Associations between child theory of mind, mutuality in father-preschooler dyads, and household chaos

Early theory of mind development is influenced by a variety of experiences and contexts. Social interactions with parents and others are important for developing a theory of mind, but these social processes may be disrupted by aspects of the proximal home environment. The current study observed father-child dyadic mutuality (a construct representing responsiveness, reciprocity, and cooperation during a structured interaction) and its associations with child theory of mind and household chaos in a sample of fathers and their 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 88 dyads). Dyadic mutuality was coded from videotaped structured tasks, household chaos was self-reported by fathers through a questionnaire, and child theory of mind was measured through behavioral tasks. Measures of child expressive language ability, child executive function, and family socioeconomic status are included as covariates. Results show no main effect of either dyadic mutuality or household chaos on child theory of mind, but that the association between dyadic mutuality and child theory of mind was moderated by household chaos, whereby the association between higher observed dyadic mutuality and better child theory of mind abilities was evident only at low and mean levels of chaos. Findings suggest that higher levels of household chaos may disturb the beneficial social interactions between parents and children that influence theory of mind development. Additional contextual variables and processes are discussed.