Social Cognition/ morality and prosocial behaviour development Flashcards
(26 cards)
Desires, thoughts, and emotions
Social Cognition and theory of mind
Social cognition: Thinking about others
Theory of Mind (ToM): The understanding that people’s actions are motivated by internal mental states
Desires (wants, intentions, likes/dislikes, preferences)
Thoughts (knowledge, beliefs, memories)
Emotions (how we feel influences our behaviors)
Why do we need ToM
Want to know what their doing so we can help them, why is helping important that’s how we survive as a species
For communication
Relationships
Precursors to a ToM
In the first year of life…
Imitation: helps build understanding of others’ actions
Joint Attention: Awareness of the visual experience of others
- Early steps towards perspective-taking
Pretend Play:
- Start taking others perspectives,
- Distinguishing between reality and fantasy
- Emerges around 1-2 years of age
Emotion understanding:
Identifying and understanding causes of basic emotions
- Emerges around 2 years of age
Subsequent research suggest there are 5 stages (Wellman & Liu, 2004)
- Desire understanding
Understanding that people’s actions are driven by what they like. People like difference and might act on different things even if you don’t like it - Diverse belief understanding
Understanding that people can hold different beliefs about the same object or event and that those beliefs guide their behavior - Knowledge access
Understanding that seeing an object or event gives the person knowledge about what the thing is
False Belief understanding - Understanding that beliefs can be false, and people will still act in accordance with their beliefs. Because what is important to behavior is what that person thinks and believes
- Hidden emotions
Understanding that people can deliberately hide and falsify their emotions/ how they are feeling
Wellman’s (1990) two stages of ToM development:
Desire psychology (around age 2)- behaviours driven by likes and dislikes
Belief- Desire psychology (around age 4)
False belief understanding grows more complex
First order False belief: about one persons belief
Second order false belief asking what some beliefs
Perspective-taking
Ability to take the perspective of others is an important aspect of social cognition
Two forms of perspective-taking (visual and cognitive/emotional)
Cognitive/emotional perspective-taking
Ability to imagine how others thing and feel
Understanding why another person may think or feel as they do
Influences no the development of ToM: Neurological predisposition and evolutionary basis
- Biological maturation
Brain regions specific to social cognition: nero hardware that makes social cognition possible
Evolutionary basis
ToM (theory of mind) emerged through natural selection
How do we know/evidence: Non-human primates understand intentions and beliefs but not the same extent
- Nature
Environmental basis of theory of mind
Experience with language
- Deaf children with hearing parents have delayed ToM development
- Deaf children with deaf parents do not
Mental state talk: emphasising the child’s likes and emotions, also other peoples likes and emotions. Using expansive language.
Family interactions
- Parent-child attachment: Growing up in household where child needs are being meet, the parent sis sensitive to the child’s needs
- Parenting style
- Considering the child’s thoughts and feelings.
- Using reasoning and explanations when disciplining
Siblings
Especially older ones!- with other siblings children might be getting more complex language, more opportunities to engage with other people wants and needs- still needs research.
- Nurture
Components of Morality
Understanding: right and wrong, the reasons that actions are moral and immoral
Acting in a moral manner
Experiencing the emotions that accompany moral/immoral acts: pride and shame, experiencing empathy ( the final step of developing morality)
Prosocial active to benefit others
Helping, sharing, cooperating , comforting (empathic helping)
10 -14 months
Evidence of a basic understanding of prosocial behaviour emerging in first two years of life
Understanding joint action or activities conducted by individuals where working together to achieve that shared/joint goal
Emerges between 10-14 months
Measured understanding with
Habituation paradigm: show them an event until they get bored, minimum 6 trials. When they get bored it shows when they have taken something away from the event, the question is what did they take away.
Prosocial behaviour: Instrumental helping
Assisting others with goal-oriented tasks. Eg. opening the door for somebody, helping someone with groceries if their hands are full
First emerges with very simple goal of reaching for an object (14 months)
Prosocial behaviour: : Early Sharing
18 - 24 months old divide resources with familiar children
More likely to divide evenly if
They worked together with the peer
Resources had a visual cue
Also sharing own food - and enjoy doing so
Prosocial behaviour: : Early Cooperation
Display rudimentary ability in participating in cooperative activities
Can coordinate basic actions with adult but not peer at 14 months
Aware cooperative action is dependent on the action of both individuals
Prosocial behaviour: : Ealy comforting
Children may start displaying concern for others and comforting familiar people (eg own family) before first birthday
But comforting doesn’t really emerge until around 2.5 years
The main idea of the studies is that u give children the opportunity to help
Prosocial behaviour in Childhood
In school year, measure helping and comforting through
Vignettes - asking the child to judge what character should do
Parent and teach report
School-aged children more helpful towards same-gender peers
Begin to see helping as beneficial to the helper as well as the helpee
Seeing benefit beyond just reciprocity
Sharing become discerning
Sharing with friends remains stable from preschool year
But older children more likely to share with (needs, equity)
- Strangers
- Others in need
Older children less likely to share with people they don’t like
Cooperative ability improves as motor skills improve in early childhood
Begin coordinating actions with peers between ages 2 - 3 years
With age individuals cooperative in more absatract contexts involving more individuals
Antisocial behavior in Childhood
- Despite knowing a lot about morality, children do not always act in moral ways
- Callous-unemotional traits
Lack of empathy/guilt, manipulative use of others
Poor emotion-recognition for cues fo fear and distress
Delayed maturation of brain regions linked to morality and empathy
Conduct disorder
- Severe and chronic antisocial behavior
- Disruptive and violent
- Refusal to follow rules
Empathy
action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously expiring the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner
Emotion cognition present form infancy
Empathic concern is an other oriented concern linked to better confronting and pro social behaviour
Personal distress are internal and self orientated lower of pro social behavior and comforting
Social cognition
Allows children can accurately read the situation, person thoughts, read those mental states and take the perspective
Self-other understanding
Necessary for being able to distinguish between other people and taking their perspective cause they are different from you
Influences on Prosocial Development: Parenting
Fostering empathy is key
Compared different approaches to discipline
-love withdrawal
- Power assertion
-Induction (best one)
