title: Young children's understanding of pretend crying: the effect of context.
abstract: Reasoning about another's pretend and real crying is related to ma'ny important social cognitive abilities (e.g., emotional understanding, appearance-reality, and theory of mind). This study investigated whether children aged 6 years and younger could distinguish between instances of pretend crying and real crying as presented in stories. Sixty-five Japanese children aged 4-6 years were given stories within two contexts (Play and Non-play). In the Play context, the protagonist of the story was pretending to cry or really crying during a pretend play activity. In the Non-play context, the protagonist was also pretending to cry or really crying after his/her toy had been hidden by another child. The children answered questions about these crying events. The results showed that the 4- and 5-year-olds showed significantly better understanding of pretend crying in the Play context compared to the Non-play context. In the Non-play context, they were significantly less likely to understand the cause of pretend crying compared to the 6-year-olds. The results suggest that the context of pretend play facilitates the children's understanding of pretend crying.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Japan. aimizokawa@gmail.com
authors.forename: Ai
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mizokawa
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D003448:Crying; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011936:Reality Testing; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D056345:Theory of Mind