Theory of mind | AQA A-Level Psychology Revision
- Revision Notes
- Aug 6
- 27 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
For 7182 specification, first teach in September 2025
AQA A-Level Psychology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time: 60 minutes
Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have mental states that may differ from our own and from reality. These Theory of mind A-Level Psychology revision notes explain beliefs, intentions, desires and false-belief understanding before examining Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith’s Sally-Anne study.
Theory of mind is an important part of social cognition. It develops ideas introduced through egocentrism and visual viewpoints and complements Selman’s account of interpersonal understanding. The AQA specification explicitly requires theory of mind and the Sally-Anne study.
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Define theory of mind.
Explain beliefs, desires, intentions and false beliefs.
Describe the procedure, findings and conclusions of the Sally-Anne study.
Apply theory of mind to unfamiliar false-belief scenarios.
Explain the proposed relationship between theory of mind and autism.
Evaluate theory-of-mind research using evidence and methodological issues.
Revision Notes 📚
Theory of mind A-Level Psychology revision overview
Theory of mind, usually abbreviated to ToM, is the ability to recognise that people possess mental states.
Mental states include:
Beliefs.
Knowledge.
Desires.
Intentions.
Motives.
Thoughts.
Feelings.
A person with theory of mind understands that these mental states:
Cannot always be observed directly.
May differ between people.
May differ from reality.
Influence and help predict behaviour.
AQA mark schemes describe theory of mind as children’s developing understanding of what other people think, including their beliefs, intentions and motives.
Minds cannot be observed directly
People can observe another person’s:
Facial expression.
Speech.
Actions.
Direction of gaze.
They cannot directly observe that person’s belief or intention.
The observer must make an inference.
For example:
Sam looks inside the fridge and then picks up a shopping bag.
You might infer that:
Sam believes there is no milk.
Sam wants milk.
Sam intends to visit a shop.
These mental states are not visible, but they help explain and predict Sam’s behaviour.
Why is it called a theory?
The term does not mean a formal scientific theory learned at school.
It means that people develop an informal explanatory system about how minds work.
They use this system to predict:
What another person will do.
What another person will look for.
Why someone acted in a particular way.
How someone might respond to new information.
The person forms a “theory” because another person’s mind is not directly accessible.
Mental states
Beliefs
A belief is something a person accepts as true.
The belief may be:
Correct.
Incorrect.
Based on incomplete information.
Different from another person’s belief.
For example:
Mia believes her keys are on the table.
The keys may actually be in her coat pocket.
Mia’s behaviour will be guided by her belief, not by the keys’ real location.
Knowledge
Knowledge depends on the information available to the person.
For example:
Ali sees a toy being moved.
Bea is outside the room and does not see the movement.
Ali and Bea now possess different knowledge.
A person with theory of mind understands that Bea cannot know what happened while she was absent.
Desires
A desire is something a person wants.
Two people can want different outcomes from the same event.
For example:
One child wants to play indoors.
Another wants to go outside.
Understanding their behaviour requires recognising their different desires.
Intentions
An intention is a plan or aim guiding behaviour.
The same action can reflect different intentions.
For example, a person might push another person in order to:
Cause harm.
Move them away from danger.
Play during a game.
Attract their attention.
Theory of mind allows the observer to look beyond the physical movement and consider its purpose.
Emotions
Theory of mind also involves understanding that outward behaviour may not reveal a person’s true emotional state.
For example:
A child may smile after losing a competition because they do not want friends to see that they are disappointed.
Understanding the child requires distinguishing:
Observable expression.
Internal emotion.
The intention to conceal the emotion.
Mental representation and metarepresentation
Representation
A mental representation is an internal representation of an object, event or situation.
For example, a child can represent:
“The marble is in the box.”
This representation concerns the physical world.
Metarepresentation
A metarepresentation is a representation of another representation.
For example:
“Sally believes the marble is in the basket.”
The child is representing Sally’s mental representation of the marble’s location.
This remains possible even when the child knows that the marble is actually somewhere else.
The child must keep two representations separate:
Reality: the marble is in the box.
Sally’s belief: the marble is in the basket.
Theory of mind therefore requires the child to represent someone else’s representation of reality.
False beliefs
What is a false belief?
A false belief is a belief that does not correspond with reality.
For example:
The toy is actually in the cupboard.
Luca believes that it is beneath the bed.
Luca holds a false belief.
Why false-belief tasks are useful
It is relatively easy to predict another person’s behaviour when:
You know the same information.
The other person’s belief is correct.
A more demanding test asks whether the participant can predict behaviour based on a belief they know is false.
The participant must answer according to:
what the other person believes
rather than:
what the participant knows to be true
False-belief tasks are therefore frequently used as mind-reading tasks in theory-of-mind research. AQA mark schemes identify the Sally-Anne task, other false-belief tasks and the Eyes Test as methods of investigating theory of mind.
Passing a false-belief task
A participant passes when they predict behaviour from the character’s false belief.
For example:
“Sally will look in the basket because that is where she left the marble.”
Failing a false-belief task
A participant fails when they answer using their own knowledge of reality.
