Theory of Mind (ToM) and Executive Functioning (EF) are two pillars of human social cognition often studied in conjunction, but rarely considered together beyond childhood. Adults routinely undertake ToM activities of higher levels, such as those that require reasoning recursively through other individuals’ presumed reasoning about others (e.g., she believes that he believes that this is difficult to grasp). Yet, the possibility of links between EF and these special kinds of representations, termed second-order ToM, has been much less studied empirically. The objective of the current pre-registered report is to provide a meta-analytic review of the extant literature linking second-order ToM and EF in school-age children and adults. Studies reporting on the relation between EF and second-order ToM were located through systematic search of published and non-published research databases. A final set of 32 studies were meta-analyzed, providing 83 effect sizes and a pooled N of over 2584 child and adult participants. The developmental literature provided evidence of moderate second-order ToM-EF linkage in children (r = .25), which resisted statistical adjustment for age, and did not differ on the basis of children’s cultural background. In contrast, the adult findings were weaker (r = .09), and only accounted for a very small percentage of the meta-analyzed literature. Important methodological gaps were identified, highlighting the need for more research on the links between second-order ToM and EF.

心智理论 (ToM) 和执行功能 (EF) 是人类社会认知的两大支柱，经常结合起来研究，但在童年之后很少一起考虑。成年人例行公事地进行更高层次的ToM活动，例如那些需要通过其他个体对他人的推定推理进行递归推理的活动（例如，她相信他认为这很难理解）。然而，EF 和这些特殊类型的表示（称为二阶 ToM）之间联系的可能性，很少有实证研究。当前预注册报告的目的是对学龄儿童和成人中将二阶 ToM 和 EF 联系起来的现有文献进行荟萃分析。关于 EF 和二阶 ToM 之间关系的研究报告是通过对已发表和未发表的研究数据库进行系统搜索来找到的。最终对 32 项研究进行了荟萃分析，提供了 83 种效应大小和汇总结果超过 2584 名儿童和成人参与者中的N。发展文献提供了儿童中度二阶 ToM-EF 联系的证据 ( r  = .25)，这抵制了年龄的统计调整，并且在儿童文化背景的基础上没有差异。相比之下，成人研究结果较弱（r  = .09），仅占荟萃分析文献的很小一部分。发现了重要的方法论差距，强调需要对二阶 ToM 和 EF 之间的联系进行更多研究。