Eight short corrected stories were used to test 281 Chinese children which were 3-9 years old from kinder-gartens and elementary schools for their understandings about the stability of traits,not only positive or negative traits but also stability across time or situations.

The paper is intended to review some of the major developments and findings on this topic, including studies on theory of mind and traits, children抯 beliefs about the origins of traits, children抯 use of trait-words and their development of trait-understanding, trait-inferring and development of trait-understanding.

This study probes the development of 7-11 year-old children s understanding of second-order belief and trait-understanding on the basis of conditional stories.

The study on children s trait understanding in their theory of mind;

Children's trait understanding refers to children's acknowledgement and understanding of an individual's traits, and predicting, judging, understanding, explaining an individual's behaviors and mental world according to his/her traits.