Lecture 4 - Socio-cognitive development 1

Question 1

What does cognitive development involves, changes in childreins thinking and understanding in which areas?

Answer 1

• Thought
• Perception
• Memory
• Reasoning
• Decision making
• Problem solving
• Learning - intelligence
• Conceptual thinking - imaging/ pretending
• understanding others

Question 2

Define social development

Answer 2

Changes in how children think, feel and behave towards other people

• understanding of social interaction
• how development is shaped by social envuronment

Question 3

Define social cognition

Answer 3

• thinking processes about social interactions
• social factors and cognitive factors combined
• social interactions are shaped by cognitive factors
• Childrens thoughts are shaped by social factors

Question 4

Define socio-cognitive development

Answer 4

Understanding the mind and behaviour of oneself and other people - is a core social cognitive skill
- recognising that others have thought processes and that they may be different to our own

Question 5

When you progress through each of piaget’s stages, what happens?

Answer 5

a fundamental change in how we use/ extract knowledge

Question 6

At which stages do children acquire OP

Answer 6

Sensori motor - 9 months

Question 7

At which stages do children use language to represent environment

Answer 7

Pre=operational - but focused on the self

Question 8

At which stages do children do logical thought

Answer 8

Concrete operational - rules about objects

Question 9

At which stages do children do abstract ideas?

Answer 9

Formal operational - understand hypothesis testing, can be imagined situations

Question 10

Outline criticisms of piaget

Answer 10

X - opposed by Vygotsky (ZPD) and Brunner (Scaffolding)

Question 11

Define egocentrism

Answer 11

Blind to all but your own

• think everything in the world thinks like you do
• Can be frustrating when others see things differently
• difficulty understanding that others may see and think differently
• evidence from: egocentric speech, visual perspective taking, mental perspective taking

Question 12

Define Mental perspective taking

Answer 12

Viewing a situation from another persons POV, thinking how they would think

• crucial in the social world - predict what people are doing and why
• show empathy
• ToM falls into this

Question 13

Define ToM

Answer 13

• First coined by Premack & Woodruff (1978)
• Understanding that other people have desires, beliefs, knowledge etc - that are different from ones owns. Then taking this and making inferences about the behaviour of other people
• Meta-cognition
• others minds are different from our own
• Dual representations, we have one mind that is ours, and one mind that is for everybody else
• Its a teory as we cant directly observe, or test it

Question 14

Outline Wellman (1990) 3 stages to ToM

Answer 14

2 years - Desire stage: emotions correspond to desires, so we recognise what people willl want

3 years - Belief-desire stage: beliefs AND desires, think how another person may act and be feeling. Recognise behaviour is motivated by beliefs and desires, but desires may contradict beliefs so they may be ignored

4 years - representational stage - people may act on beliefs about the world even if they are false

Evidence: perspective taking, apperance-reality (sponge/ rock), false-belief tasks

Question 15

What are the 3 types of ToM tests?

Answer 15

1. Mistaken location
2. Mistaken contents
3. Mistaken identity/ Appearance-reality

Question 16

Outline Mistaken location tests

Answer 16

• False belief tasks
• Maxi and the cholcate task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)
• Also known as Unexpected transfer task
• 3 year old will get it wrong, say maxi will look in fridge (where mother moves it)
• 4 year old will say cupboard
• Nede to know where it is (true) and where maxi knows to be true to pass

Baron-Cohen - made this test simpler, interactive and visual

• Sally-anne
• Tests: Salllys belief about the ball, reality test, and memory test

Question 17

Outline Baron-Cohen findings

Answer 17

Most 3 year olds know sallys will not know her toy has been moved

• but still fail the false belief wrong
• reality and memory are right

most 4 year olds get it right

• cross-culturally
• Avis & Harris, 1991 - cammeron did it with seeds and a basket

Question 18

Outline Mistaken contents tests

Answer 18

1. Ask children whats in container - packaging suggests crayons, so they say crayons
2. Show contents - its candles
3. Close box
4. ASk whats in it again, they say candles
5. Ask what will another person think is in the container?

3 year olds say candles
5 year olds say crayons

• 3 year olds said they knew it was crayons all along

Question 19

Outline Mistaken Identity tests

Answer 19

Sponge that looks like a rock (Flavell et al (1983)

• asked two questions
• what does it look like, what is it really
• Once 3 year olds realised it was a sponge, they just said it looked like one, as they couldnt hold the dual representation, that an object can be represented in different ways

Question 20

Outline the two types of dual representation errors in appearance reality questions

Answer 20

1. Intellectual realism error: report reality when actually asked about appearance
   - it looks like a sponge
2. Phenomenism error: report appearance when actually asked about reality: what is it really? - A rock

Question 21

Outline finding % for ToM

Answer 21

• 85% non clinical pass
• 85% down syndrome
• 20% Autism

Correlated with: conservation tasks, egocentrism, perspective taking tasks

Not related to IQ

Question 22

Why cant young children pass conservations of marbles and liquids, what dont they understand

Answer 22

Dont understand that matter can stay constant, despite appearance changing

• Centration - can only focus on one feature/ aspect/ characteristics
• cant imagine reversability/ rules of objects changing

Question 23

Outline 3 mountain problems

Answer 23

A perspective taking task - examines how they see the world, and if they can understand what others can see

• support egocentrism
• Anyone under 7 wont pass - egocentrism
• Start to pass around 9-10

Question 24

What are the criticism findings for the 3 mountains task

Answer 24

Piaget said that anyone under 7 would fail
- Hughes (1976) - policeman doll - could pass at 4
- does this test perspective taking? Or line of sight?
X - Do you need language to pass these tests?

