Social media has become a central context for adolescent social interaction, yet little is known about the social-cognitive processes that support adolescents’ online engagement. This study examined whether Theory of Mind (ToM) was associated with multiple dimensions of adolescents’ online behavior. Participants were 127Canadian adolescents aged 11–18 recruited and assessed online.
ToM was assessed using the Strange Stories and Silent Films tasks, and verbal reasoning was measured using the WISC-V Similarities subtest. Online behaviors were assessed through self-report measures of preference for online social interaction, online conversation frequency, and online self-disclosure. Multivariate analyses showed that Silent Films ToM, but not Strange Stories ToM, was significantly associated with online behavior after controlling for age and verbal reasoning.
Follow-up regressions indicated that higher Silent Films ToM was associated with greater online conversation frequency, greater online self-disclosure, and lower propensity for online social interaction. These findings suggest that stronger ToM was associated with adolescents’ online communication behaviours. This study highlights the importance of examining specific social-cognitive processes in understanding adolescents’ engagement in online contexts.
This research received no external funding. Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Sepideh Yasiniyan, Donia Tong & Victoria Talwar Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy The authors declare no competing interests. Informed consent and assent were obtained from all participants involved in the study. .
The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the American Psychological Association and was approved by the Research Ethics Board of McGill University REB # 22-03-030. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
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