Is Higher ToM Associated with Neuroticism?

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute one's own thoughts to other people's mental states, beliefs, intentions, wishes, emotions, knowledge, etc., as well as the comprehension that other people have views, intentions, desires, and perspectives that are different from one's own (Premack and Woodruff, 1978). The current study focuses on cognitive and emotional processes that allow us to process the requirements of others in order to better understand ToM and its neuroticism antecedents. Students from Montclair State University took part in this cross-sectional study via the Cognition and Leadership Development Lab; (n=245). The study randomly allocated different sets of tasks to these participants, including the Yoni Task (ToM) (Shamay-Tsoory & Aharon-Peretz, 2006), A Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (cognition) (MASC; Dziobek et al., 2006), and Big Five Personality (personality) (BFI; Benet-Martinez & John 1998). A higher ToM was anticipated to be consistent with higher neuroticism. However, according to the results of two linear regression analyses, people with greater theory of mind did not present with higher levels of neuroticism, (MASC: R2= .002, F(1,244)= .508, p= .476, YONI: R2= .014, F(1,244)= 3.475, p= .063). References Benet-Martinez, V., & John, O. P. (1998). Los Cinco Grandes across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait multimethod analyses of the Big Five in Spanish and English. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 729-750. Dziobek, I., Fleck, S., Kalbe, E., Rogers, K., Hassenstab, J., Brand, M., Kessler, J., Woike, J. K., Wolf, O. T., & Convit, A. (2006). Introducing MASC: A Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(5), 623–636. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0107-0 Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2006). Dissociable prefrontal networks for cognitive and affective theory of mind: A lesion study. Neuropsychologia, 45(13), 3054–3067. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.05.021