For example:
“Sally will look in the box because that is where the marble really is.”
The participant may be unable to separate:
Their own current knowledge.
The character’s outdated knowledge.
Theory of mind in everyday life
Theory of mind helps people understand:
Jokes.
Sarcasm.
Pretence.
Deception.
Misunderstandings.
Secrets.
Hidden motives.
Accidental behaviour.
Other people’s emotional reactions.
Deception
To deceive someone successfully, a person must understand that:
The other person possesses a separate mind.
The other person can be given incomplete or inaccurate information.
This can create a belief different from reality.
Pretend play
Pretend play also requires a distinction between reality and representation.
For example:
A child pretends that a cardboard box is a spaceship.
The child understands simultaneously that:
The object is really a box.
Within the game, it represents a spaceship.
Pretend play is not identical to theory of mind, but both involve holding separate representations.
Sarcasm
To understand sarcasm, the listener must recognise that:
The literal words do not express the speaker’s actual belief.
Tone and context reveal a different intention.
For example, after someone drops an entire tray of food, another person says:
“Brilliantly done.”
Understanding the remark requires inference about the speaker’s intended meaning.
Misunderstandings
Theory of mind allows someone to realise that another person acted on different information rather than from bad intentions.
For example:
Kai does not attend a meeting because the time was changed while he was offline.
A person with theory of mind can recognise that Kai’s absence may result from a false belief about the meeting time.
Development of theory of mind
Theory of mind develops during childhood.
Younger children may find it difficult to:
Distinguish their own knowledge from another person’s knowledge.
Understand that someone can hold a false belief.
Predict behaviour based on an outdated belief.
Recognise concealed emotions or intentions.
With development, children become increasingly able to:
Keep different knowledge states separate.
Understand false beliefs.
Interpret motives.
Recognise that appearance and reality may differ.
Predict behaviour from mental states.
Wimmer and Perner’s false-belief research is recognised by AQA as evidence relevant to the development of theory of mind.
Development is not all-or-nothing
A child may succeed on one theory-of-mind task but struggle with another.
Performance depends on:
The language used.
Memory demands.
Number of characters.
Familiarity with the scenario.
Whether the child must answer verbally.
The complexity of the mental state.
Theory of mind is therefore likely to involve several developing abilities rather than one switch that suddenly turns on.
Theory of mind and Piagetian egocentrism
Theory of mind overlaps with Piaget’s account of egocentrism.
Both concern the ability to distinguish:
One’s own perspective.
Another person’s perspective.
However, the focus differs.
Piagetian egocentrism | Theory of mind |
Difficulty understanding another viewpoint | Understanding that others possess separate mental states |
Often tested through visual perspectives | Often tested through beliefs and knowledge |
Example: what can the doll see? | Example: where does Sally believe the marble is? |
Concerned with decentring from one’s own position | Concerned with beliefs, intentions, motives and emotions |
Three mountains task is a classic example | Sally-Anne is a classic example |
A child may understand that another person sees a different physical view but still struggle to predict behaviour from a false belief.
Theory of mind and Selman
Theory of mind also overlaps with social role-taking and interpersonal dilemmas.
Theory of mind | Selman’s perspective-taking |
Understanding mental states | Understanding and coordinating social viewpoints |
Includes beliefs, knowledge and intentions | Includes feelings, relationships and social systems |
Frequently tested through false-belief tasks | Tested through interpersonal dilemmas |
Basic abilities develop during childhood | Development extends into adolescence |
Can involve one character’s belief | Later levels coordinate several perspectives |
Theory of mind provides a foundation for Selman’s more complex forms of social reasoning.
To coordinate two viewpoints, the child must first understand that the people involved can possess different minds.
Theory of mind and empathy
Theory of mind is not the same as empathy.
Theory of mind | Empathy |
Understanding another person’s mental state | Responding to another person’s emotional experience |
Mainly cognitive | Includes an emotional component |
Helps predict behaviour | May motivate concern or helping |
Can be used prosocially or antisocially | More directly linked with emotional responsiveness |
A person may understand what another person feels without sharing or responding compassionately to that feeling.
It is therefore inaccurate to assume that failure on a false-belief task proves a person lacks empathy.
The Sally-Anne study
Who conducted the study?
The Sally-Anne study was conducted by Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith and published in 1985.
The researchers used a puppet-play version of the false-belief paradigm developed by Wimmer and Perner.
They compared:
Autistic children.
Children with Down syndrome.
Typically developing children.
The study investigated whether autistic children showed a specific difficulty attributing beliefs to another person.
Aim
The aim was to investigate whether autistic children could understand that another person may possess a belief that:
Differs from reality.
Differs from the child’s own knowledge.
The researchers were testing whether difficulties in theory of mind might help explain aspects of autistic social communication.
The puppet characters
The task involved two dolls:
Sally.
Anne.
Sally had a basket.
Anne had a box.
The procedure
The standard sequence was:
Sally placed a marble in her basket.
Sally left the scene.
While Sally was away, Anne removed the marble from the basket.
Anne placed the marble in her box.
Sally returned.
