This study examined whether children understand that people selectively conceal or express emotion depending upon the context. We prepared two contexts for a verbal display task for 70 first-graders, 80 third-graders, 64 fifth-graders, and 71 adults. In both contexts, protagonists had negative feelings because of the behavior of the other…

Narrative competence can be considered an indicator of children's knowledge about other people's minds. The present study investigates the relations between, on the one hand, children's narrative competence and their second order language of mind (comprehension of deception) and, on the other, their developmental trends from kindergarten to…