Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Object permanence
Objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight
The occluded object retains its spatial & physical properties
The occluded object is still subject to physical laws
Piaget’s Theory
• Sensorimotor (0-2)
• Pre-operational (2-7)
• Concrete operational (7-11)
• Formal operational (11+
Sensorimotor Stage
• 0-24 months
• Learns about world through actions and sensory information
• Learns to differentiate self from the environment
• Start to understand causality, and form internal mental representations….
• Object permanence attained at 12 months, full internal representations by 18-24 months
When does reflex activity develop?
0-1 months
Stage 1: Reflex activity
Practice innate reflexes (ex: sucking, looking)
Sensorimotor Substages
• Reflex activity
• Primary circular reactions
• Secondary circular reactions
• Coordination of secondary circular reactions
• Tertiary circular reactions
• Internal representation
Primary circular reactions
̶ Simple behaviours derived from basic reflexes
̶ Start repeating behaviour (ex: thumb sucking)
̶ Focused on body
̶ No differentiation between self and outside world
Stage 2: When do primary circular reactions develop?
1-4 months
Stage 3: Secondary circular reactions
• “secondary” behaviours = own, not reflexes
• Start to focus on objects
• Begin to change surroundings intentionally ̶ Ex: kick legs, hit mobile, kick legs again
• Establish connection between body movement and external environment
When do secondary circular reactions develop?
4-10 months
Stage 4: Coordination of secondary circular reactions
• Engage with objects using a variety of actions
• Combine actions to achieve goals and solve novel problems
̶ Some evidence of means-ends behaviour
•Ex.movesomethingoutofwaytoreachandgettoy
̶ But, not insightful, driven by trial-and-error •Limitedbyexistingrepertoireofactions
• Lackflexibility
• A-not-B errors until 12 months ̶ egocentrism
When does coordination of secondary circular reactions develop?
10-12 months
Stage 5: Tertiary circular reactions
• Still repetitive or circular behaviours
• Discover the properties of objects and the environment
• Understand objects through trial-and-error
̶ Not yet inventive or insightful
• Improvements in problem-solving
̶ Experiment with new actions, modify unsuccessful actions
• Still lack internal representations
When do tertiary circular reactions develop?
12-18 months
Stage 6: Internal Representation
• Now has mental representation of the world
̶ Can think and plan actions
̶ Deferred imitation
• Solve novel problems insightfully
When does internal representation develop?
18-24 months
Deferred imitation (enduring mental rep.)
̶ Copying behaviour after a delay
̶ Not until stage 6
Typically a representation of a person, see if they can remember that representation after a time delay
Object permanence time scale
Begin to search for objects around 8-9 months
A not B error until 12 months
Critiques of Piaget
• Methods: Observational methods, often with own children ̶ quantitative, experimental data rare
̶ “clinical method” rather than standardized
• Confounds:
̶ Motor coordination and motor planning deficits
• Inability to perform coordinated actions (means-end) ̶ Memory deficits
̶ Communication – biased by cues • Younger infants could show some evidence if: ̶ Simplify procedure in experimental studies
• Change procedure
• Change the dependent variable
• Earlier than Piaget predicted? ̶ Basic object permanence
̶ Planning
̶ Deferred imitation
Critique of Piaget: A-not-B error earlier
• Piaget: don’t solve until 12 months
• Slight design tweaks can lead to different results. Examples:
̶ Butterworth (1977)
̶ Smith & Thelen (2003)
A-not-B error: Butterworth (1977)
• 3 conditions
̶ Normal design
̶ Covered but visible
̶ Visible and uncovered
BUT Errors in all 3 conditions, even when object covered but visible
̶ Reflects lack of coordination, not necessarily lack of object permanence
They’ve been reinforced to go to a certain side so may be difficult for infants to suppress that
A-not-B error: Smith & Thelen(2003)
One variation had infant stand instead of sit during “B” trial ̶ 10m old infants performed like 12m old
• Standing made the “A” position less salient
Which may have given the infant a chance to get out of the reinforcement rut
Methodological changes to Piaget studies
• Darkness rather than occlusion by other objects (visual vs manual search)
̶ Shown object within reach, lights turned off
̶ Infants as young as 5m will grasp for out of sight objects (Bower and Wishart, 1972)
̶ But still just performing “reaching action” (extension of ongoing action or reproduction of previous action)?
