Social Development and Social Learning Flashcards
Perception
Introduction and Vision
Perception is the process of organising and interpreting sensory information about the objects, events, and spatial layout of the world around us.
Sensation is the processing of basic information from the external world by the sensory receptors in the sense organs (ears, eyes, skin, etc.) and brain.
William James, one of the first Psychologists, believed that the world of the newborn is a “big blooming, buzzing confusion”.
However, through the advancement in the study of early sensation and perception, modern researchers believe that infants come into the world with all their sensory systems functioning to some degree and that subsequent development occurs at a very rapid pace.
——————————————————————————
Vision
Because infants cannot understand or respond to instructions, investigations of infant abilities required researchers to devise methods that are quite different from those used with older children and adults. This method is the preferential looking technique pioneered by Robert Fantz (1961), which studies visual attention in infants. If an infant looks longer at one of the two stimuli, the researcher can infer that the baby can discriminate between them, and that the infant has a preference for one over the other. Fantz established that newborns would rather look at something rather than nothing.
Modern versions of preferential looking often involve the use of automatic eye trackers which is a specially design camera that measures infants eye movements via infrared light reflection (assesses visual acuity), researchers can automatically detect where infants are looking on a screen. Researchers also use head mounted infant eye trackers that show where infants are looking as they move their eyes freely around the room.
Habituation is also a research tool used to study fetal development, repeatedly presenting an infant with a stimulus until the infants response to it habituates (declines). Then a novel model is presented. if the infants dishabituates (the response increases) in response to the novel stimulus, the research infers that the baby can discriminate between the old and new stimuli. Two types of dishabituation, linear and categorical.
the human visual system is relatively immature at birth; young infants have poor visual acuity (the sharpness of visual discrimination), low contrast sensitivity (the ability to detect differences in light and dark areas in a visual pattern), and minimal color vision. Modern research has demonstrated, however, that newborns begin visually scanning the world minutes after birth and that very young infants show preferences for strongly contrasted patterns, for the same colours that adults prefer, and, especially, for human faces.
Visual Acuity and Colour Perception
one reason for the low contrast sensitivity is the immaturity of the cone cells in infant’s retinas, the light-sensitive neurons that are highly concentrated in the fovea (the central region of the retina) and are involved in seeing fine detail and colour. Newborns are spaced 4 times farther apart than adults cones, with the consequence that cones in newborns catch only about 2% of the light striking the fovea, compared with 65% for adults.
another restriction on their visual experience is that, for the 1st month or so, they do not appear to perceive differences between white and colour. However, by 2 months, infants colour vision is similar to that of an adults. Infants prefer colours that are unique hues such as blue.
Visual Scanning
not until 4mnths are infants able to track moving objects smoothly, and then they can do so only if an object is moving slowly. one reason why visual scanning is so important is that it is one of the few ways that infants have active control over what they observe and learn.
Object Perception
We perceive a constant shape and size, a phenomenon known as perceptual constancy (which comes from the debate of how we learn, nature or nurture). empiricists believe that our perception of the constant size and shape of objects develops as a function of spatially experiencing our environment, whereas nativists believe that this perceptual regularity stems from inheritant properties of the nervous system.
some visual abilities, including perception of constant size and shape, are present at birth; others develop rapidly over the first year. Binocular vision emerges quite suddenly at 4 months of age, and the ability to identify object boundaries - object segregation (the identification of separate objects in a visual array) - is also present at that age. By 7 months, infants are sensitive to a variety of monocular, or pictorial, depth cues.
Depth Perception
we use many sorts of depth and distance cues to tell us whether we can reach the coffee cup on the desk or whether the approaching car is far enough away to cross the road safely in front of it. one cue infants use early on is optical expansion, in which visual image of an object increases in size as the object comes towards us, occluding (closing up) more and more of the background.
having two eyes also aids in the early development of depth perception. the distance between our eyes means that the retina image of an object at any instant is never quite the same in both eyes. Consequently, the eyes never send quite the same signal to the brain - a phenomenon known as binocular disparity. the closer the object we are looking at, the less disparity. in a process known as stereopsis, the visual cortex computes the degree of disparity between the eyes differing neural signals and produces the perception of depth (happens at 4mnths).
for 6-7mth infants, they begin to become sensitive to a variety of monocular depth cues (the perceptual cues of depth - such as relative size and interposition - that can be perceived by one eye alone). these cues are known as pictorial cues because they can be used to portray depth in pictures.
