Social cognition Flashcards
Theory of Mind
and mental states
- the ability to think about mental states in ourselves and others
- understanding that mental states influence behavior
- mental states: beliefs, desires, intentions, perceptions
- rooted in egocentrism (Piaget)
3 conditions for having a ToM
must understand that…
1. people have mental states
2. others’ mental states can differ from your own
3. mental states guide behavior regardless of whether they are accurate (e.g. false beliefs)
2 tasks used to assess false beliefs
- Sally-Anne task (i.e. unexpected transfer task)
- smarties task
children under age 4 fail on traditional false beliefs tasks; they answer based on reality
Changes that occur between ages 3-5
ToM development
- changes in conceptual abilities to reason about mental states (e.g. theory theory, modular theory)
- changes in processing (e.g. tasks may be too difficult)
Theory theory
ToM development
changes in ways of thinking about mental states (i.e. qualitative shift in theories about ToM)
- change in conceptual ability to reason about mental states
- based on Piagetian idea of children as scientists
Modular theory
ToM development
brain maturation
module in the brain that becomes increasingly activated and advanced, allowing us to conceptualize mental states
Changes in processing
ToM development
younger children (< age 4) may not be able to pass FB tasks because they have difficulty with the processing demands of the tasks
e.g. language, prediction, memory abilities; executive function and inhibition (having to keep track of both reality and a person’s perception of reality)
Evidence for ToM earlier in development
changes in processing
- Repacholi & Gopnik: 18-month-olds give the researcher broccolis despite mismatch with their own preference (crackers)
- Onishi & Baillargeon: 15-18-month-olds look longer at suprising reach or violation of expectation (non-verbal false beliefs task)
Curse of knowledge
changes in processing
having to inhibit your knowledge of reality (e.g. kid knows where the toy is in the Sally-Anne task)
difficult to inhibit knowledge when you know something to be true
Factors causing individual differences in ToM
- # of siblings
- pretend play
- parenting (e.g. discussing emotions, mental states)
- language (e.g. bilingualism)
- autism (often struggles!)
more siblings and pretend play = more practice stepping into others’ perspectives
How are ToM and lying related?
- lying is proposed to be partially explained by ToM development
- lying shows up around age 2 but shows major increases between ages 3-7
need to be able to understand that you can create a false belief in another person
How does understanding of race evolve?
infancy > ages 3-4 > later
- infants prefer familiar race faces and respond to race as a perceptual category
- ages 3-4: explicitly characterize race and reason about skin color as a stable characteristic
- later on: reason about race as a stable and informative feature of identity beyond appearance (i.e. essentialism)
- 4-year-olds adopt the switched-at-birth reasoning (attribute race to nature)
- children from marginalized racial groups exhibit essentialism earlier
Explicit bias
intergroup bias
- can be expressed directly
- aware of bias
- can deliberately be accessed
- easily controlled
Explicit bias in dominant racial groups
ingroup positivity and out-group negativity that declines with development
measured with self-reported preference (e.g. which kid would you like to play with?)
Explicit bias in marginalized racial groups
low ingroup positivity that increases with development
e.g. Clarks’ Doll Study (1947)
Implicit bias
intergroup bias
- beliefs, attitudes that are activated in response to social cues
- may be less aware of bias
- may be more difficult to control
Implicit association test (IAT)
measures the strength of association between concept (i.e. race) and attribute (i.e. evaluation, good vs. bad)
- a faster response to presented stimulus suggests a stronger association (e.g. between white and good)
- not intended as a diagnosis!
Implicit bias in dominant racial groups
positive ingroup bias (i.e. pro-white attitude) that remains stable across development
Implicit bias in marginalized racial groups
no preference for either ingroup or out-group that remains stable across development
2 factors affecting intergroup bias
or attitudes about race
- ingroup bias (e.g. “I like people like me”)
- social norms or social/cultural evaluation of dominance (e.g. how society ranks one’s ingroup)
2 factors competing may explain why individuals from marginalized racial groups have no preference for either ingroup or out-group
How are ingroup bias and social norms acquired?
2 factors affecting intergroup bias
- ingroup bias: rapidly/automatically acquired
- social norms: gradually through overt messages, cultural stereotypes, learning from authority figures, context, etc.
social norms are more nuanced!
Implicit bias of Latinx individuals in the US vs White and Black individuals
Latinx individuals in the US show ingroup positivity vs Black individuals (lower status) but no preference vs White individuals (higher status)
3 factors to consider when conducting an IAT
- side/order effects: associations should be counterbalanced though typically found to have no impact
- reliability: fairly reliable over several tests but can be impacted by context and vary from one to the next
- meaningulness: requires you to attend to target social categories (e.g. race) but may not translate to real life
results in IAT may not predict behavior
Gaps in data on implicit intergroup attitudes
- bi/multiracial individuals
- individuals from many non-dominant racial groups (e.g. Indigenous)
- intersectionality (e.g. race intersects with gender, wealth, etc.)
Explicit and implicit bias among biracial Black/White individuals
some pro-white preference but less than that of mono-racial White individuals
Minimal group paradigm
to assess explicit vs implicit ingroup preference
* 5-year-olds randomly assigned to shirt categories (blue and red)
* mere membership can lead to ingroup preference
What works in adults to reduce intergroup bias?
- personal contact with out-group members
- encountering positive examples of out-group members
but not very strong effects: older children show more malleability in implicit pro-White bias following exposure to positive vignette about Black individual
