1102 Flashcards
Theory of mind
The appreciation that other people may think
differently, and that what they think will guide
their behaviour, rather than how things really are
False Beliefs
Basis of deception, manipulation, but also perspective
taking
Nature development of theory of mind
- Brain maturation -> age threshold
- Relations with language development
- Pretend play
Nurture development of theory of mind
Social Interactions
* Parental use of mental state language-> parents who explain and discuss
* Quality of parent-child relationship
* Presence of older siblings
Attachment styles
- Secure: separation distress, reunion terminates,
distress, flexibly resumes exploration [B] - Insecure Anxious-Ambivalent: extreme separation distress, not terminated by reunion, unable to resume exploration
- Insecure Avoidant: limited separation distress,
limited response to mother on reunion, exploration focus - Disorganised: no coherent strategy –confusing/contradictory or bizarre behaviour
Attachment characteristics
-Proximity maintenance: The desire to be near the people we are attached to.
-Safe haven: Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat.
-Secure base: The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.
-Separation distress: Anxiety that occurs in the absence of the attachment figure.
Parenting styles:
-Permissive too soft: lenient with their children, allowing them considerable freedom inside and outside the household. Low use discipline and often shower their children with affection.
- Authoritarian too hard: strict with their children, giving their children little opportunity for free play or exploration and punishing them when they
don’t respond appropriately to their demands. They show little affection toward their
children.
- Authoritative just right: combine the best features of both permissive and authoritarian worlds. They’re supportive of their children but set clear and firm limits.
-Uninvolved. Neglectful parents tend to ignore their children, paying little attention to
either their positive or negative behaviors.
Moral Disengagement
Enables good people to behave badly
without feeling any self-loathing or
remorse.
Kohlberg’s Theory of
Moral Development
Moral development proceeds through a
universal and invariant sequence of three broad moral stages; each is composed of two levels
Stage 1: Preconventional Morality
Focus on satisfying their own needs: avoiding
punishment and obtaining personal awards
Level 1: Avoid punishment
I won’t do it, because I don’t want to get punished
Level 2: Reward
What can I get out of this?
Stage 2: Conventional Morality
Focus on social approval: Right and wrong are
defined by convention and by what people will
say
Level 3: Gain approval and avoid disapproval of others:
I won’t do it because if I do people won’t like me
Level 4: Rigid codes of “law and order”
I won’t do it, because I don’t want to break the law
Stage 3: Postconventional Morality
Focus on abstract ideals: Broad principles of
justice and internalisation of personal moral
principles
Level 5: “Social contract” agreed upon for the
public good
I will do it because it is my duty, because I’m obliged to do it
Level 6: Abstract ethical principles that
determine one’s own moral code
I will do it because it is the right thing to do regardless of what others think
People other than parents in children’s lives
.Sociocultural change – women working more, fathers more involved in
childrearing, same sex parenting, and just… parenting
* Children attend childcare and/or are cared for by grandparents/other family
* Other adult-child relationships can be important – teachers, coaches, mentors
* As children develop attachment evolves to meet new cognitive capacities, and
relations with peers assume more importance
Role of father
Single parent families: children appear more at risk, but important to consider co-occuring risk factors that characterize single parent families
o Fathers may make unique contributions to self-regulation, risktaking behaviour
o Play and interact differently
Same sex parenthood
Findings to date categorically support the view that children from same-sex parented families experience comparable outcomes to other children, similar outcomes emotionally, socially and educationally
Main problem: stigma
Erikson’s Developmental Tasks
- Trust vs mistrust (birth-1yr) → hope
- Autonomy vs shame & doubt (1-3yrs) → will of their own
- Initiative vs guilt (3-6yrs) → purpose
- Industry vs inferiority (6-11yrs) → competence
- Identity vs role confusion (adolescence) →fidelity &
belonging - Intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood) →love
- Generativity vs stagnation (midlife)→ care
- Integrity vs despair (late adult) → wisdom
Key changes in adolescence
Biological
* Hormonal changes – oestrogens & androgens
* Puberty – sexual characteristics
* Menarche and spermarche
* Timing varies – some genetic contribution, but also
environmental – health, nutrition
Psychological
* Identity
* Cognitive – thinking – Piaget – Formal Operations, Post-Formal thinking – no absolutes – but frontal lobes not fully mature – limited impulse control
Social
* Peers
* Romantic relationships
Normative life events
- On-time: Events that occur at a typical or expected point
in the lifespan for members of a given population. - “Social Clock” : Shared expectations of age-appropriate behaviour.
