Why We Think We Can't Dance: Theory of Mind and Children's Desire to Perform

Lan Nguyen Chaplin; Michael I. Norton

Article | Child Development | March–April 2015

Why We Think We Can't Dance: Theory of Mind and Children's Desire to Perform

by Lan Nguyen Chaplin and Michael I. Norton

Abstract

Theory of Mind (ToM) allows children to achieve success in the social world by understanding others' minds. A study with 3–12 year olds, however, demonstrates that gains in ToM are linked to decreases in children's desire to engage in performative behaviors associated with health and well-being—such as singing and dancing. One hundred and fifty nine middle-class children from diverse backgrounds in a northeastern USA metropolitan area completed the study in 2011. The development of ToM is associated with decreases in self-esteem, which in turn predicts decreases in children's willingness to perform. This shift away from performance begins at age 4 (when ToM begins to develop), years before children enter puberty.

Keywords: Theory of Mind; Performance; Self-Esteem; Behavior; Attitudes; Performance; Cognition and Thinking;

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Citation:

Chaplin, Lan Nguyen, and Michael I. Norton. "Why We Think We Can't Dance: Theory of Mind and Children's Desire to Perform." Child Development 86, no. 2 (March–April 2015): 651–658.

Article | Journal of Consumer Psychology

The Feeling of Not Knowing It All

Haiyang Yang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

How do consumers assess their mastery of knowledge they have learned? We explore this question by investigating a common knowledge consumption situation: encountering opportunities for further learning. We argue and show that such opportunities can trigger a feeling-of-not-knowing-it-all (FONKIA), which lowers consumers’ confidence in their mastery of the knowledge they already possess. Specifically, listing optional follow-up readings at the conclusion of a course lowered students’ confidence in their mastery of the course material they had already learned (Study 1). Encountering an optional learning opportunity increased the FONKIA, which mediated the decreased confidence (Studies 2 and 3). We also document two moderators consistent with our conceptualization. First, participants primed with mastery (vs. instrumental) motivation were more negatively impacted when they encountered optional learning opportunities. Second, the more related the optional opportunities were to the target topic, the lower participants’ confidence in their mastery of what they had already learned. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings, such as encouraging further learning or harming teaching evaluations.

Keywords: Knowledge consumption; Consumption of learning; Judgment of knowledge; Feeling ofknowing; Confidence in knowledge; WYSIATI; FONKIA; Knowledge Acquisition; Learning; Perception;

Citation:

Yang, Haiyang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely, and Michael I. Norton. "The Feeling of Not Knowing It All." Journal of Consumer Psychology 29, no. 3 (July 2019): 455–462. View Details

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Why We Think We Can't Dance: Theory of Mind and Children's Desire to Perform

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