning or not. The association with ToM was also evident for different subtypes of prosocial behavior (helping, cooperating, comforting). ToM had a similar effect for boys and girls, but was slightly stronger in children aged 6 years or older, relative to their younger peers. Taken together, these findings provide the strongest evidence to date that being able to explicitly consider what other people are thinking and feeling is related to children's tendencies to act prosocially, although the magnitude of the association is relatively weak. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dogs respond to human emotional expressions. However, it is unknown whether dogs can match emotional faces to voices in an intermodal matching task or whether they show preferences for looking at certain emotional facial expressions over others, similar to human infants. We presented 52 domestic dogs and 24 seven-month-old human infants with two different human emotional facial expressions of the same gender simultaneously, while listening to a human voice expressing an emotion that matched one of them. Consistent with most matching studies, neither dogs nor infants looked longer at the matching emotional stimuli, yet dogs and humans demonstrated an identical pattern of looking less at sad faces when paired with happy or angry faces (irrespective of the vocal stimulus), with no preference for happyversusangry faces. Discussion focuses on why dogs and infants might have an aversion to sad faces, or alternatively, heightened interest in angry and happy faces.

Mothers’ use of mental state talk (MST) is linked to young children’s performance on false belief tests of theory of mind (ToM) and to their behaviour in social contexts. However, little is known about MST beyond the early years. This investigation is the first to examine continuity in both mother and child MST from preschool (age 3–4 years) to middle childhood (age 10) and examines the role of early maternal MST in children’s later ToM and use of MST. We examine the novel association between MST and children’s behavioural adjustment from pre‐school into late childhood. Participants were mother–child dyads from a 7‐year longitudinal study. Measures of MST, ToM, and language were administered at home when children were 3 and 4 years old and again at the age of 10. Also at 10, behavioural adjustment was measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Mother and child MST were highly stable from preschool to later childhood. Early maternal MST accounted for unique variance in later child MST and behavioural adjustment at 10 years of age; children whose mothers used more MST, specifically references to cognitions, when they were 3 or 4 experienced fewer behavioural difficulties (externalising behaviour) when they were 10 years old.

Objectives The degree to which older adults experience emotional empathy and show subsequent prosocial behavior versus experience personal distress in response to another's distress remains unclear. Method Young (n = 40; 17-29 years) and older (n = 39; 61-82 years) adults watched videos of individuals expressing pain or no pain. Pain mimicry was recorded using facial electromyography. Participants were then asked if they would spend the remaining time helping the experimenter. Self-reported tendency to suppress or reappraise emotion was assessed, as well as trait and state emotional empathy and personal distress. Results Pain mimicry was associated with reduced trait suppression in older adults. In both age groups, greater emotional empathy, averaged across video condition, was associated with increased helping. In addition, relative to young adults, older adults reported more personal distress and emotional reactivity in response to the videos but were just as willing to help. They also put more effort into helping. Discussion These findings contribute to clarification of mixed previous evidence regarding the experience of emotional empathy in young versus older adulthood. We discuss the importance of considering additional subcomponents of empathy such as emotion regulation, while also accounting for the relevance of the empathy induction to each age group.

False-belief understanding and executive functions are two main sociocognitive abilities reliably linked to child social competence. Although institution-reared children are especially at risk for behavioral problems and cognitive delays, the role that executive function and false-belief understanding might play in the social withdrawal of institutionalized children has not been examined. The current study used two-wave data to investigate the concurrent and longitudinal relations of social withdrawal with executive function and false-belief understanding in institutionalized children; it also allowed investigation of the directionality between executive function and false-belief understanding. Data were collected from 66 Turkish children (T1 M 5 = 57.83 months, SD = 9.20; T2 M = 69.58 months, SD = 8.45) residing in institutions, at two time points, approximately 1 year apart. We measured false-belief understanding and executive function via individual assessments, and social withdrawal via care provider reports at both time points. Results showed that both executive function and false-belief understanding increased between T1 and T2, while social withdrawal did not show a significant change. Path analysis revealed that when T1 age and language were controlled, T1 executive function predicted T2 executive function, and in turn, T2 executive function predicted lessened social withdrawal at T2. In addition, T1 executive function predicted T2 false-belief understanding. T1 false-belief understanding was not related to T2 false-belief understanding, executive function, or social withdrawal. Findings suggested that executive function is an important predictor of social withdrawal in high-risk populations.

