10 - Roles in the Community Flashcards
Early Social Interactions
Babies
- not able to develop full friendships
- are sensitive to emotional states
- can have simple social interactions
Preschoolers
- sharing
- pretend play
Primary School
- larger peer group
- less supervision
- increase in an interest in playing with same-sex friends
- pretend play peaks at 6y, then declines
- increase in verbal and physical aggression
Adolescence
- peer interactions predominate social interactions
- increase in cross-sex interactions
Early Childhood Conflict
Young Children about 2y
- tend to argue about things
Older Children
- tend to argue about ideas
> older children are better at resolving conflicts themselves
Level of Affiliation
- Social Interactions
- form relationships (friendships)
- relationships form larger social groups and communities
Friendships
= ongoing reciprocal positive relationship
Infant
- can’t form friendships
Toddlers
- can develop friendships
> start sharing
School age
- more nuanced ideas of friendship
> begin to understand the reciprocity of friendships
+ linked to development of theory of mind
+ increased understanding of others’ mental states
> bullying begins to occur
Stages of friendship development
Ages 7-9
- reward-cost Stage
> expect friends to offer help, share common activities and ideas
Ages 10-11
- Normative Stage
> expect friends to express similar values and attitudes
> develop the idea of loyalty and commitment
Ages 12-13 (adolescence)
- Empathic Stage
> really expect loyalty and commitment
> expect that they engage in self-disclosure
+ share secrets and keep secrets
> start to feel more jealousy of friends
> develop strong expectations of their friends
Advantages of friendships
- help develop social skills
- protect against negative events (stresses and loneliness)
- can be negative (superficial friendships)
Imaginary Companions
- relatively common
- slightly more common in girls (barely)
- usually associated with positive outcomes of cognitive development
Romantic Relationships
- starts in Adolescence
- tend to initially be full of conflict
> short but intense
Maturation between 15-17
- older adolescents tend to have longer relationships with deeper bonds and more compromise
- no association with sexual development
- more likely associated with culture
Choosing adolescent romantic partners: - significant correlations between: > peer rated popularity > peer rated body appeal > peer rated physical attractiveness > self rated depressive symptoms - so people who are similar tend to go together > peer rated sadness is not a significant correlation
Social Groups
Cliques
- develop in late primary school
- stable groups of peers where people tend to stay together
- actively exclude others
- generally quite small
- normally one sex
Crowds
- develop in secondary school (cliques disappear)
- more often mixed gender
- groups are bigger and live longer (more stable)
- defined by shared values or favoured activities
Sociometry - studying how peers interact with one another - one way of doing this is to assess the psychometric status using a peer-nomination technique > ask everyone in a class 3 kids you like the most, 3 that you dislike the most
Sociometric Types Popular - liked by many, disliked by few - physically attractive - friendly, assertive but not aggressive
Rejected
- high number of dislikes
> non-aggressive rejected children
+ tend to have emotional problems (anxiety/depression)
> aggressive rejected children
+ tend to have behavioural problems (aggressive, poor self-control)
- tend to have a hostile attribution bias
> interpret approaches as hostile
Neglected
- not liked or disliked
- tend to be shy, withdrawn
- not associated with any negative outcomes
Controversial
- liked by many, disliked by many
- not a very stable category
- can be popular
Average
- all other kids
*rejected and popular groups tend to be the most stable
Peer interactions
0-2
- not really social
- don’t share
- may have joint arousal
- don’t really have friendships
- don’t really operate in groups
2-5
- patterns of play become more elaborate
- increase in sharing and pretend play
- start to purposely pick friends
- some dominant hierarchy, but kids are unaware of their position (not fully developed sense of conceptual self)
5-11 - large increase in social interactions - development of friendships - increase in verbal aggression, gossip and bullying - later on, development of cliques > more social comparison
11+
- peer interactions take over social interactions
- decreased importance in cliques
- increased importance in crowds
- more interaction with the other gender
Social Networks
Three-link social influence
- your friend’s friend’s friend
> people up to this level will influence your social category
> fourth link influence is negligible
Lifestyle patterns are related to social networks
- obesity, happiness, smoking, exercise
Parents vs Peers
- from 2.5y kids prefer peer companions to adults
To what extend do you imitate behaviours from parents vs peers?
