This thesis is an ethnography of the indigenous religion, education system and social organization of the community living in the central mountains of Sikka Regency on the island of Flores in Indonesia. The question that has motivated my research is ‘how are the ideas and practices of this community’s indigenous cosmology taught and learned so to persist with continuity through generations?’ In answer I explore the ways in which cosmological ideas and practices are taught to be valued as truth as they are embodied during the practical activity of ritual. This study advances a performative theory of ritual education through a combination of Gregory Bateson’s theory of the ecology of mind and Roy Rappaport’s theory of ritual and sanctification / I begin with a critical examination of the representations of the community in question that have been made by scholars and neighboring populations. I argue that these representations wrongly imply a static and bounded community. Instead, I contend that the community is constituted by dynamic village and clan relationships anchored on sentimental and structural forms of individual belonging to particular villages and clans. This belonging is principally developed through individuals’ adherence to the indigenous cosmology, locally called Adat. I continue by discussing the educational methods by which this cosmology is perpetuated. Ritual language lessons concerning education insist that from an early age community members participate fully in daily religious life (particularly in the practice of ritual) under the guidance of close family. I then describe the learning environments found in childhood, marriage and mortuary rites. Following Bateson, I argue that during ritual contexts participants ‘deutero-learn’ embodied skills that are patterned by previous experiences, and generate the future conditions, of these same ritual contexts. / In addition to traditional educational settings, the Adat cosmology is now taught in Indonesian primary and high schools in ‘local content curriculum’ classes. I compare Adat education based on participation in ritual with that of modern schools, and I argue that in the classroom the indigenous cosmology is abstracted from its performative underpinnings. Adat is embodied differently in ritual and school contexts, and the tensions caused by these differences lead to transformations in Adat knowledge. I end this thesis by contextualizing my findings with national discourses of indigeneity and intercultural education.

“Theory of mind” (ToM) has become an important theoretical construct in developmental psychology. It refers to the everyday ability to make sense of human behaviour, through an understanding of people as mentalising beings. This understanding is often assessed through a classic false belief test, though there is vast individual difference in the age at which this test is passed: most children pass the task at around the age of 4 years, with a range in the age of competence anywhere from 3 to 5 years in typically developing children. Given this considerable variation, much research in this field has examined factors which predict these individual differences, with one such line of enquiry focussing on social interaction experiences which might predict false belief task success. Research along this vein has examined factors such as family conversations and maternal language, though the aim of the current thesis was to examine the role of uniquely childish social interactions that might foster ToM. This focus was inspired by the finding that children who have siblings develop ToM precociously compared to singleton (only) children, suggesting that child-to-child interactions may indeed be particularly important for ToM development. Two uniquely childish interactions were chosen for examination: pretend play and conflict. While examining each of these social interactions, a somewhat novel methodological approach of a parent questionnaire was adopted, rather than direct, observational methods. Thus a secondary aim of the current thesis was to determine if the rich resource of parents could be usefully tapped to obtain information about child interactions. The first 2 empirical chapters of this thesis focussed on pretend play. The first chapter examined the question of whether pretence and ToM are linked in a cognitive sense, that is, whether understanding in pretence precedes understanding in belief, and whether these 2 areas of understanding are related to each other. This was achieved through 4 experiments, which replicated then modified the procedures of Custer (1996) and Hickling, Wellman and Gottfried (1997), using a sample of 210 children. The results of the experiments within this chapter suggested that pretence understanding did not precede belief understanding. However, pretence understanding was associated with ToM, begging the question as to why this might be so. The proposition offered was that the social and communication qualities of pretence might be more pertinent to ToM development than its representational qualities. Thus, in the second study of the current thesis, pretence was re-examined in relation to ToM, though this time, the social engagement attributes of this activity were focussed on. A total of 50 children were tested on their language ability and false belief, while their mothers completed a questionnaire about their play behaviour with their closest-in-age sibling. The results suggested that only social pretend play was related to ToM, not solitary pretend play. Moreover, within the context of social pretence, only games that were likely to involve role play were found to be related to ToM, other themes of pretence were not. In combination, the results of Study 1 and 2 of the thesis gave limited support to the proposed association between pretend play and theory of mind. Only social, role-play pretence was found to be relevant. Given that role play pretence is known to involve negotiations of roles and plans of action, it was proffered that children’s conflictual interactions with their peers might be a more fruitful area to explore in relation to ToM development. Therefore, the third and fourth studies in this thesis shifted focus towards children’s conflict interactions. In the third study, 54 children were tested on their language ability and false belief performance, while their mothers concurrently completed a questionnaire about children’s conflict behaviours with their closest-in-age sibling. The emotional qualities of children’s disputes with their siblings served as the primary focus of investigation, though other elements such as overall frequency, diversity, and mode of resolution were also examined. The results suggested that children who were able to remain relatively calm emotionally, both during and at the end of their sibling disputes, had the most advanced ToM understanding. The interesting and novel findings of Study 3 prompted further investigation of conflict interactions in relation to ToM. In study 4, a sample of 69 children was examined. Parents completed a questionnaire about sibling and peer disputes conjointly, which included rating the emotional qualities of these disputes as well as their child’s reasoning strategies during these interactions. Children were tested on their language ability, ToM and executive functioning. The results of this final study indicated that children with more advanced reasoning styles performed better on tests of false belief, and contrary to Study 3, the emotional qualities of their disputes were not significantly related to false belief. However, there was significant overlap between children’s reasoning style and the emotional qualities of their peer and sibling disputes, in that, children who had more advanced reasoning abilities tended to have calmer emotions during their conflicts. A further, novel finding of study 4 was the fact that the association between children’s argument styles and their false belief performance was mediated by their executive functioning skills for inhibitory control. Strengths and limitations are addressed in the final general discussion chapter. It is concluded that, although the questionnaire procedure adopted in the current thesis requires further validation, and longitudinal follow on of the results are warranted, the current thesis has substantially added to the extant literature. It has done so by providing a thorough analysis of 2 uniquely childish social interactions in relation to ToM, and through consideration of mediational influences of inhibitory control on these associations. In achieving these aims, the current thesis has suggested that parent questionnaires show promise as a means of obtaining rich information about children’s social interactions.

Theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, has traditionally been investigated in humans and nonhuman primates. However, non-primate species, such as domestic dogs, may also be potential candidates for such a faculty. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) evolved from a social-living, wolf-like ancestor, and were the first species to be domesticated, with likely selection for sensitivity to human cues and human-like cognitive abilities. Dogs typically spend their lives in the rich social environment of human families, and thus dogs are naturally enculturated. The combination of these factors make dogs an excellent candidate for having a functional theory of mind. Yet perhaps surprisingly, prior research on theory of mind in dogs is limited, with inconclusive and contradictory results. The research described in this thesis is a systematic investigation of dogs' potential to demonstrate a functional theory of mind in their interactions with humans. Four experiments are presented, based on the Knower-Guesser paradigm (Povinelli et al., 1990), in which a knowledgeable and an ignorant human informant indicated the location of hidden food to the dog. In Experiment 1, one informant was absent (Guesser) and one present (Knower) during the food-hiding, and the dogs chose the Knower. However, when both informants were present, the dogs chose the informant that did the baiting, but this preference was less than when the Guesser was absent. In Experiments 2 and 3, a third experimenter hid the food while the informants covered their cheeks (Knower) or eyes (Guesser) with their hands, or were attentive (Knower) or inattentive (Guesser) to the food-hiding. In both cases, the dogs showed a significant preference for the Knower. In Experiment 4, the dogs showed no preference between the informants when they had equal perceptual access to the baiting, and were unsuccessful at selecting any container when the informants did not provide communicative cues. Overall, the present research provides the most definitive evidence yet that domestic dogs may be able to attribute differential states of knowledge to human observers, and thus may possess a functional theory of mind.

Doctor of Philosophy / This study defines Theory-of-Mind as the ability to experience one’s own mind and understand the minds of others to the extent necessary to make sense of human behaviour and the world. Since the concept of Theory-of-Mind was first applied to people with ASD (Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985), lack of Theory-of-Mind has been used to explain their cognitive difficulties (National Research Council, 2003), along with social, communicative and imaginative impairments (Frith, Happé & Siddons, 1994). Previous studies have tended to think of Theory-of-Mind in terms of a simple binary of deficit or credit; to exclude the voices of people with ASD; to emphasise the cognitive aspects of Theory-of-Mind over its affective aspects; and to emphasise understanding the minds of others over experiencing one’s own mind. This study aims to address these issues by investigating Theory-of-Mind as subjectively experienced by students with ASD and objectively understood by their teachers. It is the first attempt in the study of Theory-of-Mind to include the voices of individuals with ASD along with the professional views of their teachers. This study takes an interdisciplinary approach, supported by philosophy of mind and special education. A grounded theory approach and a mixed methods research design combine to build and strengthen a theory of Theory-of-Mind. For Theory-of-Mind as subjectively experienced, 20 senior secondary and post secondary school students with ASD from Republic of Korea were interviewed and student-produced documents were reviewed to draw out their inner experiences. The Korean Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Korean Vineland Social Maturity Scale were employed to assess IQ and social competence. For Theory-of-Mind as objectively understood, their teachers’ beliefs regarding their students with ASD were sought through in-depth interviews, a review of teacher-produced documents and administration of a newly developed Teacher Questionnaire. This study reports differences between Theory-of-Mind as subjectively experienced and objectively observed, and variations within the components of Theory-of-Mind. The role of imagination in Theory-of-Mind and the relationships between Theory-of-Mind components, IQ and social competence are discussed. As a result, a Theory-of-Mind continuum model and Theory-of-Mind Typology is proposed.