The child was asked where Sally would look for the marble.
The participant knew that the marble was now in the box.
Sally did not possess this information.
The belief question
The central false-belief question was:
“Where will Sally look for her marble?”
The correct answer is:
In the basket.
Sally should search where she believes the marble remains, even though the participant knows this belief is false.
Passing the task
A participant passes by saying that Sally will look in the basket.
This response demonstrates an understanding that:
Sally did not see Anne move the marble.
Sally believes the marble remains in its original location.
Sally’s behaviour will be guided by her false belief.
Failing the task
A participant fails by saying that Sally will look in the box.
This answer reflects reality rather than Sally’s belief.
The participant may be responding according to:
Their own knowledge.
The marble’s real location.
They do not predict Sally’s behaviour from her separate mental state.
Control questions
False-belief tasks normally include control questions to check that failure is not caused by misunderstanding simpler aspects of the story.
Reality question
The child may be asked:
“Where is the marble now?”
The correct answer is:
In the box.
This checks whether the child knows the marble’s current location.
Memory question
The child may be asked:
“Where was the marble at the beginning?”
The correct answer is:
In the basket.
This checks whether the child remembers the original location.
Why the control questions matter
A child who answers the belief question incorrectly might simply have:
Forgotten where Sally left the marble.
Failed to follow Anne’s movement.
Misunderstood the story.
Correct reality and memory answers increase confidence that the false-belief response reflects difficulty representing Sally’s belief.
However, control questions cannot remove every alternative explanation, such as language or inhibition difficulties.
Findings of the Sally-Anne study
Most of the typically developing children and children with Down syndrome predicted that Sally would look in the basket.
Most of the autistic children predicted that Sally would look where the marble really was.
The researchers concluded that the autistic group showed a specific difficulty attributing a false belief to Sally, despite having a higher average mental age than the comparison groups.
Why the Down syndrome comparison group was important
The Down syndrome group acted as a comparison group involving children with an intellectual or developmental disability.
Their performance suggested that failure was not explained simply by:
Lower general intelligence.
Developmental delay.
Difficulty completing any puppet task.
The original researchers interpreted the autistic group’s performance as a more specific difficulty with metarepresentation or theory of mind.
The researchers’ conclusion
Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith proposed that autistic children might experience a specific theory-of-mind difficulty.
This could affect their ability to:
Attribute beliefs to other people.
Predict behaviour based on mental states.
Understand some social situations.
Recognise intentions or motives.
The original paper linked this proposed cognitive difficulty with an important part of the social impairment associated with autism.
Applying the Sally-Anne task
Consider this scenario:
Noah places a biscuit in a blue cupboard and leaves the kitchen. While Noah is outside, Elena moves the biscuit to a red cupboard. Tariq watches everything. He is asked where Noah will look for the biscuit.
Correct theory-of-mind response
Noah will look in the blue cupboard.
The explanation is:
Noah did not see the movement.
He falsely believes that the biscuit remains in the blue cupboard.
His behaviour will be based on this belief.
Reality-based response
Noah will look in the red cupboard.
This answer uses Tariq’s own knowledge of reality.
It does not represent Noah’s false belief.
Complete application structure
Use:
what the character saw → what the character believes → where the character will act
For example:
“Noah will look in the blue cupboard because he did not observe Elena move the biscuit. He therefore holds the false belief that it remains where he left it.”
Applying theory of mind to an AQA-style scenario
The June 2021 AQA paper described a father leaving a garden before a ball was hidden in a bucket. A child with autism was asked where the father would search.
The mark scheme credited answers explaining that the child might respond with the ball’s real location because they may fail to distinguish:
Their own knowledge.
The father’s lack of knowledge.
A strong answer needed to identify what the father had and had not witnessed rather than merely stating that the child would answer incorrectly.
The Sally-Anne study as a quasi-experiment
Independent variable
The independent variable was the participant group:
Autistic.
Down syndrome.
Typically developing.
These groups were naturally occurring rather than created by the researchers.
The study can therefore be described as a quasi-experiment.
Dependent variable
The main dependent variable was the child’s response to the belief question.
Responses could be categorised as:
Correct false-belief location.
Incorrect real location.
This produces nominal data.
Experimental design
Different participants formed each group.
The study therefore used an independent-groups design.
Standardisation
Each participant received the same general puppet story and questions.
Standardisation improves:
Replicability.
Reliability.
Comparability between groups.
Theory of mind and autism
The theory-of-mind explanation
The theory-of-mind explanation proposes that some features associated with autism may result from difficulty understanding other people’s mental states.
This has sometimes been called mind-blindness.
Possible difficulties include understanding:
Beliefs.
Intentions.
Motives.
Indirect communication.
Pretence.
Sarcasm.
Social misunderstandings.
AQA’s 2023 mark scheme links theory-of-mind difficulty with features such as limited social interaction, communication differences, pretend play, joint attention, gaze and gesture.
Predicting behaviour
If a person has difficulty identifying another person’s belief, their behaviour may appear unpredictable.
For example:
A teacher believes that a pupil has received the changed homework instructions, but the pupil knows the teacher was absent when the change was announced.