Study:
- using twin and family designs (done mainly in terms of substance abuse
Results:
- in twins aged 12-30
- regularly drinking parents is associated with a higher risk of regular drinking in the child
- alcohol use of the co-twin was strongly related to alcohol use of the participant
- alcohol use of non-twin siblings is relatively unimportant
- friends’ alcohol use is associated with the individual
- associations diminished in longitudinal analysis
Results:
- younger group of twins (12-15)
- early initiation of alcohol use is strongly genetic
- frequency of drinking is strongly related to shared environmental factors
- Many other studies find a moderate heritability of alcohol initiation
- environment might be the more influential factor
Stages of Adulthood
Three Broad Stages
- Early Adulthood (18-40)
- Middle Adulthood (40-60)
- Late Adulthood (60+)
Changes in ageing
Physical changes in ageing - physical decline from mid-20s - strength declines rapidly > from 45, muscle strength declines 15% each decade - endurance declines less rapidly - people get shorter - menopause in women - andropause in men
- decline in visual and auditory systems > especially common in males later - decline in other senses > not as rapid - Parkinson's > loss of dopamine producing cells > causes motor and psychological symptoms - dementia > memory loss and decline in problem solving ability - Alzheimer's > subtype of dementia - sleep deprivation
The ageing brain
- reduction in plasticity
- loss of neuronal connections
- slow brain shrinkage (2% per decade)
> not all areas of the brain deteriorate at the same speed
> not all people equally effected - ageing well is predicted by both genetic and lifestyle factors
Memory and Intelligence
- fluid intelligence declines with time
- crystallised intelligence remains and may increase with age
Theory of Mind and Ageing
- slightly impaired in elderly
> the extend of impairment depends on how ToM is measured - independent of general cognitive decline in stacks using visual stimuli (RMET)
- verbal theory of mind tasks correlate with impaired executive functioning and processing speeds
Explaining age-related cognitive change
Brain Reserve Hypothesis
- social and cognitive stimulation can help build up reserves of ability and thereby protect against the negative effects on cognitive function in the aged
Study:
- population based sample in Finland
- testing the risk of Alzheimers
- longitudinal study, assessed around 50 and 70
- assessed marital status, cognitive functioning and blood sample
> to test whether they were carriers of the ApoEe4 gene
+ increased risk in Alzheimers
Results:
- showed that those with ApoEe4 gene had a higher risk of Alzheimers
- within the group that had the ApoEe4 gene, those who had been widowed or divorced in both mid-life and later life were at a much higher risk of Alzheimers
> showing there is a social as well as genetic risk of developing Alzheimers
+ Social-Genetic Model
> may be that social interactions help protect against cognitive impairment
> this result was not found in those that had not married or cohabited, showing that it is specifically the loss of a partner that increases risk the most
Dealing with Cognitive Ageing
2 components can help
Optimisation
- selecting a goal and practicing that particular skill
- resulting in specialised expertise
Compensation
- changing behaviour to make up for losses in cognitive ability
> use a shopping list to go shopping to compensate for memory loss (loss of skill)
Types of Ageing
Successful Ageing
- thriving for a long time
Pathological Ageing
- sharp decline around the mid 60s
Successful Ageing - maintain good physical health - retain cognitive abilities - retain engagement with social and productive activities > use it or lose it
Study:
- French study of elderly, self-employed shopkeepers and craft workers
Results:
- those that opted for a later retirement age had a reduced risk of dementia
- but you cannot exclude reverse causation explanation
> people retired earlier because they were feeling the consequences of ageing already
Personality and Ageing
General trends
- increase in agreeability
- increase in conscientiousness beginning at 20
> related to entering the workforce
- increase in openness to experience
> large jump in teenage years, more risk taking
+ could be due to an immature frontal cortex, but a mature striatum
- people’s relative position within cohorts is relatively stable
- generally people become happier with age
> could be due to Positivity Bias
> tend to think more positively about the world, mind less, as you age
Test:
- shown a series of pictures, some positive events, some neutral and some negative
Results:
- younger people had better recall overall
- those at a later age are less likely to remember the negative events
> amygdala (emotions) shows markedly less activation in response to negative stimuli than positive stimuli in older adults
> amygdala shows similar activity for positive and negative results
Psychodynamic Approach to Stages of Life
Erikson’s 8 Stages
- each stage is defined by a different psychosocial conflict
- related to particular ages and relationships (culturally and contextually)
(stage)
(most important relationship)
(psychological conflict)
Stages:
Infancy (0-1.5)
- primary caregiver
- trust vs mistrust
> parent responding to infant’s needs develops trust
Toddler (1.5-3)
- parents
- autonomy vs shame/doubt
> exploring vs restriction
Preschool (3-6)
- family
- initiative vs guilt
> too much restraint causes guilt
Childhood (6-12)
- neighbourhood/school
- industry vs inferiority
> goal-related tasks help develop this
Adolescence (12-18)
- peer group
- identity vs role confusion
> introspective personal development
Young Adulthood (18-30)
- partners and friends
- intimacy vs isolation
Middle Age (30-50)
- family and coworkers
- generativity vs stagnation
> in relation to family
Later Adulthood (50+)
- mankind (reflection)
- integrity vs despair
Levinson’s Life Structures
Life Structure
- underpinning pattern of an adults life at a particular point in time
4 Structures - Pre-Adulthood - Early Adulthood > initial choice of love and lifestyle are important - Middle Adulthood > settling down in career and family > reevaluating life, could be related to feelings of uncertainty \+ mid-life crisis - Late Adulthood > reflection on successes and failures \+ ideally acceptance
