Self-Awareness

Question 1

Introduction - Self-awareness

Answer 1

Self awareness is defined as an infants gradual awareness of the developing self both as a sense of separateness from the physical world and of separateness from other people.

It is questioned how this begins and when do children become self-aware.

Split into 2 experiences
- Implicit self-awareness. Subjective experience of self as a distinct agent acting in the world (The ‘I’ self)
- Explicit Self-awareness. Objective experiences of the agent (The ‘me’ self)
Adults are able to switch between these easily. Developmental ev suggests we build on subjective experiences of agency to explicit self-recognition as approach 2yrs. Self-conscious awareness then develops from 2-3yrs.

Question 2

What do imitation and the still face effect suggest when children become self-aware?

Answer 2

Imitation

• Meltzoff and Moore see this as the earliest sign of self-awareness.
• But some see it as a reflex behaviour, happening automatically.

SFE

• Leads to emotional reactions to breakdowns in proto-conversation
• Takes away infants personal agency and it is suggested that they like to have an effect on the world.

Question 3

Lewis, Alessandri & Sullivan (1990)

Answer 3

• 2-8m infants hear Sesame Street song. Some randomly hear this and some in control of when they hear the song for 3sec by attaching their arm to a ribbon and lever in order to let them have an effect on the world.
• Those in control enjoyed taking part more, had expressions of joy.
• Break in contingency - In control group were angry when stimulus stopped played, have lost control of the situation.
• They have reactions to breakdowns in agency.

Question 4

Papousek & Paoousel (1974)

Answer 4

• Study to see if infants can discriminate between the self and other.
• By 5m, infants prefer seeing live footage of their own face rather than peers.
• Shows they can discriminate, but doesn’t tell you if the infant is just recognising their own facial features.

Question 5

What evidence suggests that infants do not have a sense of objective agency?

Answer 5

• Neilsen et al. (2003) - No visual preference found between 9-24 until the infant can recognise self in mirror

Question 6

Explain the alternative evidence for early feature recognition and any contradicting evidence

Answer 6

• Imitation and emotional contagion show a connection between own and other features, but not a discrimination.
• Zahn-Waxler et al. (1992) - When 13-15m olds see others distress, they react by becoming distressed. As get older, personal distress lowers and they show more empathy and want to help. Gradual.

Martin & Clark (1982) - Newborns show emotional contagion to recordings of others cries, but not own recorded cry. Shows they can discriminate on some level. Innate mechanism to limit EC of self.

Question 7

Why is it a problem that there is a lack of evidence if infants recognise their own features as own or familar?

Answer 7

Feature recognition suggests you have a solid understanding of self and knowledge of what facial features look like.

Question 8

Mirror Mark Test of Self-Recognition (Gallup, 1970) (Amsterdam, 1972)

Answer 8

• Infants marked on body without knowing
• First evidence of an idea of ‘me’
• If the infant touches their own nose as opposed to reflection in mirror, it is said they have acquired a self-concept. They have identified themselves as an object in the environment.
• Usually pass by 18m. Shows that it is not about agency or contingency as pass these at earlier age. Instead questioned if it depends on feature recognition.
• Children who pass usually use more self-other differentiation in language.
• Understanding pronouns requires cognitive perspective taking based on who is speaking. Provide naural evidence of the onset of the self-other discrimination.

Question 9

Courage, Edison and Howe (2004)

Answer 9

• Tested for feature recognition using photos
• Asked children to identify self from set of 3 photos.
• Able to do this earlier than mirror self-recognition test.
• Lag suggests that infants initially see the mirror as connected to the self, but don’t yet have a stable cognitive representation of their own features.

Question 10

At what age to infants refer to themselves by name and pronouns?

Answer 10

Name = 18m

Pronouns = 20m

Question 11

Zahn-Wzxler et al. (1992)

Answer 11

• Looked at how children react when someone else is upset and they caused their distress compared to witnessing distress.
• From 13-20m show more personal distress. Then suddenly at 23-25 there is more helping.
• Similar to guilt in adults.
• Behaviours associated with self-conscious emotions onset from around 2yrs.

Question 12

Kochanska et al. (2002)

Answer 12

• Mishaps task with 22, 35 and 45m
• Child breaks object valued by experimenter and their discomfort was coded
• Negative responses were consistent with adult measures of guilt/shame from 22m.

