Social Cognition Flashcards
(39 cards)
Outline Selman’s views on perspective taking
- domain-specific (develops separately from other aspects of cognitive development) opposite to Piaget
What is social cognition?
describes mental processes we make use of when engaged in social interaction
What is perspective-taking?
our ability to appreciate a social situation for someone else’s POV
Outline perspective taking research
30 boys, 30 girls 20 4, 20 5, and asked how people felt in given scenarios e.g. Holly’s scenario who promised her father she would no longer climb trees, but her friends kitten got stuck in it - had to explain how each person would feel if Holly did/did not climb the tree
Findings of Holly’s scenario
role - taking correlated with age, developmental sequence
Outline stage 0 - socially egocentric in Selman’s stages of development
- child cannot distinguish between own feelings and feelings of others
- can identify emotional states in others but don’t know why
- 3-6
Outline stage 1 - social informational role-taking in Selman’s stages of development
- can tell difference between own and other’s POV but only focus on one at a time
- 6-8
Outline stage 2 - self-reflective role-taking in Selman’s stages of development
- put themselves in someone else’s position and fully appreciate their perspective - only consider one POV at a time
- 8-10
Outline stage 3 - mutual role-taking in Selman’s stages of development
- look at own and other’s POV of a situation at same time
- 10-12
Outline stage 4 - social and conventional system role-taking in Selman’s stages of development
- young people understand seeing other’s POV is not enough for people to reach agreement
- why social conventions needed to keep order
- 12+
What were Selman’s later developments to his theory?
- interpersonal understanding
- interpersonal negotiation strategies
- awareness of personal meaning of relationships
What is interpersonal understanding?
idea if we can take on other roles we can understand social situations (what Selman originally measured)
What are interpersonal negotiation strategies?
as well as understanding how others think, we need to understand how to respond to them - skills e.g. managing conflict and asserting our position
What is awareness of personal meaning of relationships?
as well as understanding social situations and how to manage them, need to be able to reflect on social behaviour in the context of life history and full range of relationships
AO3 Selman’s stages - evidence it gets better with age
Selman found +ve correlation between age and ability to take different perspectives - longitudinal studies support - high validity
- THIS IS CORRELATIONAL
AO3 Selman’s stages - mixed evidence
also been found -ve correlation between age, p-t and coercive behaviour - suggests it is important in developing prosocial behaviour
- bullies do not struggle with p-t
- mixed evidence means we cannot conclude p-t enables socially desirable behaviour
AO3 Selman’s stages - applications in understanding of atypical development
Marton et al: 8-12 year olds with ADHD compared to control group and looking at performance on p-t tasks - with ADHD did worse - research identified key deficit in this group of people
AO3 Selman’s stages - overly cognitive
ignores other important internal factors e.g. empathy as well as external factors such as family atmosphere - considering one element in isolation is oversimplified
AO3 Selman’s stages - cultural differences in p-t
young adult Chinese participants did better in p-t than matched Americans - suggests development is influenced by socio-cultural inputs and not just maturity
- supports assumption both maturity and social environment contribute to p-t development
What is theory of mind?
our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling
Outline how Meltzoff tested ToM in toddlers (about 18 months)
watched adults place beads in a jar
- experimental: appeared to struggle and dropped beads
- control: adults sucessful
- both conditions, toddlers successfully places beads in jar suggesting they imitated with the adult intended to do ToM
Outline a false belief task
Wimmer&Perner: told 3/4 year olds a story where Maxi left his chocolate in blue cupboard, his mum used some and then put back in the green cupboard - had to say where Maxi would look
- most 3 year olds said green
- most 4 year olds said blue - ToM
Outline the Sally-Anne task, findings and conclusions
Baron-Cohen: Sally puts a marble in her basket then when she leaves, Anne moves it to her box, children asked where Sally will look
20 ASD children, 14 Down’s syndrome, 27 ‘normal’
- 20% ASD were right
- 85% control groups correct
- suggests ASD involved ToM deficit
Outline how older children/adults were tested for ToM
Eyes Task - reading complex emotions from pictures of faces by just looking at the eyes - adults with AS and ASD struggled - also supports ASD caused by ToM deficits
