“Are we both right?” relations between theory of mind and epistemic humility in dyadic cooperative problem-solving in 5- to 9-year-old children

Abstract

The current study addresses the question of the relation between ToM and children's epistemic humility - the tendency to acknowledge the limitations of one's knowledge while being open to another's input during socio-cognitive conflict regulation - in a cooperative problem-solving context. Sixty-four boys and girls between the ages of 5 to 9 years (32 same-gender dyads) were tested for their ToM with the Theory of Mind Test (TMT) and The Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC), and for their epistemic humility through an analysis of their spontaneous verbal interactions during the resolution of a dyadic spatial transformation task. The results showed that children with higher levels of ToM more frequently showed more epistemic humility when faced with conflicting ideas, even when age was taken into account. The results are discussed in terms of the processes underlying socio-cognitive conflict regulation in peer cooperation and their educational implications.