To predict the teacher’s reaction, the pupil must represent the teacher’s incorrect belief.
Joint attention
Joint attention involves two people sharing attention towards the same object or event.
It can include:
Following another person’s gaze.
Pointing to share interest.
Checking whether another person is attending.
Joint attention may involve recognising that another person possesses a separate focus of attention.
Pretend play
Pretend play requires the child to hold:
The real identity of an object.
Its imagined identity.
Some theory-of-mind accounts connect difficulties with metarepresentation to reduced or different forms of pretend play.
Important caution
It is too absolute to state that:
“Autistic people have no theory of mind.”
Autism is heterogeneous.
Autistic people differ considerably in:
Language.
Cognitive ability.
Social experience.
Performance across tasks.
Strategies used to understand other people.
Some autistic participants pass false-belief tasks.
A careful conclusion is that some autistic people may experience particular difficulties on explicit theory-of-mind tasks.
Other theory-of-mind tasks
The Smarties task
In a typical unexpected-contents task, a child is shown a familiar container such as a sweets tube.
The child expects sweets but discovers a different object inside.
The child is then asked what another person, who has not looked inside, will believe the container holds.
A correct answer requires the child to predict the other person’s false belief rather than use their own updated knowledge.
AQA’s 2023 mark scheme identifies the Smarties tube test as evidence relevant to theory of mind.
Comic-strip tasks
Participants may be asked to arrange pictures into a sequence involving:
A character’s intention.
A misunderstanding.
Deception.
An unexpected outcome.
The task assesses whether the participant can interpret behaviour using mental states rather than only physical events.
AQA recognises comic-strip research as evidence relevant to the theory-of-mind explanation of autism.
The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test
The Eyes Test presents photographs showing the eye region of faces.
Participants select the word that best describes the person’s mental state.
It assesses the ability to infer subtle mental states from limited social information.
A revised adult version was developed partly to improve weaknesses in an earlier form of the test and to examine mentalising among adults with and without autism-related diagnoses.
Different tasks test different abilities
Task | Main requirement |
Sally-Anne | Predicting action from a false belief |
Smarties task | Predicting another person’s mistaken expectation |
Comic-strip task | Interpreting intentions across a social sequence |
Eyes Test | Inferring a subtle mental state from facial information |
Success or failure may differ across tasks because theory of mind is not one perfectly uniform ability.
Evaluating theory-of-mind research
Strength: the Sally-Anne findings support a specific difficulty
The autistic group performed differently from both comparison groups.
The Down syndrome comparison was particularly useful because it reduced the likelihood that failure resulted simply from general developmental delay.
The result supports the suggestion that difficulty representing false beliefs may be specifically associated with autism rather than intellectual impairment generally.
Strength: control questions increase validity
The reality and memory questions check whether a participant:
Followed the story.
Knows the real location.
Remembers the original location.
A participant who answers these questions correctly but fails the belief question appears to have a more specific difficulty with the character’s mental state.
This improves the construct validity of the false-belief interpretation.
Strength: standardised procedure
The Sally-Anne task uses a structured sequence and clear questions.
This allows researchers to:
Repeat the study.
Compare age groups.
Compare participant groups.
Test modified versions.
Record responses consistently.
Standardisation supports reliability.
Strength: evidence from different tasks
Theory-of-mind differences have been investigated through:
Location-change tasks.
Unexpected-contents tasks.
Comic strips.
Facial mental-state tasks.
Evidence across several tasks is more persuasive than reliance on one procedure.
AQA mark schemes recognise Sally-Anne, Smarties, comic-strip and Eyes tasks as relevant theory-of-mind evidence.
Strength: practical applications
Theory-of-mind research can contribute to:
Understanding social communication differences.
Planning supportive educational activities.
Developing explicit explanations of social situations.
Assessment alongside other forms of evidence.
Communication support.
The 2022 AQA mark scheme recognises possible applications in assessment, family work and mediation.
A false-belief task should not be treated as a complete diagnostic test by itself.
Limitation: language demands
The participant must understand:
The story.
The characters’ names.
The sequence of events.
The belief question.
The distinction between “is” and “thinks”.
A child with language difficulties may answer incorrectly despite understanding that Sally possesses a separate belief.
The task may therefore measure language as well as theory of mind.
Limitation: memory demands
The participant must remember:
Where the object began.
Who moved it.
Which character was absent.
Where the object is now.
Poor memory could produce an incorrect response.
Control questions reduce this problem but may not eliminate the broader working-memory demands of the task.
Limitation: inhibitory-control demands
The participant knows where the marble really is.
To answer correctly, they must inhibit the immediately obvious reality-based response.
A child might understand Sally’s belief but struggle to suppress:
“The marble is in the box.”
Failure may therefore reflect limited executive control rather than an absence of theory of mind.
Limitation: one false-belief task may not measure all of theory of mind
Theory of mind includes understanding:
Desires.
Intentions.
Emotions.
Knowledge.
Pretence.
Deception.
The Sally-Anne task measures one specific ability:
explicit prediction from a false belief
A child’s performance should not be treated as a complete measure of their understanding of minds.
