A Socio-Reflective Dimension of Intelligent Functioning: Linking Theory of Mind and Metacognition

Intelligent adaptation in social contexts can require people to assess their own knowledge while representing what others know, believe, or misunderstand. Self–other mental coordination is proposed as a context-dependent functional relation between these processes. The framework distinguishes other-oriented mental-state representation associated with Theory of Mind from self-oriented monitoring and regulation associated with metacognition. It organizes their proposed coordination across three interacting functional levels: mental-state representation, monitoring and regulation, and social-adaptive use. These levels describe functions rather than fixed developmental stages. A tentative process account specifies how information about one’s own uncertainty and another person’s informational position may guide comparison, response revision, and help seeking. Developmental predictions concern reduced dependence on comparison prompts, selective adjustment when informational roles change, and transfer to new partners or content requiring the same comparison. The evidence comes chiefly from childhood and educational contexts; adult functioning requires separate testing. The framework adopts neo-Piagetian constraints on processing capacity and cognizance as boundary conditions and uses developmental cycles to order the predicted changes. Testing requires longitudinal, measurement-invariant latent models combined with experimental manipulations that separate coordination from its components and shared resources. Its explanatory value for a socio-reflective dimension of intelligent functioning remains unestablished.