Question 13

Stipek, Recchia and McClintic (1992)

Answer 13

• Tasks with clear end goal e.g. one cup missing
• 1yrs - Didn’t care if completed task, don’t register failure
• 2yrs - Seek appraisal from mother, think standards held with others
• 3-4yrs - Behaviour similar to guilt/shame. Standards internalised
• More shame when fail easy task.

Question 14

Stipek, Gralinski & Kopp (1990)

Answer 14

• Clear developmental progression from self-recognition to self-evaluation
• Parents reported child’s self-concept dev.
• 91% of 19-24m showed self-recognition
• 51% of 19-24m showed self-description and evaluation compared to 91% at 30-40m
• 40% of 19-24m showed an emotional response to wrongdoing compared to 59% at 30-40m

Question 15

Explain why self-awareness is important

Answer 15

• Self-concept is different from other concepts
• Few animals have this ability, suggesting it is important, special to humans.
• Concept of self provides memory support. Infants can form memories easily, but as adults cannot easily remember early in life

Question 16

Infantile amnesia

Answer 16

The idea that most adults cannot remember what happened before the age of 3.5.

Link between self-recognition and autobiographical memory.

Question 17

Describe evidence which provides evidence for the memory concept of self-awareness

Answer 17

Howes & Courage (1993) - Until mirror onset recognition and memory, have no filing for autobiographical memories. Can’t tag memories as own until consciously aware that distinct from others.

Harley and Reese (1999) - Longitudinal study from 19-32m. Self-recognition important in predicting if infant has strong verbal memory of event.

Ross, Hutchison and Cunningham (2019) - SRE in memory to measure the role of the self-concept in memory processing. Size gets smaller depending on who person is.

Ross et al. (2011) - Child sees object and own face or see unfamiliar child with object and then ask them to recall what they saw. More likely to remember objects associated with them.

Ross et al. (2019) - Self and memory are connected. Self-source predicts how much information children given. Bi-directional relationship between self-concept and memory. As get older, autobiographical memory more important for self-concept. Volume of a 3-6yr autobiographical memories is predicted by their volume of self-knowledge and capacity for self-source monitoring. Growth in autobiographical memory related to the development of the self.

Question 18

Self-reference Effect

Answer 18

Tendency to better remember things that have been processed in reference to the self than things we have processed in other ways.

Suggests that the self-concept has attention-grabbing properties.

Question 19

Explain the adult social perspective on self-awareness

Answer 19

Diener and Wallbolm (1976) - 71% of undergraduates cheated on anagraph task when in room without mirror compared to 7% when mirror present. Those with the mirror self-evaluate and those not self-focused are not thinking about the consequences. Self-evaluation results in social conscience.

Question 20

Explain the social perspective of self-awareness in children

Answer 20

• Bearman et al. (1979) - Only told to take one sweet when trick or treating. Less likely to break rule when alone with mirror. Increases with age, however could be bc can’t perform under 2.

Ross, Anderson and Campbell (2011) - Left alone with box which they are told not to look in. 3 separate games, self-focused, neutral and deindividuated. Most (83%) broke rule when adult left, but depends on condition with most in deindividuation. However, might think that they are allowed to bc are zoo keeper.

Study 2 - Pick up toys for other child or give out stickers. Dressed as fisherman. In self-focused they earned more toys in costume and shared stickers. Increasing self-focus, increases adherence to socially valued standards by 3yrs.

Question 21

What evidence is there that children’s social choices are sometimes driven by self-conscious emotion?

Answer 21

Bender et al. (2017) - Children more likely to tell the trurth about peeking in self-aware conditions.

Kochanska et al. (2002) - Amount of guilt in test at 22,33 and 45m negative predictior of transgression at 56m. Those who showed more discomfort in mishaps less likely to touch a toy when told not to when left alone to cheat in difficult ball throwing game.

Ross (2017) - Children’s tendency to experiences of both negative and positive self-evaluative emotion relates to their likelihood of spontaneously behaving pro-socially e.g. helping.

Question 22

What is self-focus also know as?

Answer 22

Activating the internal moral compass

Question 23

Looking Preference Paradigm

Answer 23

Test to determine if infants can discriminate between stimuli

Question 24

Autobiographical Memory

Answer 24

Memory in which the self is the ‘experiencer’ of the event

Self-recognition or self-reflection is a basic component

Question 25

Self-concept

Answer 25

Holds a unique volume of information and depth of processing given its embodied nature