Bower (1982)
• Infants a few months old, shown object, screen moved in front of object, then returned to original position
̶ 2 conditions: Object still in place versus empty space ̶ Monitored child’s heart rate (infant doesn’t need to do anything)
• Piaget: too young to have info about objects that are no longer present = no reaction (wrong)
• Bower: faster heart rate (more surprise) in second (empty) condition
Baillargeon et al (1985)
• Should look longer at the impossible event ̶ If they find it surprising
• Drawbridge and solid box
̶ Experimental condition (box behind the drawbridge) ̶ Control (box next to the drawbridge)
Conclusion:
̶ Infants expected the screen to stop against the box ̶ Infants understood the box continued to exist
Infants as young as 5m show object permanence
Criticisms of the VOE approach?
Only indicates limited awareness of events (i.e. perceives a difference)
Or perceptual preference for novelty, but not understanding
Do looking preferences really tell us about what babies know? (see Schöner and Thelen, 2006)
Clifton et al. (1991)
Presented 6m olds with small (required 1 hand grasp) and large (2 hand grasp) objects
̶ Each object made identifying sound
̶ Infants made appropriate grip to reach for objects in darkness
̶ Authors conclude this is based on mental representations
Claxton et al. (2003)
• Differences in motor patterns in adults for planned actions (Marteniuk et al., 1987)
̶ Precise actions = slower approach
• 10m infants encouraged to throw ball or fit it into a hole
̶ If motor patterns determined by ball properties, should find no difference
̶ If determined by upcoming action, should find a difference ̶ Reaching action slower for precise action
(Mental representation of that action, same as adults with slower approach for precise task)
Willatts (1989): Planned actions
• Toy out of reach on a cloth
• Cloth and toy blocked by a barrier
• 9-month old children performed sequence of actions to get toy
• Many on the 1st attempt
̶ Novel, planned actions
̶ Mental representation of the world used to organise behaviour
(Piaget argued they’d only be able to do this through trial-and-error but they did it on 1st attempt)
Meltzoff & Moore (1994) (used to critique Piaget views on deferred imitation)
̶ Some infants saw adult make facial gesture, some saw neutral expression
̶ Day later, those who saw gesture were more likely to perform it to a neutral face
Shows they have that mental representation of that gesture in past
Meltzoff & Moore (1995) (used to critique Piaget views on deferred imitation)
̶ Experimenter performed series of actions with objects
̶ Both ages more likely to reproduce observed actions than those who did not see them
• Even after a FOUR MONTH DELAY!
Barr et al. (1996) (used to critique Piaget views on deferred imitation)
Infants saw series of actions with puppet and had to repeat after a 24hr delay
• Additional 6m-olds given 6 repetitions of actions
̶ 6m now score significantly higher than control
̶ Evidence of deferred imitation in 6m-olds
Patel et al. (2013): Context matters
• 6m, 9m, 24m tested using puppet paradigm, 24hr delay
• Varied the context during retrieval (auditory and visual)
̶ Full flexibility/generalization not achieved until 12m
developmental psychology
the study of physical, cognitive, social, emotional and behavioural changes throughout the life span
continuity
gradual process
discontinuity
discrete age specific stages
Baltes’ Model of Development
3 types of influences on development
- normative age-graded influences
- e.g. puberty, starting school
Normative history-graded influences
-e.g. wars, natural disasters
Non-normative life events
- e.g. death of a parent, serious injury
Cross-sectional studies
different participants, different ages, same time, cost effective, quick, but effected by individual differences and cohort effects
longitudinal studies
same participants, different ages, different times, high attrition rate, time-consuming, biased sample, original research question still viable at study completion?
cohort studies
different participants, same ages, different historical time, time consuming, danger of research question becoming obsolete
cohort-sequential studies
different and same participants, different and same ages, different and same historical times, high attrition rate, time consuming, question may become obsolete
monozygotic twins
100% identical
dizygotic or fraternal twins
50% identical
genotype-environment interaction
child’s temperament affects interaction with their parents
sensation
information about environment picked up by sensory receptors and transmitted to brain
perception
interpretation by the brain of this input - how we understand the events, objects and people in our environment
visual acuity
poor at birth, rapid increase in first 6 months
near adult levels by 1 year
visual scanning
younger than 2 months, cannot track moving objects smoothly
1 month: focus on limited features of shape, particularly outside edges
2 months: start to focus on internal features
colour vision
new-borns can distinguish between white and red, but not other colours
around 1 month, look longer at brighter, bold colours
by 4 months close to adult ability
how do we test perceptual abilities?
preference tests
habituation tests
conditioning
preference tests
present two stimuli at the same time, measure how long infant looks at each, does infant look at one more than the other (they can tell a difference between the two)
habituation tests
shown interesting stimulus repeatedly (infant loses interest eventually - habituation), change to a different stimulus, infant shows renewed interest and looks again (dishabituation), if so, the infant can tell the difference
conditioning
repeatedly reward target behaviour, infant becomes habituated to stimulus, stimulus is altered (example: HAS procedure)
Fantz 1961
found 1-15 week olds prefer looking at complex patterns
Maurer and Barrera (1981)
added controls for complexity
found at 1 month old there was no difference in looking times
found at 2 months they looked longer at the ‘natural face’
Goren at al. (1975)
used moving stimuli instead of static
new-borns tracked schematic face more than other two
Johnson et al. (1991)
replicated effect with new-borns
by 3 months, no longer track face more
why does this preference vanish?