Limitation: low ecological validity
Everyday social cognition rarely involves:
Two dolls.
One marble.
A direct question about where someone will search.
Real interactions involve:
Tone of voice.
Facial expressions.
Relationships.
Several intentions.
Changing emotions.
Cultural knowledge.
A participant may fail the artificial task but navigate familiar social situations more successfully.
Alternatively, someone may pass the simple task but struggle with subtle real-world
communication.
Limitation: explicit performance may underestimate ability
The Sally-Anne task requires an explicit verbal answer.
A participant may show awareness through:
Gaze direction.
Anticipatory looking.
Behaviour.
Non-verbal choices.
before they can explain the belief correctly.
The task may therefore reveal when children can produce an explicit answer rather than the earliest point at which they possess any theory-of-mind understanding.
Limitation: group findings do not describe every individual
The Sally-Anne study found group differences.
Group averages do not mean:
Every autistic participant fails.
Every typically developing child passes.
One task result defines the person’s social cognition.
Autistic people are diverse, and performance varies according to ability, experience and the task used.
Limitation: theory of mind may describe rather than explain
Saying that a person has difficulty understanding mental states may describe their social-cognitive performance.
It does not necessarily explain why the difficulty developed.
Possible underlying influences may include:
Neural development.
Language.
Executive functioning.
Attention.
Social experience.
AQA’s 2023 mark scheme notes that theory of mind may describe cognitive-processing differences without identifying their original cause.
Limitation: direction of causality
Poor theory-of-mind performance may contribute to reduced social interaction.
However, reduced or different social interaction might also provide fewer opportunities to practise conventional mind-reading tasks.
The relationship may be bidirectional.
Research showing an association cannot by itself establish whether theory-of-mind difficulty is:
A cause.
A consequence.
One part of a broader developmental difference.
Limitation: it does not explain all features associated with autism
Theory of mind focuses mainly on social cognition.
It does not fully explain other features or abilities that may occur in autism, including:
Restricted or highly focused interests.
Repetitive behaviour.
Sensory differences.
Areas of exceptional ability.
Broader executive-processing differences.
AQA’s mark scheme notes that theory of mind may explain some social features more effectively than other cognitive characteristics.
Limitation: alternative cognitive explanations
Performance on false-belief tasks may reflect other cognitive processes.
Possible alternatives include:
Language difficulty.
Memory limitations.
Executive-function difficulty.
Inability to inhibit knowledge of reality.
Difficulty integrating information into a whole context.
A false-belief failure cannot be attributed to theory of mind with complete certainty.
Limitation: biological explanations may be compatible
Theory-of-mind difficulty is a cognitive-level explanation.
It may have biological underpinnings.
For example, differences in neural systems involved in observing actions or understanding intentions may contribute to social cognition.
This possibility is explored in neural activity and shared understanding.
The cognitive and biological explanations are therefore not necessarily competitors.
A biological difference could contribute to a cognitive-processing difference.
Limitation: cultural and conversational effects
Cultures may differ in:
How often people discuss thoughts and beliefs.
Expectations about explicit mental-state language.
Familiarity with testing situations.
The value placed on predicting individual behaviour.
False-belief task performance may partly reflect language and social experience rather than a completely universal timetable.
Limitation: social sensitivity
Theory-of-mind research involving autism is socially sensitive.
Careless interpretation may encourage claims that autistic people:
Do not possess meaningful inner lives.
Cannot care about others.
Lack empathy completely.
Are socially incapable.
These claims do not follow from failure on one false-belief task.
Researchers should:
Use cautious language.
Recognise individual variation.
Separate theory of mind from empathy.
Avoid presenting one task as a complete description of a person.
Consider how findings may affect public attitudes.
Evaluating the Sally-Anne study specifically
Methodological strength: suitable control groups
The study did not compare autistic children only with typically developing children.
Including a Down syndrome group allowed the researchers to consider whether general developmental disability explained the result.
Because the autistic group had the higher average mental age yet showed greater false-belief difficulty, the researchers argued for a more specific metarepresentational difference.
Methodological strength: simple behavioural measure
The response can be classified clearly:
Basket.
Box.
This produces objective nominal data.
The basic response is less open to subjective interpretation than a lengthy interview.
Methodological limitation: small and specialised groups
Research involving specific clinical or developmental groups may use relatively small samples.
Small and specialised samples limit generalisation to:
All autistic children.
Autistic adults.
People with different communication profiles.
People in different cultures.
Methodological limitation: independent-groups differences
The participant groups may differ in ways other than diagnosis.
Possible differences include:
Language ability.
Age.
Education.
Experience with puppet stories.
Attention.
Executive functioning.
Matching groups by general mental age reduces some differences but cannot control every participant variable.
Methodological limitation: binary outcome
A basket-or-box response produces a clear score but loses detail.
It does not show:
How confident the child was.
Whether they nearly understood the belief.
Which part of the task caused difficulty.
Whether they could explain their reasoning.
Whether a prompt would improve performance.
A binary task may oversimplify a gradually developing ability.
