TY - JOUR TI - Narratives of Children with Different Levels of Understanding of Mental States T2 - Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics IS - Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics KW - narrative abilities KW - understanding of the mental states KW - theory of mind KW - preschool age AB - The article presents the results of a study of various components of the narrative competence of 4 and 6-year-old children in the context of developing theory of mind - a system for representing knowledge about mental phenomena of other people. We consider a narrative not only as an important communication tool and integrative language ability, but also as a method for analyzing the understanding of mental states and events. The analysis of the structural and content characteristics of children's narratives in relation to theory of mind allows us to study the pragmatic aspects of communication, focus on a partner and the ability to take into account their point of view. The study involved 60 children who told stories to another child. The children's narratives were created according to the instructions so that the central part was missing. The narratives were evaluated according to the structure, informativity, quantity and specificity of descriptions of mental states. We evaluated theory of mind using a battery of tasks: understanding false beliefs, intentions, emotions, etc. The results showed a qualitative leap in the development of a theory of mind and narrative abilities from 4 to 6 years, as well as a change in the nature of the relationships between them in two age groups. Differences were found in all the studied characteristics of narratives in children with different levels of theory of mind: children who understand mental states better made more detailed, consistent descriptions, including an indication of causality and various mental states of the characters. The age specificity in the description of mental states is also shown. The data show that theory of mind can be viewed as one of the cognitive resources for constructing narrative. AU - Anna Ulanova UR - https://psy-journal.hse.ru/en/2020-17-4/424105237.html PY - 2020 SP - 779-790 VL - 17