# Psychology Question: Theory of Mind and Culture

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 7, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151 "2022-12-07T16:27:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/1 "2022-12-07T16:27:45Z")

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I fell down a Reddit rabbit hole and am now confused. With the idea that the fastest way to learn on the internet is the say something wrong here we go:

This is how I understand it, the Definitions taken from Wiki:

**Empathy** is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

**Theory of mind** In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them (that is, surmising what is happening in their mind). This includes the knowledge that others’ mental states may be different from one’s own states and include beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and thoughts.

So similar but not equivalent to a Psychologist. If you learned a stranger just lost a child you would naturally feel bad for them because you could imagine that happening to you and it would be horrible. If a (insert religious leader) just lost a child you would still feel bad for them, but could image how a person with a different belief system and ideas from your own could cope differently, I guess that’s Theory of mind?

Ok, at the end of the third paragraph [HERE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind) this gem is dropped.

“Children from Iran and China in a culture of collectivism develop knowledge access earlier and understand diverse beliefs later than Western children in a culture of individualism.”

That is a bold statement.

The source is listed but not only can I not access it I doubt I would be able to understand it if I did.

So what I am asking is, is this true? If it is, why? Is it totalitarian regimes dissolving the self even at a young age to hold power or is this a truly cultural phenomenon witnessed even before dictators? And if so, how does that play out for people in their own country?

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**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/2 "2022-12-07T16:32:46Z")

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Without a functioning theory of mind you don’t have a society, you have various cage matches played in different ways for different stakes.

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**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/3 "2022-12-07T17:20:04Z")

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[APA PsycNet](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-11066-001) is the paper referenced in the Wiki article. Bolding is mine

> [@](#):
>
> Abstract
> 
> To examine cultural contrasts in the ordered sequence of conceptual developments leading to theory of mind (ToM), we compared 135 3- to 6-year-olds (77 Australians; 58 Iranians) on an established 5-step ToM scale (Wellman & Liu, 2004). **There was a cross-cultural difference in the sequencing of ToM steps but not in overall rates of ToM mastery**. In line with our predictions, the children from Iran conformed to a distinctive sequence previously observed only in children in China. In contrast to the case with children from Australia (and the United States), knowledge access was understood earlier than opinion diversity in children from Iran, consistent with this collectivist culture’s emphasis on filial respect, dispute avoidance, and acquiring knowledge. Having a sibling was linked with faster overall ToM progress in Australia only and was not related to scale sequences in either culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S088520142030006X](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S088520142030006X) is another paper that actually references this one and might be more useful.

But I think you’re conflating a culture of collectivism with totalitarian regimes and making a second mistake of linking collective cultures as “dissolving the self”. They’re not talking about nerve-stapled drones 🙂

In both cases a ToM emerges, it isn’t suppressed but shaped in (and by) the environment the mind find itself in.

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/4 "2022-12-07T22:28:58Z")

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> [@Sitnam](#):
>
> So similar but not equivalent to a Psychologist. If you learned a stranger just lost a child you would naturally feel bad for them because you could imagine that happening to you and it would be horrible. If a (insert religious leader) just lost a child you would still feel bad for them, but could image how a person with a different belief system and ideas from your own could cope differently, I guess that’s Theory of mind?

Not quite, no. Either situation is both empathy and theory of mind.

There is a great deal of overlap, but the basic distinction is that empathy is the sharing of emotion. Theory of mind is the ability to ascribe a mental state to another being. You take theory of mind for granted because you’re a human being, but it doesn’t necessitate emotion at all - for instance, if playing a game of strategy with an opponent, you are employing ToM to try to predict and manipulate their actions. Conversely, empathy doesn’t require theory of mind. Animals that are capable of little to no ToM can empathize with one another, but rather few animals have a well developed ToM that we can tell.

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/5 "2022-12-08T21:46:12Z")

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I would be also interested in details about the scale used.

It could be that the scale was validated in one culture and simply does not “translate” (not literally) well across cultures.

That said it is unsurprising if the exact sequence of developmental progressions varies across cultures that emphasize different domains differently. There are in fact many examples of this, including in language development (Western better nouns early, Asian cultures more relations of things to others).

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/6 "2022-12-09T13:36:40Z")

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This may be of some interest to the OP.

> **[How culture influences children's development](https://theconversation.com/amp/how-culture-influences-childrens-development-99791)**
>
> Culture plays a role in forming a child’s identity, conversational style and memory. This has many implications for how to deal with children, from school to the judicial system.

Also this book, albeit now 20 years old.

> **[The Geography of Thought](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Geography_of_Thought.html?id=0v8e5I_TIPgC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false)**
>
> A “landmark book” (Robert J. Sternberg, president of the American Psychological Association) by one of the world's preeminent psychologists that proves human behavior is not “hard-wired” but a function of culture.Everyone knows that while different...

That said, I would still be cautious accepting one study conclusion at face value.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2022, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/7 "2022-12-09T13:57:58Z")

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Last multi-post!

This article is specific to the claim of the OP, more precisely correlating a specific parenting style that varies across cultures with rate of achievement of one marker of TOM. A very interesting read.

[https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12746](https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12746)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychology-question-theory-of-mind-and-culture/976151/8 "2022-12-09T16:43:46Z")

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> [@DSeid](#):
>
> This may be of some interest to the OP.

I’ll check it out, thanks.