Advanced Theory of Mind (ToM) skills—particularly recursive and interpretive reasoning—are foundational to the development of scientific reasoning (Kyriakopoulou & Vosniadou, 2020; Osterhaus & Koerber, 2023; Osterhaus et al., 2017). However, most evidence comes from Western contexts. Japan offers a compelling test case, as previous studies suggest delays in recursive ToM development among Japanese children compared to their Western peers (Osterhaus & Uchinokura, 2024), potentially reflecting cultural influences such as Japan's collectivist orientation and emphasis on group harmony. Comparing Japan and Germany thus provides a unique opportunity to test the universality of the ToM-scientific reasoning link.


This study examined (1) whether the relation between advanced ToM and scientific reasoning generalizes to a non-Western context, and (2) whether cross-cultural differences in recursive ToM explain potential disparities in scientific reasoning.


Study 1 included 401 children (grades 2-6) from Kagoshima, Japan. Children completed an advanced ToM battery (Osterhaus et al., 2016), the Science Primary Reasoning Inventory (SPR-I; Osterhaus et al., 2020), and control measures of vocabulary and inhibition (Seifert et al., 2017; Stroop, 1934). The findings replicated previous results from Western samples, with recursive and interpretive ToM predicting scientific reasoning, even after controlling for cognitive covariates.


Study 2 compared a propensity-score-matched sample of third graders from Japan (n = 102) and Germany (n = 102). No significant overall difference in scientific reasoning emerged between groups. However, subcomponent analysis revealed that German children outperformed their Japanese peers in the Control-of-Variables Strategy. This performance gap disappeared when limiting the analysis to Japanese children with demonstrated mastery of recursive ToM.


Overall, our findings show that recursive ToM appears to be a universal foundation for scientific reasoning, especially experimentation. Cultural differences in ToM development may underlie group differences in scientific reasoning, underscoring the importance of integrating social-cognitive development into cross-cultural science education research.