The study had investigated the children's comprehension of the influence of beliefs and emotions on human behavior. Participated 100 children, from 4 and 5 years old, different socioeconomic levels, both genders, distributed in 4 groups according to the age in months. The results was an unexpected object transference, followed by two questions in different conditions. Observed the theory of mind occurs in 56% of the them, starting at 4 years old. The loglinear analysis showed that the factors age and socioeconomic level are meaningful predictors of a better performance. Comparing the results in the questions of false belief and emotion, it was observed an increasing improvement in the development according to age, but in the question of emotion it showed a higher standard. It is discussed: (1) the capacity in predicting and justifying emotions is developed earlier than the ability to infer actions based upon false belief, (2) the way to pose the question did not help the performance and (3) the interference of SES occurs between 54-65 months of age.
Social cognition; folk psychology; theory of mind; false belief; emotion
