ABSTRACT
The issue of whether or not there are cross-cultural dierences in children’s development of an understanding of others’ minds (theory of mind: ToM) has important theoretical implications. It has the potential to shed light on the relative roles of biological maturation and social interactions via cultural participation in the growth of social cognition. If ToM mastery is culturally universal, with little variation from one cultural community to the next in either its timing or its form, this would favor biological maturation as the crucial developmental process. If, on the other hand, children in dierent cultural settings dier in their patterns and/or rates of ToM growth, this would give weight to the role of social and cultural experiences.
