Young children's understanding of different mental states

There is considerable evidence in the recent literature on children's understanding of the mind that young children have difficulty understanding false beliefs. Even when presented very strong evidence that a person's belief conflicts with the reality to which it refers, they tend to assume that it coincides with reality. Two studies tested the extent to which 3-year-olds make this same mistake with other mental states. The results show that children of this age understand that desires can differ from reality before they understand that beliefs can, even when the exact same tasks are used to assess each understanding. The findings also indicate that young children understand pretense in this regard somewhat later than desire but earlier than belief and dream, particularly when the pretense is supported by actions. Three explanations for the results are discussed.