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Child Dev. 2019 Sep;90(5):1817-1831. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13099. Epub 2018 Jun 04.

Children's Developing Descriptions and Judgments of Pretending.

Child development

David M Sobel, Susan M Letourneau

Affiliations

  1. Brown University.
  2. NY Hall of Science.

PMID: 29862502 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13099

Abstract

Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-olds' knowledge about pretending. In Study 1, children (N = 66) defined pretending and described examples of own and others' pretending. In Study 2, children (N = 52) defined pretending and then completed a battery of measures that examined their understanding that pretending involved mental states. In Study 1, older children articulated more defining features of pretending than younger children. When describing how they or others pretended, children focused on action or appearance, regardless of whether they had included more defining features in their definitions of pretending. In Study 2, the more defining features children articulated, the better their performance on the battery. We discuss the implications of these data for the role of pretending in children's developing theory of mind.

© 2018 Society for Research in Child Development.

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