Studies indicate that young only children are more likely than those with siblings to have egocentric tendencies. Egocentrism is a maladaptive behavior from a lack of Theory of Mind understanding, which is the ability to take on the perspectives of others and to discern emotional cues. The current study determines whether or not only children are more likely respond negatively to teacher criticism. Only children (N=100) and those with siblings (N=100) aged six years were be tested on tasks measuring egocentrism, ToM understanding, and their response to teacher constructive criticism. Only children are expected to have lower ToM task scores, respond more negatively to criticism, and to be more likely to display traits of egocentrism than those with siblings. These potential results indicate that there is something developmentally beneficial in having a sibling(s), which promotes social and emotional competency in young children that is not necessarily prevalent for only children. Further research should examine children at an even younger age to determine when and how the difference in ToM understanding occurs.

This study examined the development of social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as well as the influence of behavioral and molecular genetics on these higher-order cognitive abilities. Specifically, it was hypothesized that children with ASD would perform more poorly on all social cognitive tasks compared with typically developing peers. In addition, it was hypothesized that typically developing children who performed better on a simpler social cognitive task at ages 3 or 4 would perform better at follow-up (i.e., one time between the ages of 6-10). Lastly, it was hypothesized that children who had at least one risk allele in both the DRD4 and the 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms would perform worse than those who had at least one risk allele in either polymorphism, who, in turn, would perform worse than children without any risk alleles. The twin sample included 62 families of multiples (twins, triplets, or quadruplets) who were recruited through the Southern Illinois Twins and Siblings Study (SITSS), and the ASD sample included 25 children who were recruited from the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at SIU. Significant group differences were found for children's performance on all of the social cognitive tasks. Furthermore, results showed that some areas of social cognition (theory of mind and the understanding of non-literal language) are more influenced by genetic factors than are other cognitive skills. Lastly, results from the molecular genetic analyses suggest that basic social cognitive skills (e.g., theory of mind) may be influenced by underlying biological factors in the serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways. The present study provided useful information on how psychological and genetic factors influence the development of social cognitive abilities in children with and without ASD.

Children with developmental delays often do not acquire perspective taking skills without training. These skills are imperative to the ability to relate to others socially and the development of appropriate social behavior. They may lack the ability to recognize that another person’s view may differ from their own, or that reality may differ from appearance. This study used deictic relational training to aid in the development of a ‘Theory of Mind’ and the acquisition of perspective taking skills. The PEAK relational training system was used in a special education classroom to train YOU and I relations, as well as YOU and I reversal, to two nine year old students with intellectual disability. Multiple exemplar training was then used to promote the generalization of these perspective taking skills to an in situ deceptive container task. One subject participated in the first two training phases, but was absent for the remainder of the study. The second subject successfully completed all training phases and was then able to correctly respond when asked to report what the perspective of another individual would be.

Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to accurately predict and reason about the mental states and beliefs of others, has yet to be explored in Emerging Adulthood, the 18-25 age range characterized by variability and developing a flexible worldview. The current study attempts to predict accuracy and response time on two ToM tasks, The Mind in the Eyes task (MiE), and the Empathetic Accuracy Paradigm (EAP) task by acting experience (whether the participant has acted in a live theater performance) and college experience (freshmen, sophomore, etc.) in 116 college participants. It was hypothesized that regression models including acting experience and college experience will account for more variance than models including only demographic variables and that the models including acting and college experience will significantly predict accuracy and response time on all ToM tasks. All such models predicting accuracy were significant, while only a model predicting response time on the EAP task was significantly predictive. It was hypothesized that acting experience will enable participants to use Theory of Mind skills faster and more accurately (Goldstein & Winner, 2012). Multiple regression analyses confirmed that acting experience is a significant predictor in all models predicting accuracy on Theory of Mind tasks, however response time was a significant predictor in only one of two tasks. It was also hypothesized that college experience will result in a more flexible worldview, open to multiple viewpoints and opinions, significantly influencing response time and accuracy. Multiple regression analyses revealed college experience approached significance in a model predicting accuracy on the MiE task, but no other significant contributions. Implications for the benefits of acting and college experience, the study of Theory of Mind in Emerging Adulthood, and practical applications of the findings in academia and therapeutic settings are discussed.

