Lifespan A: Children's understanding of others' mind, WEEK 6 Flashcards
1
Q
Theory of mind
A
- Capacity to attribute mental states (e.g desires, beliefs, knowledge) to others to predict/explain behaviour
- Mental states = things we cannot see so it is thought about in a theoretical sense (behaviour is caused by certain mental state)
- “Theory” of mind because we are assuming what is happening > way of explaining people’s behaviour
- Ability to recognise what other people may be thinking or feeling (responding appropriately is beyond ToM)
2
Q
Piaget on children’s social development
A
- Piaget investigated playground conversations + found they were commonly egocentric
- Egocentrism: child doesn’t take into account what the listener knows or doesn’t know > Pre-operational stage (2-7yrs)
- After age 7, child shows socialized speech > obs suggest children try take the view of others by imagining knowledge others have
- Domain general view of development > between 0-8 children cannot think about what others are thinking
3
Q
Piaget & Inhelder: mountain experiment
A
- Wanted to see if children between 3-8yrs could take the view of a character
- Use a doll + put them at the 4 different views of mountain, child is shown different pictures of the views + is asked what can the doll see?
- Results show children didn’t pass reliably until age 7-8 (concrete ops)
- Contradictory research by Donaldson + Hughes simplify this task where children were asked to hide burglar form police so police can’t see him (have to take view of police) > results show children between 3-5 could hide the burglar
4
Q
Criticism of Piaget: Wellman
A
- Problem w/ Piaget’s way of thinking is that it isn’t very social > Wellman believes using perspective taking in mountains task confounded ability to understand what other people were thinking w/ mental rotation
- Argues it is possible to pass task w/o taking the perspective by manipulating the space in mind (physical skill)
5
Q
Alternative argument: Meta-Representation
A
- Wellman argues the most important thing children had to do to understand someones mind is to represent that other people can have representation
- Represent = ability to hold an idea in mind
- Children have to recognise that other people can represent things + their view of the world can be different from yours
- Meta-representation > ability to represent different people have different views on the same thing
- Exists on different levels so we can have different beliefs about the same thing
6
Q
Concept for False-Belief task: Dennett (1978)
A
- At a Punch + Judy puppet show noticed the children there between 3-4 yrs could represent
- Punch put Judy in a box and left > Judy got out of the box and left but Punch came back thinking she was still there and opened the box > the kids were laughing consistently when there was a contrast between what Punch + Judy knew suggesting children can have ToM earlier than Piaget said
- Dennett came up with the concept for the false belief task
7
Q
The False-Belief Task: Wimmer & Perner (1983)
A
- Developed FB exp
- Children see a character put a toy in a basket the the character leaves
- Character’s friend comes + takes toy out of basket + puts in a box and closes it
- When the character returns, the child is asked where will he look for his toy? > distinction between what character knows + what we know
- Children who recognise the character has a different belief to us will say they look in the basket (pass test)
- Children who don’t recognise that we know differently from the character will say he looks in the box (fails test)
8
Q
Replication of False-Belief task: Perner et Al., (1987)
A
- Smarties task > show child smarties box + ask what do you think is in it? they respond w/ sweets > researcher opens the box + shows there aren’t sweets but there are pencils in the box > close box + say your mummy hasn’t seen what is inside, what will she think is in it?
- Distinction between what child knows and what mother knows
- Child recognising people have different knowledge will say she thinks there are smarties > if the child doesn’t recognise this they will say pencils
9
Q
Why do we ask children where the object really is, who put it there, and where was it at the start?
FB task
A
- To make sure the child has paid attention to story + followed it > control for them not understanding and failing bc of that
- Who put it there? checks their memory for sequence of events
- Where was it at the start? Checks memory
- Need to ask all these to truly assess their belief vs characters
- Working memory + language affects ability to follow the story
10
Q
Truth about False Belief
A
- Did meta-analysis + gathered data from 178 studies representing 4000 children from different countries to see when children pass this test
- Between ages of 36-60mo, children’s performance on the task increases from below chance levels to above chance levels
- There are variations in when kids understand beliefs different to theirs exist
11
Q
Why is mind reading important?
A
- Children w/ autism reliably do worse on measures of ToM than children w/o it > perhaps ToM deficits may be why children w/ autism struggle in certain social situations
- Adults w/ SZ struggle on tests of ToM
- Typically developing children > some are v good at the task while others aren’t > means a disorder isn’t necessary to be bad at ToM > we may just vary in how good we are
- Children better at mind reading in early childhood are 1.more likely to be called prosocial (likely to share/help)
2. more likely to be rated as popular by peers
3. More likely rated as socially competent at end of primary school by their teachers
12
Q
Nativist accounts
A
- Mind reading is an innate, domain specific skill
- Suggests we have specialised cognitive abilities allowing us to do this
- Leslie argues we are born w/ ToM module > born w/ a module which processes mental states > when we enter the world we track people’s eyes, facial exp
- Development occurs due to specialised modules (each capable of processing different types of mental states) which come up as we mature > born w/ modules which specialise as we grow + improves > no development of ToM, we are born with it
13
Q
Evidence for Nativist Theories
A
- Mind reading is universal > many cross-cultural studies have been completed + mind-reading is prevalent across species > although some children in certain countries get this earlier + others get it later but all cultures get it eventually
- Evolutionary argument > Baron-Cohen argues as social beings we need ToM to survive > apart of evolution
- Autism is a highly heritable + genetically predisposed condition > some argue this itself shows theory of mind is linked to genes + not EV
14
Q
Can infants reason about false belief?
Baillargeon task description
A
- Baillargeon said measures of ToM were too difficult > required working memory + language before the question could be answered
- Developed a non-verbal measure of ToM w/ violation of expectations with 15mo > minimal language skills
- Phase 1: Familiarisation task so child gets used to idea researcher has a toy which is put in a box then reached for after
Phase 2: Belief-induction trial > infants split into 4 groups
1st group: True belief green condition > actor sees toy move under green box
2nd group: true belief yellow condition > toy moves to yellow box but actor sees
3rd group: False belief green condition > actor sees toy put under green box, screen shut so actor can’t see and toy moves to yellow box
4th group: False belief yellow condition > actor sees it is under yellow box but moves to green w/o being seen
Phase 3: Children see something consistent/inconsistent w/ their knowledge
15
Q
Can infants reason about false belief?
Challenges to Baillargeon
A
- Children use simple behaviour rules so the actor should look where they last saw the toy > if they don’t the child looks longer than when it is knowledge consistent > e.g: if the actor believed it was in the green box but reached for yellow, infants looked longer > doesn’t measure mind reading
- Baillargeon argues the children could represent what the actor was thinking > suggests children at 15mo begin to reason others’ beliefs
- Children may have simple understanding (implicit) but is different to what is measured at 3-4 yrs old (explicit) > implicit knowledge cannot answer those questions
- Failure to replicate Baillargeon’s findings > unreliable?
