How Magic Stories Boost Kids' Thinking Skills

Young kids often struggle with understanding false beliefs. This is because they have a hard time seeing things from another person's perspective. It is like they have a reality bias. They find it hard to think about what someone else might believe if it is not true. This is a big part of how kids think and learn. Researchers wanted to see if magical or fantastical stories could help kids with this problem. They thought that maybe these stories could make it easier for kids to think about false beliefs. They did two experiments to test this idea. In the first experiment, kids did better on false belief tasks when the stories had fantastical elements. This was true even after the researchers accounted for the kids' executive functions. Executive functions are the skills that help us plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. The kids did better even when these skills were taken into account.The second experiment showed similar results. It also found that the order of the tasks mattered. Kids who did the fantastical false belief tasks first did better than those who did the realistic tasks first. This was true even when the researchers considered the kids' fantasy orientation and executive functions. Fantasy orientation is how much a person likes and engages with fantasy. So, what does this all mean? It seems that fantastical stories can really help kids think about false beliefs. This is more than just making the tasks easier. It is about how the stories help kids think in new ways. Future studies could look more into this. They could see if training with fantastical stories makes a lasting difference. They could also look at what kinds of fantastical elements work best. This could help us understand how to use stories to boost kids' thinking skills.