Corrupción, criminalidad, terrorismo y alguna referencia a la ética

Linked closely with metacognition is theory-of-mind which refers to one’s ability to reflect on oneself. It is concerned with an understanding of beliefs and desires, knowledge, thoughts, intentions and feelings, and is necessary for understanding the social world and our part in it. Larkin considers the work of Carpendale and Chandler (Larkin 2010) and their belief that theory-of-mind may develop in terms of levels of sophistication throughout early development showing a ‘copy mind’ and later developing an ‘interpretive theory-of-mind’ involving construction of meaning.

Flavell (1999) describes theory-of-mind as the third wave of research about children’s knowledge about the mind. The first wave is the Piagetian view of cognitive egocentricity and the second wave was focussed on metacognitive development. Flavell (1999) describes this third area as dominating the field of cognitive development.

Schneider and Lockl (2002) discuss two lines of research evident from the theory-of-mind research of the past 20 years. One theory, which grew directly out of the work on metacognitive development, is assessing children’s

understanding of mental verbs such as ‘knowing’ and ‘forgetting’. Wellman

(1985) conceptualises young children’s developing Metacognitive Knowledge and their understanding of mental verbs as the development of a theory-of-mind. Some theory-of-mind researchers (Flavell, Green, Flavell Harris and Wilde Astington 1995) deem that it is a significant stage in development when children understand important terms such as ‘think’ and ‘know’. Although ‘think’

can appear in children’s language as early as two and a half years old, it is not until three years old that there is an understanding that thinking is an activity that people engage in (Flavell 1999). At this age children realise that thoughts and images are internal, and are not to be confused with physical realities.

There is a basic understanding that the mind and brain are necessary for

mental action. However, despite this, they are poor at knowing when a person is thinking and what the person may be thinking, or not thinking, about. Flavell et al (1995) give evidence that four years of age is a crucial developmental point for understanding such terms. It is not until age four that children have a grasp of what thinking is:

“….some sort of integral, mental activity that people engage in that refers to real or imaginary objects or events.”

(Flavell et al., 1995, p.78)

The other line of research is that of ‘false belief’ where a child below the age of four is unable to believe that another person can believe something he knows to be false. Flavell (2004) illustrated this by describing the results of the following false belief task:

“……children discover that a cookie box actually contains pencils instead of cookies, they are asked what another child who has not looked inside will think the box contains. Younger pre-schoolers say pencils; older ones, with a better understanding of belief, say cookies.”

(Flavell, 2004, p.276)

Schneider and Lockl (2002) state that false belief tasks implicitly assess children’s understanding of informational access and knowledge, they need to understand people represent the world in their minds. This understanding develops around the age of four. Lockl and Schneider (2007) say this is when children begin to understand knowledge as part of an information processing system and to appreciate and understand what is important for gaining knowledge.

There is a link between the two where Lockl and Schneider (2007) conclude there seems to be a developmental progression from understanding the verbs in terms of overt behaviours, to understanding them as inferred cognitive states.

This seems they say to occur with the development of knowledge about the memory process and what influences memory performance. Tasks such as remembering a shopping list at this age may help children acquire

metacognitive awareness.

The concept of thinking is important because there is a link between this development and the early stages of metacognitive development (Bartsch and Estes 1996; Larkin 2010). Schneider and Lockl (2002) point to the development

of theory-of-mind research as focussing on the initial knowledge about various mental states. Schneider and Lockl (2002) state that the work on metacognition has been more task focussed, concentrating on strategies for improving

performance. They point to an interrelationship between theory-of-mind and metacognition; theory-of-mind must be present if conscious, or deliberate, metacognitive skills are to develop.

Following on from the theory-of-mind work, which demonstrates that there is an age between three and four years old when children begin to develop an

understanding of mental state concepts, there is a clear suggestion that this development is necessary in order to provide the foundation for metacognition (Bartsch and Estes 1996; Larkin 2010). Bartsch and Estes (1996) particularly draw attention to the development of metacognitive knowledge, for example “an appreciation of short versus long term memory or the limitations of attention.”

(p.298). They claim that having knowledge about concepts of mental states is a prerequisite to thinking about them, their relationships to others and to the world. Therefore, understanding the children’s acquisition of these mental state concepts is necessary for understanding the development of metacognition.

Their research also raises the links between theory-of-mind and social interactions which foster the development of some concepts of cognition, for example that of belief. They suggest that this link may also impact on aspects of metacognitive development and that children may have varied experiences both social and non-social which impact on individual conceptions of metacognition.