Trust is a particularly under-studied aspect of social relationships in older age. In the current study, young (n = 35) and older adults (n = 35) completed a series of one-shot social economic trust games in which they invested real money with trustees. There were potential gains with each investment and also a risk of losing everything if the trustee was untrustworthy. The reputation and facial appearance of each trustee were manipulated to make them appear more or less trustworthy. Results revealed that young and older adults invest more money with trustees whose facial appearance and reputation indicate that they are trustworthy rather than untrustworthy. However, older adults were more likely than young to invest with trustees who had a reputation for being untrustworthy. We discuss whether age-related differences in responding to negative information may account for an age-related increase in trust, particularly when trusting someone with a reputation for being uncooperative.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether dogs could successfully interpret a 'social referencing' cue (either happiness or fear) toward an object after viewing a human emotional expression. Fearful expressions are more likely to be unfamiliar to dogs, and thus they may not understand the meaning of such expressions. When confused, dogs could avoid contact with an object as in Merola et al. (2012, 2011). The present study compared an experimenter's fearful or happy response when an ambiguous object appeared with a control condition (experimenter was confusing). We examined 114 dogs in one of three conditions; happiness, fearful and the control. We found that dogs were more attentive to the experimenter when she displayed the fearful and control expressions compared to when happy, with no difference between the control and fear conditions. When left alone with the toy, they showed a similar pattern--more interest in the toy in both the fearful and control conditions. Our findings suggest that dogs may not understand the cues in the fearful and control conditions and instead respond with a possible attempt to gain more information from the experimenter.

Dogs can match human genders when viewing a live person with vocal playback in a cross-modal discrimination task. In addition, dogs behave differently towards a live human male, with more defensive aggression shown towards human males compared to females. We investigated whether domestic dogs could gender-match a human male or female voice to a still face presented on a computer monitor. Forty-five dogs were presented pairs of male and female faces displaying neutral expressions, while listening to either a male or female voice uttering a sentence in a neutral voice. We measured their looking time at the matching and non-matching faces. While dogs showed some evidence of matching male faces to voices, this was not the case for female stimuli. Our findings support previous studies that dogs are more vigilant with males than females.

Objective: Mental health problems are a leading cause of health-related disability during adolescence. The objectives of the current study were to investigate whether participating in an adventure education programme (AEP) increased adolescents’ resilience and elucidate how social connectedness contributes to any increase. Method: Adolescents who participated in the AEP had their resilience measured on the first (Time 1) and last day (Time 2) of a 10-day voyage. Perceived social support and sense of belonging were also measured at Time 2. A control group of adolescents, who did not take part in the voyage, also had their resilience assessed at two time points, 10 days apart. Result: Adolescents who participated in the AEP, but not those in the control group, displayed an increase in resilience from Time 1 to Time 2. Further, the increase in resilience was related to the adolescents’ sense of belonging, and this effect held when controlling for perceived social support. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the positive impact AEPs have on adolescents’ resilience and a mechanism through which this occurs.

In 2 cross-lagged, longitudinal studies we contrasted parental talk about want in a single context versus multiple contexts. Study 1 examined thirty-two 2 year olds, with mothers describing pictures to children. Mothers could use want in zero, one, or multiple contexts. Children whose mothers used want in multiple contexts experienced a significantly larger gain in mental state terms over a 6-month period. Study 2 examined 50 preschoolers, measuring theory of mind (ToM) with tasks and mental state terms, then had parents intervene by reading booklets in which want was used in 1 or multiple contexts. Over a 6-week period, the latter group made larger gains in ToM. We posit that maternal use of want in multiple contexts assists understanding that want refers to an underlying mental state rather than a single behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record

