Why the Sally Anne Test Guides Dreambook’s Empathy Design
A simple scene has helped researchers understand how empathy begins to form in children. In the Sally Anne test, a child watches as Sally places a marble into a basket and leaves the room. While she’s gone, Anne moves the marble into a box. When Sally returns, the child is asked, “Where will Sally look for the marble?”
Children who answer “in the basket” have learned something powerful. They understand that Sally holds a belief that doesn’t match reality. That ability to recognize that other people have thoughts and knowledge different from your own is known as theory of mind. It’s a key milestone in social and emotional development, and it lays the foundation for empathy.
Research has shown that storytelling can help children reach this milestone earlier. In a study by Raymond Mar and colleagues, preschoolers who were regularly read to performed significantly better on theory-of-mind tasks like the Sally Anne test. Another study, led by Irina Kumschick, found that students who spent nine weeks reading and discussing emotionally rich stories developed stronger emotional vocabularies and became better at identifying subtle or hidden feelings in others. These findings support what many parents and teachers have long suspected: stories help children understand people.
At Dreambook, we’ve built this insight into the way our platform works. Dreambook is an adaptive story-creation tool that lets children shape their own stories from the ground up. They create characters, choose tones and settings, and select topics that mirror real-life experiences. Whether a child is writing about a first day at school or a lost pet, they are invited to think through how others feel, react, and grow. The process is playful, but underneath it is a steady, research-backed opportunity to practice perspective taking.
The Sally Anne test teaches us that empathy begins with the ability to imagine another person’s point of view. Dreambook helps children practice that ability through story creation. Every time they build a character or choose a new path for their story, they are taking one more step toward understanding how other minds work.
References
Kumschick, I. R., Aellen, A., Nivette, T., & Paulus, C. (2014). Reading and feeling: The effects of a literature-based intervention on emotional competence in primary school. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 144.
Mar, R. A., Tackett, J. L., & Moore, C. (2010). Exposure to narrative fiction and theory-of-mind development in preschoolers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(4), 705–726.
Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognitive Psychology, 15(1), 103–128.