Johnson and Morton (1991) 2 process model
CONSPEC - early system (subcortical structures) biases infants to orient towards faces
CONLEARN - later taken over by more mature system (visual cortex) and more precise recognition
Pascalis et al. (1995)
preference for mother’s face disappeared when outside of face and hairline masked
new-borns use outer features to identify
Turati et al. (2006)
found that infants could use both outer and inner features
Pascalis et al. (2002)
6-month infants could discriminate between monkey faces and human faces
9-month infants and adults could only discriminate between human faces
if exposed to monkey faces, 9-month olds could discriminate
‘Other-race effect’
adults poorer at discriminating faces of other races compared to own race (Tanaka et al. 2004)
3 month olds show preference for own race faces (Kelly et al. 2005)
Quinn et al. (2002)
fathers for primary caregivers = preference for male faces
face specific perceptual developmental theory
ongoing development of face-specific perception mechanisms, continue to develop into late child and adolescence
face perception gets better because of increased exposure/ experience with faces
general cognitive development theory
face perception matures early (4-5 years)
performance increases later as general cognitive mechanisms improve
neurodivergent face perception
William’s syndrome - process unfamiliar faces atypically, prolonged face gaze
Prosopagnosia
face blindness caused by damage or abnormalities in right fusiform gyrus
Congenital Prosopagnosia
face blindness from birth, appears to run in families, different degrees of severity, might not even be able to recognise their own face
phonology
‘phonemes’ or sound segments
semantics
system of meaning - ‘morphemes’
syntax
rules by which words/ phrases are arranged
pragmatics
how language is used in different contexts or genres
Speech perception, before birth?
Evidence of fetal reactions from 20 weeks
preference for ‘uterine’ version of mothers voice after birth
Neonates prefer sounds produced by the mother
Language production
From 1-2 months - cooing and laughing
6-10 months - canonical babbling, include more vowels and consonants, combine these in a way that can sound like words, scream for attention, some sounds preserved for primary caregiver or other familiar individuals
10+ months - modulated babbling, add stress and intonation patterns, overlaps with meaningful speech period
first words
usually around 9-12 months
something that acts as a consistent label for something e.g. ‘mama’
‘holophrases’ condense meaning
word explosion
a few months after first words
roughly 20 words at 18 months to then over 200 words at 24 months
mainly nouns - labels of objects, people
some action, state, function words
Pragmatics
Adjust to different contexts
Differences in communication to different listers as young as 2 years
Take into account the listeners perspective comes at around 4 or 5 years
Master a lot of conventions of different genres at roughly 3 years – for example ‘once upon a time’ = telling a story
Word learning biases
whole object constraint – words refer to whole object rather than parts of objects
Shape bias
generalise to other objects that are the same shape rather than other attributes, aids early noun learning
Gleitman’s syntactic boot-strapping hypothesis
• Sensitive to syntactic and semantic correspondences from early age
• Extract meaning of new words from syntactic clues
Number of ‘noun phrase’ arguments or participants
Mary kicked the ball (transitive: subject + object)
Tom is sleeping (intransitive: subject, no object)
Barrett’s Multi-Route Model
Referential words: used in a variety of contexts (mapped on to mental representation)
Context-bound words: only specific context (mapped onto global construction of the event, gradually analysed into individual categories e.g. people, objects)
Theories of language development
Nativist theories – Chomsky’s ‘Innate Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD)
Constructivist or cognitive theories – Piaget and the ‘cognitive-hypothesis’
Cognitive-functional linguistics
Chomsky’s ‘Innate Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD)
Born with basic language production/comprehension capacity
Human language has universal features – phonology, syntax, ‘deep structures’
Innate knowledge of basic grammar rules
LAD perceives regularities in heard utterances - LAD generates hypotheses about regularities, hypotheses are tested against new utterances
Support for LAD?
Children learn quickly, and learning governed by rules, sequence of language acquisition similar
Systematic mistakes (logical errors) – no adult is modelling these kinds of mistakes, but they are still saying these
Correct order very early on
Constructivist or cognitive theories of language development
Cognitive and language development are interdependent
Language development reflects stages of cognitive development – cognitive abilities enable understanding and use of language, rules come from wider cognitive system not LAD
Similarities in language driven by similarities in experience and development
Support for cognitive theories of language development ?
