Social Cognitive Theory Flashcards
What is the link between communication and Theory of Mind?
Communication: dynamic exchange of information between 2 people
Theory of Mind: our understanding of other people’s mental state (and that they have different thoughts and ideas than you do)
What is critical for an exchange of communication?
Joint attention, which is established through gestures/eye gaze
What are the 3 Cognitive Pre-cursors to Communication
- Joint attention
- Eye gaze and social referencing
- Imitative learning
TOM 6-12 months
Joint attention
First words
TOM 13-24 months
Recognize intentionality in others through word use
Recognize others have desires different from your own
Early pretend play
TOM 30-36 months
Begin to use mental state terms
Increasingly sophisticated pretend play
TOM 37-48 months
Increasing ability to see how things look from another’s perspective
Begin to understand sentence complements
49-60 months
Consistently pass false-belief and appearance-reality tasks
Describe joint attention
- emerges around 9 months, well established by 18 months
- shared understanding that 2 people are interested in the same object/event
- SOCIAL- not just fulfilling a need
Describe eye gaze and social referencing
- referential gestures used to establish social connections
- moments of eye contact in face-to-face interactions
- earliest evidence of eye gaze at 9-10 months
Describe imitative learning
- social learning
- ability to mirror, repeat and practice the actions of others
- can occur immediately or later
- used in social exchanges, turn taking, role play, shared/exchange topics, to communicate
What are Mirror Neurons?
Type of brain cells that allow us to immediately respond and understand what others are experiencing
- imitate and empathize
- neurologically wired to imitate