Theory of mind as a developmental achievement
What must the child coordinate?
To pass a false-belief task, the child must coordinate:
The object’s original location.
Its current location.
What the character observed.
What the character did not observe.
The character’s resulting belief.
The behaviour predicted from that belief.
This makes theory-of-mind tasks cognitively demanding.
Developmental sequence
A simplified progression might be:
Understanding that people have desires.
Understanding that different people want different things.
Understanding that people can possess different information.
Understanding that a person can hold a false belief.
Understanding more complex intentions and hidden emotions.
This progression should not be treated as an AQA-prescribed stage theory.
It illustrates that social cognition becomes more sophisticated gradually.
Theory of mind in social cognition
Theory of mind supports social cognition by allowing people to interpret behaviour psychologically.
Without mental-state reasoning, behaviour might be understood only through visible events.
For example:
Zara enters the room, looks at an empty chair and leaves.
A physical description identifies:
Entering.
Looking.
Leaving.
A theory-of-mind account may infer:
Zara expected her friend to be there.
She now believes the friend is absent.
She intends to search somewhere else.
She may feel disappointed.
Theory of mind gives behaviour social meaning.
Comparing physical and psychological explanations
Physical explanation | Theory-of-mind explanation |
“He opened the cupboard because it was in front of him.” | “He opened it because he believed the food was inside.” |
Focuses on observable events | Focuses on an inferred mental state |
Does not require a belief | Uses belief to predict behaviour |
May describe what happened | Helps explain why it happened |
The psychological explanation is especially useful when beliefs differ from reality.
Applications of theory-of-mind understanding
Education
Teachers can make hidden mental states explicit by discussing:
What each character knows.
How a misunderstanding developed.
Why the same event produced different reactions.
How someone’s intention differed from the outcome.
Storytelling
Stories provide opportunities to ask:
“What does the character believe?”
“What information are they missing?”
“Why did they make that decision?”
“How will their belief change?”
Conflict resolution
People in a disagreement may be encouraged to identify:
What each person knew.
What each person believed.
What each person intended.
Where misunderstanding occurred.
This overlaps with coordinating interpersonal viewpoints.
Limits of practical use
Successfully teaching someone the correct answer to a false-belief task does not guarantee broad improvement in real-life social understanding.
The person may learn:
The structure of the task.
A verbal rule.
A test-taking strategy.
Researchers must check whether learning generalises to new people and situations.
Overall conclusion
Theory of mind is the ability to understand that people have separate mental states, including beliefs, desires, intentions and emotions.
A central achievement is false-belief understanding:
recognising that someone can believe something that is not true and will act according to that belief
The Sally-Anne study investigated this by asking where Sally would search after Anne moved a marble in Sally’s absence. Most comparison-group participants predicted that Sally would search in the original location, while most autistic participants selected the real location. This supported the proposal that some autistic children experience particular difficulty representing false beliefs.
However, false-belief performance also depends on:
Language.
Memory.
Inhibitory control.
Task familiarity.
The response method.
Theory of mind is therefore valuable for understanding social cognition but should not be reduced to one puppet task or used to make absolute claims about autistic people.
Hints from the Examiner Reports 💡
Examiner hint: Define theory of mind clearly before describing evidence. The 2023 examiner report noted that relatively few students gave an effective definition, and many instead wrote a lengthy description of the Sally-Anne study.
A precise definition should include:
Separate mental states.
Beliefs or intentions.
Mental states differing from reality or one’s own.
Mental states guiding behaviour.
Examiner hint: Link the theory directly to social cognition. Do not finish after writing that someone “cannot see another perspective”. Explain which belief, intention or knowledge state is misunderstood.
Examiner hint: In a false-belief application, track who witnessed each event.
Use:
Where was the object originally?
Who saw it move?
Who did not see it move?
What does each person now believe?
Where will the person search?
Examiner hint: The June 2021 application mark scheme rewarded explicit links between the new scenario and Sally-Anne. A general description of autism was not enough.
Examiner hint: Do not allow supporting evidence to become the whole evaluation. The 2022 examiner report noted that many discussions consisted only of evidence supporting the theory.
Develop broader points concerning:
Alternative cognitive explanations.
Cause and effect.
What ToM can and cannot explain.
Biological compatibility.
Practical applications.
Social sensitivity.
Examiner hint: In the 2023 8-mark question, three marks assessed AO1 and five assessed AO3. Evaluation therefore required more space than description.
Examiner hint: Evaluate the theory when the question asks about the theory. The 2023 report noted that students frequently evaluated the Sally-Anne evidence without assessing whether ToM adequately explained the features associated with autism.
Examiner hint: Avoid absolute statements such as:
“All autistic people lack theory of mind.”
Use:
“Some autistic participants experience difficulty on explicit false-belief tasks.”
Examiner hint: Keep theory of mind and empathy separate. Failing a false-belief task does not prove that a person lacks emotional concern.
Examiner hint: A good evaluation of task validity explains the alternative process:
“The child may understand Sally’s belief but fail because they cannot inhibit their own knowledge of the marble’s real location.”