First words about familiar objects and activities – usually dynamic objects a child can hold
First words appear around the same time as object permanence – also around the time symbolic play emerges
Words about present emerge before words about future or past – appear around the time children understand time concepts
BUT – what about effect of social environment?
Cognitive-Functional Linguistics
No universal, innate grammar
Acquire language gradually – gradual building up of grammatical structures
Syntax develops out of experience and social interaction – no ‘general category of verb’, but rather on a verb-by-verb basis, can’t generate verb combinations they haven’t heard already
Adult discourse is key
Support for cognitive-functional language development ?
Observational and experimental studies – early vocabularies include more nouns; toddlers find creative use of verbs difficult but not nouns
Example: Tomasello et al. 1997 – taught 4 novel ‘verbs’ and ‘nouns’ with no context clues, 18-23 months children could produce plurals of nouns, could not produce past tense of verbs
Does it depend on language? (e.g. verb-final languages? Japanese)
Infant-directed speech (IDS or ‘parentese’)
Distinctively different than adult speech
A-C hugher in pitch, greater range of pitch, simpler meaning
More nouns, concrete words
Expanded vowels – easier to discriminate sounds?
Babies prefer IDS (ManyBabies Consortium)
Role of adult feedback
Scaffolding meaning to infants – help them to understand
Expansion and re-casting – better at sentence imitation and used more complex grammar (Nelson et al, 1987)
Parental coaching can impact positively
Social economic impact on language development – language processing and vocabulary lower in lower SES children (Fernald et al. 2012)
‘The Word Gap’? – lower SES children hear fewer words per hour than in higher SES?
Genie – a case study
• Extreme deprivation from 20 months to 13 years old
• No one spoke to her, and she was actively stopped from trying to communicate
• Recovery – first few months she started recognising words, then 1 and 2-word utterances
• Never able to master more complex language processes
What is the number concept?
Numerosity, counting, arithmetic
The 5 Counting Principles
Gelman and Gallistel (1978)
• 5 principles govern counting:
– One-to-one principle
– Stable-order principle
– Cardinal principle
– Order irrelevance principle
– Abstraction principle
One-to-one
One and only one tag or “counting word” for each item in the set
Stable-order
Tags must be used in the same way
• ex: 1,2,3 vs.1,3,2
Cardinal principle
The tag of the final object in the set represents the total number of items
• Ex: Knowing the word ‘two’ refers to sets of two entities
Order-irrelevance principle
result the same regardless of order you count items in
Abstraction principle
Can count anything
these principles can be applied to any collection of objects (including intangible objects)
– Not “labeling” (like the label “cat”) - nothing about the item makes it a number 1 just gets tagged as number 1
Gelman & Meck (1983)
Children monitor performance of a “puppet”
Very high accuracy on correct trials
– One-to-one: 100%
– Stable-order: 96% and higher (+)
– Cardinal: 96% +
High accuracy on incorrect trials
– One-to one: 67% + (3yrs); 82% + (4yrs)
– Stable-order: 76% + (3), 96% + (4-5)
– Cardinal: 85% + (3), 99% + (4-5)
Pseudo-errors detected as peculiar, but not incorrect (95% and higher accuracy)
– Even able to articulate why in some cases
– Show understanding of order-irrelevance
Older children performed better, BUT
Success rates not affected by set size – even for young children
Conclusions of Gelman & Meck (1983)
• Children as young as 3 understand the principles – Even though they can’t articulate them
• Understanding demonstrated even in set sizes too big for children to count
• Children show IMPLICIT knowledge of these principles
Baroody (1984)
Testing order-irrelevance and cardinality in 5-7-year-olds
All but 1 child could recount in the opposite direction
BUT, only 45% of 5yr-olds, and 87% of 7yr-olds were successful in prediction task
Conclusion:
– Understanding of order-irrelevance develops with age
– Young children’s understanding of principles overestimated
Sarnecka & Carey (2008)
Child asked to give ‘N’ number of items
• Up to ‘4-knowers’ called ‘subset’ knowers
– Only know how a subset of numbers work
• Switch to CP-knower
– Can solve flexibly across sets, not restricted
– Really understand how counting works, evidenced across a variety of tasks
Empiricism
knowledge comes from experience, develops gradually
Nativism
innate understanding of some aspects of number concept, “core knowledge”
Wynn (1992): Exp. 1 and 2
• Pre-test trials: no difference in looking times to 1 or 2 objects
• Test trials: Infants looked longer at the “incorrect” result – 1+1 group looked longer at 1, than 2 puppets
– 2-1 group looked longer at 2 than 1 puppet
Wynn (1992): Exp 3
• 2 Hypotheses:
1. Infants compute precise results of simple additions/subtractions
2. Infants expect arithmetical operation to result in numerical change (no expectation of size/ or direction of change)
• Experiment 3:
– 1+1=2OR3
– Infants preferred 3 in the trials, but not pre-test trials
Wynn (1992) Conclusions
• 5-month olds can calculate precise results of simple arithmetical operations
• Infants possess true numerical concepts
– Suggests humans innately possess capacity to perform these calculations
• Replicated with larger sets (ex: 10 v. 5; McCrink & Wynn, 2005)
Wakeley et al (2000)
3 Experiments
– Replications of Wynn (1992) exps 1 & 2
– Subtraction counterpart to Wynn’s Exp 3 • 3-1=1or2
Controls for possibility that preferred answer is always greater number of items
• Results
– No systematic preference for “incorrect” versus “correct”
Conclusions
Earlier findings of numerical competence not replicated – Review of literature = inconsistent results
Infants’ reactions are variable
– Numerical competencies not robust
Gradual and continual progress in abilities with age
Conclusions about counting principles
• Children as young as 3 seem to have implicit knowledge of counting principles
• Evidence of innate abilities
– Numerosity (from habituation studies)
– Arithmetical operations
• How robust are the above?
