Theory of Mind
What is Theory of Mind?
Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and intentions that are different from our own. This cognitive ability, which neurotypical individuals start to develop during early childhood, helps us predict and make sense of others’ behavior in social situations.
The Basic Idea
Imagine you’re out for drinks with a group of friends on a Friday night. It’s been a long week at work, but you’re excited to let your hair down and relax. As it approaches midnight, you hit the dance floor, feeling energized by the music and the atmosphere. The last thing you want to think about is going home.
After a while, you notice that one of your friends is yawning and regularly checking the time on her phone. You presume she’s feeling tired and thinking about calling a cab home.
At that moment, you’re using Theory of Mind. You recognize that your friend has different internal states; she’s tired, perhaps bored or uncomfortable, while you’re still buzzing and having fun. You’re inferring her thoughts and desires based on subtle cues, and acknowledging that her experience of the same situation differs from your own.
Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from our own. It’s what enables us to predict how others will think, feel, and react in a given situation.
Theory of mind isn’t something we’re born with. Many argue that it starts forming at around 3-5 years old and fully develops into adolescence and even early adulthood.1 Some psychologists, such as Andrew Meltzoff, have suggested that the theory of mind has its origins even earlier, at 15 months.4 This is when children are imitating other humans around them nonverbally, and they start making connections between the visible world of others and their own internal states and feelings.
The ability to attribute mental states, particularly beliefs and desires, to other people and to understand that their behavior is guided by these mental states, is an essential part of children’s cognitive development. In individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder, theory of mind is often delayed or impaired. Understanding things like pretending, thinking about “what if” situations, knowing how to take turns in play, sharing attention with someone else, and realizing that words can cause actions (like making a promise or giving a command) can be especially difficult for people with developmental differences, compared to their neurotypical peers.5 Interestingly, theory of mind has been used to illuminate the mysteries of autism, but at the same time, the disorder has profoundly shaped our understanding of social cognition and theory of mind.4
As humans we assume that others want, think, believe and the like, and thereby infer states that are not directly observable, using these states anticipatorily, to predict the behavior of others as well as our own. These inferences, which amount to a theory of mind, are to our knowledge, universal in human adults.
— David Premack & Guy Woodruff in the 1978 paper, Does A Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?
About the Author
Dr. Lauren Braithwaite
Dr. Lauren Braithwaite is a Social and Behaviour Change Design and Partnerships consultant working in the international development sector. Lauren has worked with education programmes in Afghanistan, Australia, Mexico, and Rwanda, and from 2017–2019 she was Artistic Director of the Afghan Women’s Orchestra. Lauren earned her PhD in Education and MSc in Musicology from the University of Oxford, and her BA in Music from the University of Cambridge. When she’s not putting pen to paper, Lauren enjoys running marathons and spending time with her two dogs.