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Defining theory of mind as knowing what someone is thinking
Why this is incomplete:
Theory of mind includes recognising that mental states are separate, unobservable and may differ from reality.
How to improve:
Refer to beliefs, intentions or desires influencing behaviour.
Mistake: Saying theory of mind means reading thoughts exactly
Why this is incorrect:
People infer mental states and can make mistakes.
How to improve:
Describe theory of mind as an interpretive or predictive ability.
Mistake: Confusing theory of mind with intelligence
Why this is incorrect:
General intellectual ability and false-belief understanding are not identical.
How to improve:
Explain the importance of the Down syndrome comparison group in Sally-Anne.
Mistake: Confusing theory of mind with empathy
Why this is incorrect:
Theory of mind is mainly cognitive, whereas empathy includes emotional response.
How to improve:
State that understanding another person does not guarantee concern for them.
Mistake: Saying Sally knows the marble is in the box
Why this is incorrect:
Sally left before Anne moved the marble.
How to improve:
Track what each character witnessed.
Mistake: Saying the correct answer is the box
Why this is incorrect:
The box is the real location, not Sally’s believed location.
How to improve:
Answer according to Sally’s false belief.
Mistake: Explaining the wrong answer as poor memory automatically
Why this is incomplete:
The study includes control questions to check reality and memory.
How to improve:
Discuss memory as a possible remaining task demand rather than assuming it caused every failure.
Mistake: Forgetting the control questions
Why this weakens description:
The controls help distinguish theory-of-mind failure from misunderstanding the story.
How to improve:
Include the reality and memory questions.
Mistake: Saying the study proves autistic people have no theory of mind
Why this is incorrect:
The finding was a group-level result from one explicit task.
How to improve:
Recognise heterogeneity and variation across tasks.
Mistake: Saying autistic people lack empathy
Why this is unsupported:
Theory of mind and empathy are different abilities.
How to improve:
Discuss only the mental-state understanding measured by the task.
Mistake: Treating one puppet task as a complete measure of social cognition
Why this is incorrect:
Real social cognition involves complex intentions, emotions and relationships.
How to improve:
Discuss construct and ecological validity.
Mistake: Giving only the Sally-Anne study in a ToM essay
Why this is incomplete:
The examiner may require an explanation or discussion of the theory itself.
How to improve:
Define ToM, link it to social cognition and then use the study as evidence.
Mistake: Describing evidence without explaining what it supports
Why this is incomplete:
A study name or finding is not evaluation on its own.
How to improve:
Use:
finding → implication for ToM → limitation or conclusion
Mistake: Saying ToM explains the biological cause of autism
Why this is incorrect:
ToM is a cognitive explanation and does not identify an original biological cause.
How to improve:
State that biological mechanisms may underlie the cognitive difference.
Mistake: Ignoring executive-function demands
Why this weakens evaluation:
The participant must inhibit their knowledge of reality.
How to improve:
Explain how inhibitory control provides an alternative account of false-belief failure.
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Questions
1. What is meant by theory of mind?[2 marks]
2. Explain what is meant by a false belief.[2 marks]
3. Outline the procedure of the Sally-Anne study.[4 marks]
4. Explain the purpose of the reality and memory questions in a false-belief task.[4 marks]
5. Maya puts a toy in a green drawer and leaves the room. While she is absent, Isaac moves the toy to a yellow drawer. Priya watches the movement.
Explain where Priya should predict that Maya will look for the toy if Priya has developed theory of mind.[4 marks]
6. A researcher conducts a false-belief task with two groups.
Group | Number passing | Number tested |
Group A | 24 | 30 |
Group B | 9 | 30 |
a) Calculate the percentage of participants passing in Group A.[2 marks]
b) Calculate the percentage passing in Group B.[2 marks]
c) Explain one conclusion and one limitation of the findings.[4 marks]
7. Explain one strength and one limitation of the Sally-Anne study.[6 marks]
8. Compare theory of mind with Selman’s account of perspective-taking.[6 marks]
9. A child knows that a biscuit is now inside a cupboard. The child predicts that a parent who did not witness the movement will also look inside the cupboard.
Explain the child’s response using theory of mind.[4 marks]
10. Outline and evaluate theory of mind as an explanation for autism.[8 marks]
11. Discuss research into theory of mind.[16 marks]
Answers and Mark Scheme
Question 1
Award up to two marks:
Theory of mind is the understanding that other people possess separate mental states.
Their beliefs, intentions or desires may differ from one’s own and from reality and may guide their behaviour.
Question 2
Award up to two marks:
A false belief is something a person believes to be true when it does not correspond with reality.
The person may act according to that mistaken belief.
Question 3
Award up to four marks:
Sally places a marble in her basket.
Sally leaves.
Anne moves the marble from the basket to her box.
Sally returns.
The participant is asked where Sally will look for the marble.
Predicting the basket demonstrates false-belief understanding.
Question 4
Award up to four marks:
The reality question checks whether the participant knows where the object is now.
The memory question checks whether the participant remembers the original location.
These questions help rule out failure caused simply by forgetting or failing to follow the story.