We investigated young-old differences in emotion recognition using music and face stimuli and tested explanatory hypotheses regarding older adults' typically worse emotion recognition. In Experiment 1, young and older adults labeled emotions in an established set of faces, and in classical piano stimuli that we pilot-tested on other young and older adults. Older adults were worse at detecting anger, sadness, fear, and happiness in music. Performance on the music and face emotion tasks was not correlated for either age group. Because musical expressions of fear were not equated for age groups in the pilot study of Experiment 1, we conducted a second experiment in which we created a novel set of music stimuli that included more accessible musical styles, and which we again pilot-tested on young and older adults. In this pilot study, all musical emotions were identified similarly by young and older adults. In Experiment 2, participants also made age estimations in another set of faces to examine whether potential relations between the face and music emotion tasks would be shared with the age estimation task. Older adults did worse in each of the tasks, and had specific difficulty recognizing happy, sad, peaceful, angry, and fearful music clips. Older adults' difficulties in each of the 3 tasks-music emotion, face emotion, and face age-were not correlated with each other. General cognitive decline did not appear to explain our results as increasing age predicted emotion performance even after fluid IQ was controlled for within the older adult group. (PsycINFO Database Record

This paper provides a minimalist framework for understanding the development of children’s theory of mind (ToM). First, I provide a critical analysis of rich interpretations of ToM tasks tapping infants’ understanding of perception, goals, intentions, and false beliefs. I argue that the current consensus that infants understand mental states is premature, and instead, that excellent statistical learning skills and attention to human faces and motion enable infants’ very good performance, and reflect an implicit understanding of behavior. Children subsequently develop an explicit understanding of mental states through talk from parents and siblings, their developing language abilities, and their developing distinction between self and other. The paper also examines corollary theories such as the idea that there are subsystems of a theory of mind (ToM), that infants use rules on false belief tasks, that minimalist theory is post hoc, and that parallel onset of success on different ToM tasks indicates an underlying ToM. The paper concludes by considering previous arguments against minimalist interpretations of infant performance.

Electromyographic (EMG) research suggests that implicit mimicry of happy facial expressions remains intact with age. However, age-related differences in EMG responses to enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles have not been explored. The present study assessed younger and older adults’ orbicularis oculi (O.oculi; eye) and zygomaticus major (Z.major; cheek) reactions to images of individuals displaying enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. Both age groups mimicked displays of enjoyment smiles, and there were no age differences in O.oculi and Z.major activity to these expressions. However, compared with younger participants, older adults showed extended O.oculi activity to nonenjoyment smiles. In an explicit ratings task, older adults were also more likely than younger participants to attribute feelings of happiness to individuals displaying both nonenjoyment and enjoyment smiles. However, participants’ ratings of the happiness expressed in images of enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles were independent of their O.oculi responding to these expressions, suggesting that mimicry and emotion recognition may reflect separate processes. Potential mechanisms underlying these findings, as well as implications for social affiliation in older adulthood, are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Previous research has examined empathic concern by presenting toddlers with a sad stimulus and examining their emotional response, with the conclusion that toddlers display empathy. Yet, such research has failed to include basic control conditions involving some other aversive stimulus such as white noise. Nor has it compared toddlers to adults to examine potential development in empathy. In the present study, we showed toddlers and adults four video types: infant crying, infant laughing, infant babbling, and a neutral infant accompanied by white noise. We then coded happiness and sadness while viewing the videos, and created a difference score (happiness minus sadness), testing 52 toddlers and 61 adults. Whereas adults showed more sadness towards infant crying than any other stimulus, toddlers' response to crying and white noise was similar. Thus, the toddler response to crying was comparable to previous studies (slight sadness), but was no different to white noise and was significantly reduced relative to adults. As such, toddlers' response seemed to be better characterized as a reaction to an aversive stimulus rather than empathy.

