THE PROBLEM OF THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN CHILDREN’S EMOTION UNDERSTANDING AND THEORY OF MIND AS AN ACTUAL RESEARCH DIRECTION IN THE MODERN FOREIGN CHILD PSYCHOLOGY

The article is devoted to discuss the problem of the interrelation between children's emotion under- standing and theory of mind as different aspects of social cognition. The basic changes in the development of emotion and mental states understanding during preschool childhood are considered. The main lines of interrela- tion between the development of emotion understanding and theory of mind in children are discussed. The au- thor conclusions that the problem of the interrelation between emotion understanding and theory of mind in modern foreign child psychology boils down to asking questions about how these social-cognitive abilities affect each other during development, what variables mediate their relations, and what are the variants of the interrela- tion between them during preschool childhood