- Off-time: Events that occur at a nontypical or
unexpected point in the lifespan for members of a given
population.
Ageing
Losses – biological fertility, visual and hearing acuity, lung capacity,
response time
Gains – crystallised intelligence accumulated knowledge and
experience – wisdom
- hardiness/resiliency
- financial security – up to a point!
Major theories of development
- Psychoanalytic theory: Freud and Erikson
- Cognitive developmental theory: Piaget and
Kohlberg - Social Cognitive Theory: Early behaviourist
theories through to Bandura - Ethological theory: Attachment theories of
Ainsworth and Bowlby - Stages of Psychosocial Development: Erikson
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Children’s minds are not miniature
versions of the adult mind – there are
profound differences – qualitative as
well as quantitative
* The child is active/not passive – constructs an understanding of the world through exploration
and experience
Developmental progress
A process – equilibration – balance
between new experiences and what we
already know or think we know
* Assimilation – new information
“assimilated” into existing schemas
* Accommodation – schemas updated
to accommodate new information
Piaget: Four main stages of
intellectual growth
- Sensori-motor intelligence (birth-2 years)
o Object permanence - Pre-operational period (2-7 years)
o Mental representations, but pre-logical/egocentric, conservation a challenge - Concrete operations (7-11 years)
o Mental operations, but only for physical/concrete materials - Formal operations (11yrs…)
o Hypothetical reasoning –mental operations on abstract concepts
representational thought
- Emerging capacity from 18-24
months
o One object can represent another - this capacity allows deferred
imitation and make-believe
play - Preschool years (age 2-6)
- Further gains in mental
representation - Symbols represent the
concrete world - Drawing
Object permanence
- Infants < 8 months: Out of sight, out of mind – no
effort to retrieve hidden object - Infants ~ 9 months-12 months: Search… BUT where last
found – A not B effect – object does not exist independent of child’s actions - Infants 12-18 months – breakthrough: Understand not only that objects continue to exist (independent of the
child’s interaction with them), but that they can be moved while out of sight – invisible displacements
Piaget’s theory
Strengths
* Landmark theory – not just miniature adults – fascinating aspects of pre-logical thinking
* Learning as an active process – influences on education
* Processes cross domains – e.g., conservation of liquid, mass, area
Critiques (more next year)
* Stages too rigid/prescriptive
* Under-estimated children’s abilities
o Methodological issues – task demands/language
* Universality?
o Western bias? Children learn what is useful in their cultural
setting
o Many don’t reach higher levels
o Context not sufficiently considered
Health psychology
Bidirectional relationships between psychology (thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, motivations…) and health
History of Health
- Hippocrates’ Humoral Theory of Illness
- Plato (and other Greek philosophers): body separate from mind
- Galen (2nd Century A.D): localization of illness in the body
- Middle Ages: Church exercised control over medicine
- Renaissance: Descartes’ breakthroughs
― Body is a machine
― Mind and body can communicate through the brain
― Life ends at death - 18th and 19th centuries: great advances in
technology, science, physiology
Effects of stress
Physiologically:
― Increases blood pressure
― Changes blood composition
― Release of stress hormones
― Suppression of immune system
Behaviourally:
― Less sleep / rest
― Less exercise
― Less healthy food eaten
― Increased physical tension
― Less social support
Early experience
Zygote - Egg & Sperm – genes from mother and
father combine
* Blastocyst – cluster of cells start to divide and
multiply (days 5-9)
* Embryo – early stage: formation of body
structures, tissues, organs (to 8 weeks)
* Fetus – the unborn offspring: has major body
organs, though not fully developed
Teratogen
any agent that can cause a birth defect and
disrupt development
attitudes formed
Classical conditioning
* Operant conditioning
* Imitation
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
– We attribute our own behaviour to either an external (situation) or internal (attitude) source
– Attitude inferences if behaviour is freely chosen
(not coerced)
– Holds best for weak attitudes
Functions of attitudes
Cognitive consistency: people try to maintain an internal consistency, order and agreement between their beliefs
* We like people who think like us, and act like us
* Balance theory: relationship between 3 elements
(triads)
– P — person
– O — other
– X — attitude object
* Odd number of positive relationships = balanced triad
Attitudes
- Implicit attitudes (true attitudes?)
