Development of Children's Awareness of Their Own Thoughts

Two introspection tasks were given to 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults. In one, participants were first asked to think of something they liked to do and something they did not like to do, and then to say what their specific thoughts had been while they were thinking. Even the 5-year-olds were able to report some specific thought content under these highly facilitative conditions. In the other task, participants were asked to try to have no thoughts at all for a short period of time (20-25 sec). When subsequently asked whether they had had some thoughts anyway during this period, all of the adults and the majority of the 8-year-olds said they had, but only a few of the 5-year-olds did. These and other findings suggest that young children have some capacity for introspection but are generally much less aware than older children and adults of their own spontaneous, ongoing ideation.