What makes a preschooler a proficient persuader?

Persuasion is a common form of social interaction, develops across the lifespan, and is shaped by practice. Preschoolers learn to persuade others as they gain an understanding of others’ beliefs and feelings, and hone their communication skills accordingly. Nonetheless, being persuasive depends in part on the ability to mentalize about others’ thoughts and feelings, show cognitive flexibility, and social competence skills such as assertiveness and cooperation. Given the lack of studies on preschoolers’ theory of mind and persuasion skills, the present study investigated cognitive and social factors that may predict effective persuasion in preschoolers, with a specific focus on executive function skills and television exposure. Ninety-five children (45 boys and 50 girls), aged between 45 and 72 months (M = 58.41 months, SD = 6.16 months) completed persuasion, language, theory of mind and executive functions tasks. Parents completed a questionnaire about their child’s television exposure, and teachers completed two questionnaires on children’s social competence and behavior. Results showed that older children obtained higher scores than younger children in persuasion, language, theory of mind and executive functions tasks. Higher levels of children’s persuasion skills were associated with age, theory of mind (first-order false-belief score only), two executive functions tasks (Grass-Snow and Whisper), prosocial behavior, cooperation and assertiveness. Logistic regression showed that cooperation and assertiveness significantly predicted persuasion. In other words, children rated as cooperative and assertive by their teachers scored high on persuasion. The gender of the child, nor the exposure to television influenced children’s mentalization, social, or persuasion skills. Such findings suggest that for both girls and boys, irrespective of television viewing, age plays main role in relations among mindreading, cognitive flexibility, social skills, and persuasion. Implications for preschool programs that promote the development of persuasion skills through a balance of combined mentalization and prosocial skills are discussed.