Research based on children's performance on standard false-belief reasoning tasks indicates that theory of mind (ToM) understanding, (i.e. the ability to represent, conceptualize, and reason about one's own and others' mental states) is initially absent and develops around the age of four years (Wellman et al., 2001). Recently, researchers have investigated the relationship between language and ToM development. According to de Villiers & Pyers (2002) understanding of embedded complement structures is necessary for children to be able to understand false belief, because both require the ability to handle misrepresentation. Following Perner (1991), Smith et al. (2003) argued (contra De Villiers & Pyers) that the developmental link between embedded clauses and false belief reasoning skills stems instead from a requirement to handle metarepresentation. They proposed that children's aptitude with double-event relative clauses predicts their false-belief reasoning ability. Previous research on linguistic precursors of false belief understanding has focused largely on English speaking children. The current research hypothesized that crosslinguistic differences in the emergence of ToM understanding could result because of the potential for a developmental link between ToM understanding and other linguistic properties (e.g. scrambling), found in free word order languages, such as Russian. The current research sought to determine whether there is a correlation between the development of false belief reasoning skills and the acquisition of relativization in monolingual Russian speaking children; and to find out whether the acquisition of scrambled word orders (e.g. OVS) is a better predictor of false belief reasoning in child Russian. The participants of the study were 36 monolingual Russian children: 18 3-year-olds (Mean age = 3;6) and 18 4-year-olds (Mean Age= 4;6). We assessed the children's false belief understanding using the unexpected contents task and the unexpected transfer task and their ability to handle relative clauses and scrambled (OVS) word order through a Truth-Value judgment (TVJ) act-out task (Crain & Thornton, 1998). Our results confirm the previously established link between age and false belief reasoning. However, the results failed to support previous findings regarding the status of relative clauses as a linguistic precursor for the development of False Belief reasoning. The results also failed to confirm our predictions regarding the privileged role of scrambling (i.e. OVS sentences) in Russian children's ToM development. Our findings suggest that OVS sentences might be more difficult for Russian children to handle compared to relative clauses with the canonical SVO order, regardless of age the Russian children performed better on relative clauses than on scrambled OVS sentences -- this leads us to conclude -- "Syntax is easy! Pragmatics is hard!" Also there were no age related differences in relation to either relative clauses or scrambled word order sentences. Additionally, for child Russian, de Villiers & Peyers proposal regarding the privileged role of embedded complement clauses as a linguistic precursor to TOM development cannot yet be ruled out.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is often defined as “the ability to reason about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, and to understand how mental states feature in everyday explanations and predictions of people’s behavior” (Apperly, 2012, p. 825). Recent research has introduced questions about performance on ToM tasks in emerging adulthood, a developmental period (ages 18-27) where exploration and identity formation occurs. The current study examined group differences between college students with acting experience, a population hypothesized to excel in ToM and empathy, and students without acting experience on cognitive and affective measures of ToM and empathy. The current study (N=162) used multiple tasks to measure ToM the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task (RME), Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC), Faux Pas task (detection and belief subscales). All four subscales (perspective taking, fantasizing, empathic concern, personal distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was used to measure empathy. It was hypothesized that students with acting experience would perform significantly better than those without acting experience on all measures of ToM and empathy. It was also hypothesized that the way emerging adults process identity relevant information, as assessed by the Identity Style Inventory (ISI), would be related to ToM and empathy. Students with acting experience performed significantly better on the RME task and the belief subscale of the Faux Pas task. Better performance on the RME task and the belief subscale of the Faux pas task suggest advantages in emotion processing and belief reasoning for students with acting experience. No group differences were observed on the IRI. Informational processing style was positively related to all measures of ToM and all empathy measures except the personal distress subscale of the IRI. Normative and diffuse-avoidant identity processing style was negatively related to all measures of ToM and the personal distress subscale of the IRI. Normative identity processing style was negatively related to the fantasizing subscale of the IRI. The current study supports a relationship between identity processing style in emerging adulthood and measures of ToM and empathy. A factor analysis was conducted to examine relationships between ToM and empathy, finding no distinctions between affective and cognitive dimensions but a clear difference between ToM and empathy. Students with acting experience performed significantly better on the ToM factor but no other factors, supporting the previous analyses. Implications for further research, therapeutic interventions, and occupational training integrating acting experience are discussed.