– Also evidence for gradual accumulation of this knowledge
– Born with limited ability, which then expands with age/experience? (Carey, 2009)
• Task and procedure have large impact on results and age at which we see these abilities
Nature vs. Nurture counting principles
Nativist view dominant
– Born with some innate ability,which expands with age/experience?(ex:Carey,2009) – This in born ability shared with other animals?
BUT Experience/culturestillimportant!
– Cross culturally: Language,counting practices impact representation and processing of number (ex. Gobel et al., 2011)
– Within-cultures: Number talk from parents predicts CP knowledge,related to later performance in school (ex. Gunderson & Levine, 2011)
Information Processing Approach
Children fail these tasks because of other cognitive limitations
– Memory
– Problem-solving
– Attention
– Metacognition
Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
• 3 memory stores and control processes that operate on them
– Flow of information between 3 memory stores
– Strategies for encoding, retrieving, maintaining info in short-term/working memory and long-term memory
Limitations can affect children’s problem-solving and processing:
– Encoding limitations
• Don’t encode appropriate info
– Computational limitations
• Don’t have strategies in LTM to apply
– Retrieval limitations
• Retrieve inappropriate strategy
– Storage limitations
– Work-space limitations
• Both above to do with working memory restrictions
Brainerd (1983): Probability Judgment Task
4-5-year-old children in 5 trials
Some evidence of ability: success on 1st trial
Information processing limitations affect performance on subsequent trials
Hypothesis: retrieval problem
Children retrieving the wrong information (influenced by last response)
Most recent item in working memory=info about token frequency
– Children successful on all trials!
Miller & Seier (1994) Attention study
Ability to identify most crucial aspects of a task increases with age
- pinpoint relevant and ignore irrelevant
Found 3-4 years opened all boxes but 9-10 years focused on appropriate boxes
Roebers et al. (2010) attention study
Comparing 7-8 with 9-10-year-olds on eye-tracking test (focus on relevant/ inhibit irrelevant)
Baseline (told animals didn’t matter to task) and critical trials (told to focus on particular colour)
Recognition test: asked whether they’d seen an image before Distractibility test
• Similar pattern in both age groups
– Looked more overall at task relevant stimuli
– Relationship between encoding strategies and performance
• Younger children more affected by distractors
• Evidence for continuous development
Kreutzer et al(1975)
– “help the boy remember when he got the puppy”
– All 10 yr olds able to come up with appropriate retrieval strategy
– Only 1⁄2 of 5yr olds could do so
Kobasigawa (1974)
– Asked 6, 8, & 11-y-olds to learn 24 images
– Later shown just the 8 cue cards with categories
– Older children more likely to use cue cards as aid
– Younger children also used them less systematically
Metacognition
• Awareness of own cognitive limitations
• More aware of memory capacity with age
– Ex:younger children unrealistic about number of items can recall (Flavelletal.,1970)
• More aware of usefulness of memory strategies
– Older children able to come up with more and better memory aids than younger (Ringel & Springer, 1980)
Constructive Memory
Ability to infer/extrapolate novel info using:
– Scripts: sequence of actions appropriate for specific context
– Schema: what is known about scene, place, object
• Young children use these,but do so less flexibly than older children and adults
– Ex: Nelson & Gruendel,1981(restaurant script)
– Ex:Blades & Banham,1990(kitchen schema)
Chi(1978)
- children better at remembering chess positions than adults
– Adults better at digits
– Role of experience (all chess players)
Zone of Proximal Development
difference between actual performance and potential performance
– How the child learns with help of others
– At level beyond
existing skill (but not too far)
Vygotsky ideas about learning in a social context
Learning is the result of the interaction between a child and a more knowledgeable individual
– Culture provides the context within which interactions take place
– Language provides the means through which meanings are shared
Bruner and Scaffolding
How knowledge is passed from expert adult to novice child
– Recruitment: engage interest of child
– Reduction of degrees of freedom: reduce number of acts required, simplify
– Direction maintenance: keep motivation up
– Marking critical features: highlight relevant features
– Demonstration: modelling solutions
Cultural intelligence hypothesis
Humans have evolved special social-cognitive skills (ex: theory of mind, social learning, communication, cooperation, imitation, teaching)
Mirror Test (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979)
– 16 infants each in 6 age groups
(9, 12, 15,18, 21,& 24 months)
– Compared “No-rouge” & “Rouge” conditions
Recognise themselves from 21 months
When does full temporal sense of self develop?
