Children's Attributions 5
with regard to the false-belief task. Then, we outline the predictions implied by several
theoretical positions concerning the development of children’s understanding of humans’ and
God’s beliefs. After that, we present experimental evidence from a Yukatek Maya sample that
supports the hypothesis that young children do not reason about God’s beliefs in human terms.
Finally, we discuss the theoretical positions and their predictions in light of the results and place
the evidence in the larger context of theory of mind research.
2. The development of human agent concepts
The cognitive literature on child development usually distinguishes three phases in the
development of understanding of agency (see for example Csibra, Gergely, Biro, Koos, &
Brockbank, 1999; Gergely , Nadasdy, Csibra, & Biro, 1995; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997;
Wellman, 1990). During the first year or so, children are believed to apply a principle of rational
action - that is, they begin to appreciate that humans do not merely propel themselves, but do so
in purposeful and rational ways. By the second or third year, children incorporate simple
mentalistic attributions into this rational principle: the purposeful and rational action is
understood to be driven by desires. Finally, during the fourth or fifth year, the principle of
rational action is coupled with representational attributions: agents are seen as pursuing goals in
accordance to their beliefs.
The emergence of this representational stage, which is a necessary condition for the
possession of a full-fledged conception of the mind, is the most relevant to the arguments and
experimental results presented in this article. Exactly when this transition takes place has been a
matter of considerable debate generating an abundance of research (e.g., Astington et al., 1988;