Correct control answers alongside an incorrect belief answer support a more specific theory-of-mind interpretation.
Question 5
Award up to four marks:
Priya should predict that Maya will look in the green drawer.
Maya left before Isaac moved the toy.
Maya therefore does not know that it is now in the yellow drawer.
She holds the false belief that the toy remains where she placed it.
Predicting behaviour from Maya’s false belief demonstrates theory of mind.
Question 6a
3024×100=80%
Award one mark for suitable working and one mark for:
80%
Question 6b
309×100=30%
Award one mark for suitable working and one mark for:
30%
Question 6c
Award up to four marks.
Possible conclusion:
A higher percentage of Group A passed the false-belief task.
The difference was 50 percentage points.
Group A therefore demonstrated greater success on this measure of theory of mind.
Possible limitation:
The table does not show whether the groups differed in language, memory, age or inhibitory control.
The result cannot establish that group membership itself caused the difference.
No inferential-test result is provided, so statistical significance cannot be claimed.
Question 7
Award up to three marks for a developed strength and three marks for a developed limitation.
Possible strength:
The inclusion of children with Down syndrome provided a useful comparison group. Their successful performance suggested that the autistic group’s difficulty was not caused simply by general developmental delay, supporting a specific theory-of-mind interpretation.
Possible limitation:
The task requires language, memory and inhibitory control. A child may understand Sally’s belief but answer using the real location because they cannot suppress their own knowledge, reducing construct validity.
Alternative creditworthy points include:
Standardised and replicable procedure.
Control questions.
Objective nominal data.
Small specialised sample.
Low ecological validity.
Binary outcome.
Participant differences between groups.
Social sensitivity.
Question 8
Award up to six marks for direct comparison.
Possible content:
Both explain the development of social cognition.
Both involve recognising that another person’s perspective may differ from one’s own.
Theory of mind focuses on mental states such as beliefs, desires and intentions.
Selman focuses on increasingly complex social viewpoints and relationships.
ToM is often investigated using false-belief tasks.
Selman used interpersonal dilemmas.
False-belief understanding develops during childhood.
Selman’s later levels continue into adolescence and include third-party and societal perspectives.
Basic theory of mind may provide a foundation for Selman’s higher-level coordination of viewpoints.
Both types of research may be affected by language and hypothetical task demands.
Higher marks require linked comparisons rather than two separate descriptions.
Question 9
Award up to four marks:
The child predicts behaviour from the real location rather than the parent’s belief.
The parent did not witness the movement.
The parent should therefore hold a false belief about the biscuit’s location.
The child fails to distinguish their own knowledge from the parent’s knowledge.
This response suggests difficulty on the false-belief measure of theory of mind.
Question 10
A strong answer should include:
Knowledge and understanding
Theory of mind as understanding separate mental states.
Beliefs, intentions and perspectives.
False-belief understanding.
The term mind-blindness.
Proposed links with social communication, pretend play, joint attention, gaze or gesture.
The Sally-Anne study as supporting evidence.
Evaluation
Sally-Anne supports a specific difficulty because comparison groups performed more successfully.
Smarties, comic-strip or Eyes tasks provide additional evidence.
Not all autistic people fail theory-of-mind tasks.
Language, memory or executive functioning may explain poor task performance.
The explanation accounts mainly for social features and not the full range of autistic characteristics.
ToM may describe a processing difference without identifying its cause.
Biological explanations may be compatible.
The theory risks cognitive reductionism and socially sensitive interpretations.
Practical applications must recognise individual differences.
Higher-level answers will evaluate the theory rather than merely describing the Sally-Anne study.
Question 11
A strong response should include:
Knowledge and understanding
Definition of theory of mind.
Mental states, including beliefs, intentions and desires.
Mental states differing between people and from reality.
Mental representation and metarepresentation.
False beliefs.
Theory of mind as part of social cognition.
Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith’s Sally-Anne study.
Sally’s basket and Anne’s box.
Sally leaving before the marble is moved.
The false-belief question.
Reality and memory control questions.
Passing and failing responses.
Autistic, Down syndrome and typically developing groups.
The main pattern of findings.
Theory of mind and autism.
Other tasks such as Smarties, comic strips or the Eyes Test.
Discussion
Support from the difference between the autistic and comparison groups.
Value of the Down syndrome comparison group.
Control questions increase validity.
Standardisation and replicability.
Evidence across different mind-reading tasks.
Language demands.
Memory demands.
Inhibitory-control and executive-function explanations.
False-belief tasks measure only one aspect of theory of mind.
Low ecological validity.
Explicit responses may underestimate implicit understanding.
Group findings do not describe every individual.
Autism is heterogeneous.
Theory of mind may describe rather than explain.
It does not explain all features associated with autism.
Possible biological underpinnings.
Cultural influences on task performance.
Practical applications.
Cognitive reductionism.
Social sensitivity and the distinction between theory of mind and empathy.
Higher-level responses will describe the Sally-Anne task accurately, explain why the basket is the correct belief-based answer and evaluate whether false-belief performance provides a valid and complete measure of social cognition.
Comments