After 3 years
Povinelli et al (1996)
Sticker unobtrusively placed on head
Videos and photos taken of 2-4-yr-olds
Showed them videos/photos after delay
Older 3 & 4 yrs: reached for sticker
Younger children did not
• Could label photo or video correctly
• DID remove or touch sticker when presented with mirror
Person permanence
internal representation of a social being (18m)
other people, using labels
Lewis & Brooks-Gun’s (1979) social dimensions
Gradually unfolding in the first and second year
Familiarity
• Different behaviour to familiar vs strange adults (7-9 months)
• Familiar vs. strange peers (10-12 months)
Age
• Discriminate children and adults by 6-12 months
• Use verbal age labels by 18-24 months
Gender
• Discriminate between female and male strangers (9-12 months)
• Use verbal gender labels around 19 months
Emotional Development: Production
Positive and negative affect only after birth
From a few months on basic “primary emotions” (joy, interest, anger, sadness)
7 months: fear responses, anger vs. pain – Izard et al (1987) 2- 8 months
2-3 years “secondary emotions”
(embarrassment, pride, shame)
– EX: Fear + Anger = Hate, envy
Haviland & Lelwica,1987
Found that infants can discriminate emotions early on - 10 weeks
Social referencing
Gauge response from care-giver before reacting - looking at caregiver and figuring out how to react based on them
Wary reactions to strangers and unknown situations - more positive when mother reacts positively
Visual cliff experiment
Emotional Intelligence
When we’re young we have people around us who can help to regulate our emotions
• Learn to regulate emotion
– Switch from external to internal management
• Emotion regulation and coping mechanism – Achieve well-being
• Emotion regulation and social competence
– Accuracy in recognizing emotions = better acceptance by peers
Harris (1989) Understanding another’s mind
• Precursors to this understanding:
– Self-awareness (18-20 months)
• verbally express emotional states (2yrs)
– Capacity for pretence (2-3yrs)
• Pretend something in world is something else
– Distinguishing reality from pretence (3-4yrs)
• Combine these to start understanding other peoples’ emotions, desires, beliefs
Have to be aware of your own states to be able to understand others
Theory of Mind
Other people have a mental representation of the world that is different from our own (beliefs, feelings, etc)
Crucial to success in social world
Not innate, develops with age
Wimmer & Perner (1983)
Where will Maxi look for the chocolate? – Only answered correctly over 4yrs (5-8yrs)
Has been argued to be too complicated, story too long for memory
Baron-Cohen et al.,1985
Sally-Anne Task
– 4-yr-olds solve!
– 3-yr-olds do not
Smarties task
Actually pencils and children are shown thus them under 4 years presume other children will know what’s inside as well
4 years and over solve this
Distinguishing mental states through language
– 2yrs + use words about internal states (want)
– 3yrs + use cognitive terms (know, remember)
The appearance-reality distinction
3yrs have difficulty understanding 2 representations of an object at the same time
Flavell et al(1986)
what it looks like and what it is l can be different
example: sponge that looks like a rock for example
Wellman et al (2001) review of 180 false belief studies
– Very few 2yr olds
– Minority 3yr olds
– 4+ yrs usually passed
Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005
VoE experiments: In some conditions, 15 month olds could correctly predict behaviour on false belief task
Evidence they may have ToM earlier
Southgate & Vernetti (2014)
Measured activation in motor cortex of adults (activated when the actor has false belief that ball is in the box)
6-month-old infants showed the same brain activity
Authors conclude: infants make action prediction based on the agent’s beliefs
How does language effect ToM
Children who perform better on false belief tasks tend to have better language abilities
Children with caregivers who use more mental state terms earlier perform better
Carpendale & Chandler (1996) Ambiguous Drawing Task
Make sure child can see both interpretations
• “What will Ann see?”
