Chinese preschoolers' false belief understanding: Is social knowledge underpinned by parental styles, social interactions or executive functions?

The ontogenesis of social understanding has been linked with a range of cognitive skills involving executive functions and social factors like the child's social interactions. This research was conducted in China in order to test recent claims that members of the child's social network and parenting styles are instrumental in facilitating this development and that oriental children show advanced skills in executive functions and relatively slow 'theory of mind' development. Sixty-seven preschoolers performed executive and false tests and 64 of their parents returned questionnaires about the child's social network and their disciplinary strategies. Individual social and cognitive factors predicted false belief but in regression analyses inhibitory control remained significant and one social predictor, interaction with cousins, was negatively related to social awareness. The data suggest the importance of analyses of the origins of social knowledge in diverse cultural settings and exploring the cognitive and social factors that underlie this development.