Question 25

Outline Vander Heyden et al (2017) - perspective taking

Answer 25

Children 8-12 years - Had to navigate a route of a maze from a 90 degree and 180 rotated perspective - Chilldren were less acurate, slower and committed more egocentric errors in the 90 condition, than in the 180 condition - Accuracy of POV and speed of navigation got better with age - Implies you use different perspective taking stragies for different angles

Question 26

Outline how language could be a limitation in these studys

Answer 26

- Wording of question could sway the answer: • Where will Bob look vs where should Bob Look - minor word changes effect performance - Where do you 'think' Bob will look - think is a complex word and difficult for younger kids to get their head around - Correlation between language ability and TOM scores (Ketelaars et al 2010) - Changing the wording changes the results - Better at keeping secrets = better at ToM tasks

Question 27

Outline Ding et al (2015)

Answer 27

- TOM training and lying - 2 groups of 3 year olds • One taught about mental/ emotiononal states • One taught physical concepts - The 3 year olds who were trained to lie began to decieve consistently on ToM tasks - Better at lying = better at ToM

Question 28

What are the 4 theories about ToM

Answer 28

1. Executive function 2. Theory-Theory accounts 3. Simulation Theory 4. Realism/ Nativstic accounts

Question 29

Outline executive function as a theory of ToM | - Dual

Answer 29

Ability to hold dual representations - at the same time - planning, making decisions, cognitive flexibility - Success on ToM skills are dependendent on cognitive abilities like these

Question 30

Outline Theory-theory accounts as a theory of ToM | - Conceptual revolution

Answer 30

Child is sicentist - they make theories about the world and investigate evens - there is a suddent shift from 3-5 when they realise they can interpret/ predict other mental states - Conceptual revolution

Question 31

Outline Simulation Theory as a theory of Tom | - template

Answer 31

Harris, 1991, argues we are biologically designed to understand beliefs, desires, motivations - Like me comparisons - Use our own mind as a template for understanding others - we just think about our own mental states and perceive how others will think - assume that everyone else will have similar experiences to us, but that they can have different mental states - via MN's

Question 32

Outline Realism/ Nativistic accounts as a theory of ToM

Answer 32

Baron-Cohen, 1995 | - argues there is no suddent shift, its just a maturation process, our brain develops over time, slowly and steadily

Question 33

Outline Jokes, irony and sarcasm as implications of theory of mind

Answer 33

Rely on reflection on mental state to identity true meaning - irony and sarcasm = purposeful false information - they are intended not to be believed - purposeful induction of false beliefs for other people

Question 34

Outline improved social interactions as implications of theory of mind

Answer 34

- Better ToM = better empathic = more friends - more friends = more exposure to others POV/ mental states = better ToM. And opposite if worse ToM - social behaviour - Popular children have better ToM

Question 35

Outline bullying as implications of theory of mind

Answer 35

need to understand emotional and cognitive content - so you know how you can manipulate it (Sutton et al ., 1999)

Question 36

Outline peer rejection/ neglect as a long term implications of ToM

Answer 36

Peer rejection/ neglect may lead to: - Attendance at school - Education acvhiement - Self-esteem - Mental well being - School shooings - 15 shootings betwen 91 and 2000, peer rejection seen in all but 2 - Perhaps we should give ToM training

Question 37

What are the 3 areas ToM research has been refined?

Answer 37

- False belief and emotion (5 years) - Second order ToM Beliefs (6-8 years) - Distinguish lies from jokes

Question 38

Outline false belief and emotion as a refinement of ToM | - 5 yeras

Answer 38

- ellie elephant has a coke can, but it is full of milk - asked how ellie will fel when getting the can before drinking it - most 4 year olds know she will think its full of coke, but that she will still be sad - dont get the link between false beliefs and emotions until age 5

Question 39

Outline Second order ToM Beliefs as a refinement of Tom | - 6-8 years

Answer 39

Third person situations - jackie thinks jill thinks the marble is... beliefs about beleifs about intentions

Question 40

Outline Distinguishing lies from jokes as a refinement of Tom

Answer 40

Understanding of what others know rather than understanding beliefs about beliefs- makes you a better liar

Question 41

Outline the social factors involved in developing a Theory of mind

Answer 41

Social interaction - older friends - older siblings - may talk about emotional states and expose younger sibling to it more - number of adults Usually, first child has the developmental benefits - as they get maxmium attention from parents

Question 42

Outline reference to emotional states in developing ToM

Answer 42

- parental mind mindedness - use of reflection in disciplines • Imagine how james felt when you hit him - beneftis ToM

Question 43

Outline how deaf children develop ToM

Answer 43

- Late signers have worse ToM | - early exposure to communication is important

Question 44

How can gender influence ToM

Answer 44

- Charman et al (2002) - Mothers talk more about emotions to girls than boys - as do older siblings - As such girls have better linguistic skills and use emotional state words earlier - They do better on false belief tasks - But boys do eventually catch up