• 5yr olds could not give a good answer
• Even some 8yr olds had trouble
Ambiguous so the right answer would be ‘I don’t know’
Advanced Theory of Mind (AToM)
Osterhaus & Bosacki (2022) Review from middle childhood on
– Found very diverse definitions
– But,most studies relying on same 4-5 tests
– Individual diffs in AToM related to inhibition and language skills NOT empathy
Theories of how ToM develops
Conceptual change between 3-5years
– Develop concept of (meta) representations
– mental states aren’t direct reflections of reality, but can be inaccurate
– Evidence: differences between 3-& 4-yr-olds on traditional false-belief tasks
• Understanding develops gradually
– Do not suddenly acquire concept
– “realist” tendency over rides understanding of beliefs
– Other cognitive abilities mask understanding
– Evidence: tasks reduce complexity/cognitive demands show success at younger ages; ongoing development and perhaps some decline on certain measures with older age
When does prosocial behaviour emerge?
– Around first birthday, helping behaviour emerges
– Rapidly increases in toddler/preschooler period, and then slowly thereafter into early adulthood
– At least into late adolescence
– Shift to act according to moral principles, rather than for selfish motivations or to gain approval
Dahl et al., 2017
Explicit scaffolding (encouragement and praise) increases prosocial behaviour in infants
Schuhmacher et al., 2018
Observing helpful behaviour increases prosocial behaviour in infants
Zarbatany et al (1985)
older children only affected by experimenter influence, not peer influence
Observational Studies
Observe spontaneous, naturally occurring behaviour (directly or through reports)
Zahn-Waxler et al (2001)
14-36 months
Mothers report responses to events in which negative emotions expressed
Increase in empathic responses with age
Harmond & Bromwell (2018)
Parents asked to report on helping
behaviour and motivations in 1-4-year-olds
Helping increased with age
Warneken & Tomasello (2006)
24 18-month-olds
Experimental condition: looked at object and child, verbalized problem
Control: neutral face toward object
Children more likely to help in experimental condition for most tasks
– Immediately in most cases
– eye-contact and verbal announcement unnecessary
– Restricted by ability to interpret goal/need
Factors influencing prosocial development
Parenting styles and response
– secure attachment = higher empathy
– Parents who are empathic, respond sensitively, encourage empathy
• Perspective-taking ability
• Ability to regulate emotions
• Cross-cultural differences
– Values placed on cooperation vs. competition, individualism vs. support
Moral Reasoning
How we reason or judge whether an action is right or wrong
Piaget’s Theory on moral reasoning
Observedhowchildrenunderstood“rulesofthegame”,correspondsto“rules of society”
– 3-stages of understanding
• Premoral (Up to 4 years): rules not understood
• Moral realism/Heteronomous (4 to 10): rules come from higher authority, cannot be changed
• Moral subjectivism/Autonomous (10+): rules mutually agreed by players, can change
Dilemma method: which child is naughtiest?
– Up to 9/10 years, children judge based on amount of damage, not motive or intention
Linaza (1984):cross-cultural test
English & Spanish children
– Confirmed Piaget’s findings
Kohlberg’s Levels of Moral Reasoning
Developed 3 levels of reasoning, each with 2 stages Preconventional
Conventional
Postconventional
Kohlberg’s Theory of moral reasoning
Expanded upon Piaget’s concepts
– Across the life-span, not just childhood
– Much more intense study of over 30 years
• Participants presented with stories of “dilemmas”
– Crucial aspect was why something was or wasn’t wrong
Stage 1 of Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (preconventional morality)
Concerned with authority, obey rules to avoid punishment
Stage 2 of Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (preconventional morality)
Weigh the risks and benefits
– Recognize others might have different interests
– Action determined by one’s needs
Stage 3 of Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (conventional morality)
focus on interpersonal relationships
– Being good=having good motives
– Living up to what is“expected”of you
• Approval/disapproval of others important
Stage 4 of Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (conventional morality)
focus on society as a whole
– Performing one’s duty to maintain social order
Stage 5 of Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (postconventional morality)
importance of functioning society AND individual rights
– Usually not until 20+ yrs, and not everyone!
