Development of Advanced Theory of Mind Abilities During Adolescence: Prosocial Behavior and Presence of a Real...

Advanced Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to quickly appreciate the mental states of an interlocutor, depending on the conversational context, and to rapidly adjust one's own mental representations in response to verbal feedback from that interlocutor. Although these abilities continue to develop during adolescence, they have not been studied in real-time interactive contexts in previous research. We examined the development of adolescents' advanced ToM abilities in a social interaction and how they relate to executive functioning and social relationships.

Eighty same-age, same-gender dyads aged 11-24 years (40 female dyads) were recruited from February to December 2023 in Briançon and Aix-en-Provence (France). They completed a collaborative game (i.e., referential communication task) to assess their advanced ToM abilities. We also evaluated their executive functioning (inhibition, working memory, flexibility) and social relationships (number of siblings, prosocial behaviors, and peer relationship difficulties).

Analysis comparing data from four age groups (early: 11-13 y.o., mid: 14-15 y.o., late: 16-17 y.o. adolescence, young adults: 18-24 y.o.) showed that, from the age of 11, adolescents use their ToM abilities as young adults. However, early adolescents seemed less efficient, as they used more words than older participants. Their prosocial behavior, inhibition abilities, and working memory capacities predicted their advanced ToM abilities.

The present study highlights the importance of assessing ToM abilities in the context of social interaction with an interlocutor to fully understand the effect of real-time adjustments between interlocutors through their feedback.