– Automatic, non-conscious, difficult to change - Explicit attitudes
– consciously controlled, easier to change (social
desirability)
Theory of planned behaviour
Ajzen & Fishbein (1980):
* Attitude-behaviour link is stronger once we
take account of all the influences on the
attitude-behaviour link
* Forming attitudes towards performing a
particular behaviour is a fairly rational process
* So, attitudes guide intentions
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Leon Festinger (1957)
– Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of discomfort
caused by performing an action that is
inconsistent with one’s attitudes
– We strive to reduce dissonance
– Rationalisation shapes attitudes
The Ben Franklin effect
an individual who has done someone a favor is more likely to do that person another favor
DISSONANCE EFFECT
paintings that were initially liked were
liked more on the subsequent evaluation; disliked were
disliked even more
The Message-Learning (Yale) approach to
persuasion
Attitude change follows a series of stages:
1. attend to the message,
2. comprehend the message, and
3. accept the message
* Incentives of new message > old
Factors influencing persuasion
– source variables
– message variables (incl. medium/channel
variables)
– target/audience variables
Source variables
- Attractiveness
– Physical appearance
– Likeability
– Similarity to the
audience - High vs. Low credibility
– Fast talkers seem more
credible
Message variables
– Vivid information is
generally more
persuasive
* Except when it interferes
with the comprehension
of the message
– Fear appeals
* Inverted U function
– Humour
* Relevance to message
- Repetition
- Medium
Audience variables
- Self-esteem
- Mood
-Sadness increases
buying prices and
reduces selling prices
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
- Two routes to persuasion:
– Central route (able & motivated)
– Peripheral route (unable or unwilling) - Attitude change can occur without
comprehension
Nudges
behavioural interventions that encourage desirable behaviour without restricting choice or changing economic incentives.
Enhancing compliance
- Social Proof and uncertainty: changes in something make ppl comply
- Flattery will get you everywhere (Drachman et
al., 1978) - Scarcity: We want what we can’t have
Consistency
– Foot-in-the-door: A small request followed by a
large request
– Low-ball technique: After initial agreement to a
request hidden costs are revealed
Conformity
change in behaviour or belief in accord with others
normative social influence
Social norms
Asch’s conformity studies
Length of lines
factors affecting conformity
- Group size
- One dissenter
- previous exposure to
non-conformity - Anonymity
- Overall, interesting
results because no
explicit punishment or
rewards
Hugo Munsterberg’s theory
Selection system that choose people who are effective and have high attention to the task designated
-Attempted to design a system to eliminate ‘accident-prone’ drivers during selection Initiative to improve safety ->Attention(Response to Threats) -> Crude Simulation
James Cattell
-Quantitative and objective assessment of individual differences: Reaction Time, Time Estimation, Memory
-Weakness was an absence of theory(Reasoning) to Expectation of a data driven approach(statistics)
Frederick Taylor (Taylorism)
Principles of Scientific management
- development of a true science of work
- scientific selection of employees
- scientific training and development of employees
- friendly cooperation between management and employees
Time and motion study: identifying gaps that create inefficiency in order to remedy these gaps
- creates efficiencies by changing the behaviour of the environment *you can change individuals or you can change behaviour
Walter Dill Scott
Issue: rapid production
Interested in recruitment of conscripts ad working conditions
Interested in the factors that lead to improvement (culture, motivation and productivity)