The present study explored own-age biases in deception detection, investigating whether individuals were more likely to trust those in their own-age group. Younger and older participants were asked to detect deceit from videos of younger and older speakers, rating their confidence in each decision. Older participants showed an own-age bias: they were more likely to think that deceptive speakers of their own age, relative to younger speakers, were telling the truth. Older participants were also more confident in their judgements of own-age, relative to other-age, speakers. There were no own-age biases for younger participants. In a subsequent (apparently unrelated) task, participants were asked to rate the trustworthiness of the speakers. Both age groups of participants trusted younger speakers who had previously told the truth more compared to those who had lied. This effect was not found for older speakers. These findings are considered in relation to the in-group/out-group model of social cognition and common stereotypical beliefs held about younger and older adults.

The following article examined elevated self-esteem as a function of a 10-day developmental voyage. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 demonstrated that participants who completed the voyage experienced elevated self-esteem. Study 2 replicated and extended these results insofar as it revealed that (a) elevated self-esteem was maintained 12 months following the voyage; and (b) increasing levels of perceived self-efficacy and belonging (as assessed on the last day of the voyage), but not social support, each made a unique contribution to these effects. Together, these findings provide converging evidence to suggest that a 10-day developmental voyage upon the Spirit of New Zealand promotes elevated self-esteem that is maintained over time, and that perceived self-efficacy and belonging contribute to this outcome.

Objectives This study assesses age-related differences in the weighting and integration of appearance and behavior cues to trustworthiness. The aim is to assess whether it becomes more difficult with age to detect a cheater in disguise. Method Young and older adults invested real money in a repeated trust game with trustees who varied on facial expression (smiling, neutral, angry) and return rate (high, low). Trustees were also rated for trustworthiness pre- and post-trust game. Results Young and older adults learned to disregard appearances to invest more in trustees providing high relative to low returns. Both groups also updated ratings of trustworthiness from pre- to post-trust game in the direction of behavior that was incongruent with appearance. Notably, young (but not older) adults updated ratings of smiling trustees with a high return rate (i.e., returned money on 8 of 10 investments) to reflect reduced trustworthiness in line with the 2 instances of cheating from those trustees. Discussion The findings show that there are no age-related differences in the way that obvious cheating in disguise is punished with reduced trustworthiness ratings. However, older adults are less vigilant to more subtle cheating in disguise, or are more forgiving of transgressions perceived as minor.

In a series of 1-shot economic trust games in which participants could make real monetary profits, but also risked losing money, 2 studies compared young and older adults' trust (amount invested with trustees) and trustworthiness (amount returned to investors by trustees). In Study 1, young (n = 35) and older (n = 32) participants acted as investors, and the age of simulated trustees (young, older) was manipulated. In Study 2, young (n = 61) and older (n = 67) participants acted in real life as both investors and trustees. They completed 2 face-to-face trust games with same- and other-age partners, and 3 anonymous trust games with same-, other-, and unknown-age partners. Study 1 found that young and older participants rate older trustees as appearing more trustworthy than young trustees, but neither group invest more with older than young trustees. Rather, older participants were more likely than young participants to invest money averaged across trustee age. In Study 2, there were no age-related differences in trust, but older adults were more trustworthy than young adults in anonymous games with same- and unknown-age partners. It was also found that young adults demonstrate greater reputational concerns than older adults by reciprocating more trust when face-to-face than anonymous. We discuss the complex influences of age on trust game investing and reciprocation, as well as the implications for older adults' wellbeing and financial security.

Objectives. Despite recognition of the increasing influence of emotion on decision making with age, there are few studies that have assessed older adults’ financial choices in a socioemotional context. Thus, social economic decision making between same- versus other-aged partners was assessed. Method. Young (n = 35) and older (n = 34) adults participated in two Ultimatum Games. In the first, they proposed divisions of money between themselves and future young and older participants. In the second, they accepted or rejected fair and unfair divisions of money proposed by past young and older participants. Lastly, participants reported their anger in response to the offers that were proposed to them in the second game. Results. In the first game, older participants divided the money more generously than did young participants. In the second game, young, but not older, participants rejected more unfair offers proposed by young relative to older adults. However, both participant age groups reported being angrier at unfair offers proposed by young adults compared with when receiving the same offer from an older adult. Discussion. These findings are discussed in the context of evidence for improved anger regulation and increased prosocial behavior with age.