Children's literature, theory of mind and social information processing

This research aimed to identify the occurrence of words/utterances that denotes mental states and also to analyze a sample of a 100 children's storybooks directed to pre-school children aged from 4 to 6 years based on social information processing approach. The books were codified according to three views of analysis: words/utterances in the text, pictures e presence of irony or false beliefs in the narrative. The analysis of mental words was submitted to judgment of two judges and later to the Spearman Coefficient test. In relation to the Social Information Processing approach the book sample was analyzed considering the occurrence of 6 components of an American program for the reduction of aggressive behavior through children´s storybooks. The results point out the viability of using national storybooks as a resource to promote social cognitive development and prevent aggressive and anti-social behavior in educational settings.

Social cognitive development; Children's storybooks; Educational Psychology