Stage 6 of Kohlberg’s levels of moral reasoning (postconventional morality)
Following universal ethical principles
When law violates principle, act in accordance to principle
Preconventional morality
Reason in relation to self,little understanding of shared rules – Seek pleasure, avoid punishment
– Children under 9,some adolescents, adult “criminal offenders”
Conventional Morality
Importance of rules, expectations, conventions of society – Most adolescents and adults
Postconventional morality
Understanding of moral principles underlying laws
Real life examples of Kohlbergs levels of moral reasoning (Shapiro & Johnna, 1995)
“We shouldn’t consider war…”
• “because it would hurt our economy…“(Stage1)
• “because we’ll have more money for domestic issues…“(Stage2)
• “because we don’t want to appear too militaristic…“(Stage3)
• “because war is killing and killing is against the law…“(Stage4)
• “even though the situation is bad,war is damaging to people and property and society agrees that is bad…“(Stage 5)
• “although atrocities have been committed,it would be an even greater atrocity to wage war…” (Stage 6)
Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory
Dilemmascriticizedforbeingtooartificial,andnotreliable – Clinical interview method too subjective
** Better scoring system (Colby et al. 1987)
• CulturalBias
– Snarey (1985) review of studies in 27 cultures
• Similar progression through stages 1-4, but Stage 5 only found in urban societies • Biased toward cultures favouring individualism
** Approaches which take into account the diversity of values within cultures • Gender bias
– All original participants male
– Stages reflect specifically “male morality”
• Gilligan (1982)
– Criticized both Piaget and Kohlberg of negative views of “female morality” – Argued females more concerned about impact behaviour has on others
– “people before principles” (female) vs. “principles before people” (male)
Causes of Developmental Conditions
• Chromosomal abnormalities – Genetic mutation
• Down syndrome (extra copy of chromosome 21) • Prenatal factors
– Damage while in womb (oxygen deprivation, maternal infection, malformation of brain)
• Ex: Cerebral Palsy
• Unknown combination
– Genetic, environmental, psychological, neurological
Wing&Gould(1979):Triad of impairments in autism
– A: Impairments in social interaction (lackofeye-to-eye contact,failure to develop peer
relations)
– B: Impairments in communication (language delay,lack of varied make-believe play)
– C: Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour (narrow interests,ritualistic or compulsive behaviours)
Problems with Autism Diagnosis
• Diagnosed and defined using behavioural criteria – Some signs appear early (12-18months)
– Typically around 3+years, but can go undiagnosed
• Increase recently in numbers,largely due to better diagnostic material and understanding of impairments
• Develop mental outcomes highly variable
– Why so much variability in terms of what develops, when, and in whom?
Traditional theories of autism
Executive Functioning (EF)=an umbrella term
– ex: planning, organising, inhibition, impulse control,s ustaining attention
– Can repetitive, restricted behaviours be explained by impairment in executive control?
• early difficulties in EF might play role in developmental outcomes
• Correlation between EF and ToM
Weak Central Coherence
– Central coherence = TD people have tendency to process incoming info globally
– WCC = bias for featural or local information, details
– Proposed to explain certain aspects of ASD(Frith&Happe,1994)
• Ex: Islets of ability,excellent rote memory, preoccupation with parts of objects
– Superiority in detail, rather than deficit in global?
Baron-Cohen et al (1985)
Sally-Anne false belief task
• ASD with mental age >4
• TD children aged 4
• Down’s syndrome with mental age >4
• RESULTS:
– 80% of TD & DS solved – Only 20% of ASD group
• Perner et al(1989)
– Similar results with Smarties task
Strange Stories Task
More natural, complex challenge than false belief tasks (Happe, 1994)
Participants read short story and are asked why a character say something they don’t mean literally (white lie, pretend, joking, idioms) Even those who passed 2nd order ToM tasks were impaired – Too vocabulary-loaded?
Baron-Cohen et al. (1997) Infer mental states from eyes alone
Designed to address ToM abilities beyond those of a 6-yr-old
– Choose between correct emotion and “foil”(ex:concerned vs. unconcerned)
• Autistic group significantly impaired compared to TD group and Tourette Syndrome group
• Is it really measuring ToM?
– Test has been criticized, particularly by autistic people
What about the whole face/ body language?
Double-empathy problem
e.g.Milton, 2012; Mitchelletal, 2021
– Autistic and non-autistic people have different social communication styles
– Breakdown in mutual understanding
Adolescence & Puberty
Physical changes
– Sexual maturity
– Growth spurt (5-6cm per year in childhood, 9-10cm in adolescence)
• Brain development
– “remodeling of the brain”
• areas affecting emotional regulation, response inhibition, planning
– Increase white matter, decrease grey matter
• Psychological changes?
– Risk-taking, moodiness, aggression? – Transition from childhood to adulthood
Erikson - stage theorist
Theory of psychosocial development
– Different “conflict” at each stage which must be resolved successfully (Ex: trust vs. mistrust in 1st year)
• Identity Crisis in adolescence
– What is an identity?
“a subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image”
– “Psychosocial moratorium” - trying different things to figure out who you are
Marcia (1966)
Identified 4 identity “statuses”
– Diffusion: haven’t started thinking about it seriously (no identity crisis or commitment)
– Foreclosure: formed commitment without having explored possibilities
– Moratorium: still considering alternatives
– Achievement of identity: been through crisis and reached a solution
