ABSTRACT
The important role of peer friendship for child and adolescent wellbeing and adaptive social development is undisputed. It is crucial, therefore, to understand the individual child factors that support friendships throughout childhood and adolescence – of which one such proposed factor is theory of mind. The current chapter starts by outlining the role of friendship for child development before providing a brief summary of how friendship relationships in childhood and adolescence have been operationalized. After outlining some possible mechanisms linking theory of mind to children’s friendship formation and maintenance, I evaluate the existing empirical literature, which overall shows a modest association between ToM and children’s friendship across childhood and adolescence. I end by discussing some of the challenges currently faced by this area of research and some suggestions for future studies.