Perception
Auditory Perception
Taste and Smell
Touch
The auditory system is comparatively well developed at birth, and newborns will turn their heads to localise a sound (auditory localisation). However, infants may find using this information difficult because their heads are small, thus differences in timing and loudness in information arriving at each ear are smaller for infants. Also, it may be difficult because the development of an auditory spatial map (i.e., a mental representation of how sounds are organised in physical space - right vs. left, up vs. down) requires multimodal experiences, through which infants become able to integrate information from what they hear with information from what they see and touch.
Music Perception
infants enjoy listening to infant-directed singing even more than to infant-directed speech, possibly because mothers smile more while singing than speaking. they also prefer consonant tones (e.g. octaves, or perfect fifths like the opening notes of the ABC.s song) rather than dissonant tones (e.g., augmented fourths like the opening of the theme song from The Simpsons, or minor seconds like the theme from the film Jaws). this is unrelated to musical experience.
Infants are sensitive to smell from birth. they prefer smells of natural food source - breast milk. they learn to identify their mother in part by her unique scent.
—————————————————————————-
through active touching, using both mouth and hands, infants explore and learn about themselves and their environment.
in the first few months, oral exploration is used through using their mouth, sucking on their fingers, toes and any object they come into contact with.
From 4mths, infants gain more control over their hand and arm movements, manual exploration increases and gradually precedence (outweighs) over oral exploration.
——————————————————————————
Intermodel Perception
the combining of information from two or more sensory systems (seen from 4mnths old). And those who have one sense that is absent early in life such as blindness, suggests that experience is necessary in order to help discover links between modalities.
Motor Development
Reflexes
Motor Milestones
Motor development proceeds rapidly in infancy through a series of “motor milestones”, starting with the reflexes displayed by newborn babies. in the grasping reflex, newborns close their fingers around anything that presses against the palm of their hand. When stroked on the cheek near the mouth, infants exhibit the rooting reflex, turning their head in the direction of the touch and opening their mouth. oral contact with the nipple then sets off the sucking reflex, followed by the swallowing reflex, both of which increase the baby’s chance of getting nourishment and ultimately surviving. it is thought that the tonic neck reflex brings no benefits, it is just an effort by babies to get and keep their hand in view. strong reflexes at birth is a sign that the newborns central nervous system is in good shape.
The regular pattern of development results from the confluence of many factors, including the development of strength, posture control, balance, and perceptual skills, development vary across cultures as a result of different cultural practices.
Each new motor achievement, from reaching to self-locomotion (the ability to move oneself around in the environment which occurs about 8mnths of age), expands the infants experience of the world but also presents new challenges. these challenges include obstacles such as a slippery floor, spongy carpets, paths cluttered with objects and obstacles, stairs, sloping lawns, and so on.
infants adopt a variety of strategies to move around in the world successfully and safely (they use their perception of the properties of the surface they want to traverse). In the process, they make a variety of surprising mistakes (scale error - the attempt by a young child to perform an action on a miniatre object that is impossible due to the large discrepancy in the relative sizes of the child and the object).
Learning
SOCIAL LEARNING: imitation Emulation Mimicry ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NON SOCIAL LEARNING: Habituation Perceptual Learning Statistical Learning Classical Conditioning Instrumental Learning Observational Learning/imitation Rational Learning
Imitation
is the recognition and reproduction of the goal of the observed behaviour, as well as the specific actions that brought about that goal.
children copy others with extremely high fidelity, supporting cultural learning and avoiding efficient trial and error learning. children don’t have to figure it out themselves (they can just copy others and by doing so learn).
Meltzoff and Moor (1977) found that after newborns watching adult models slowly and repeatedly make facial expressions (sticking out tongue, yawning), they often imitate the same. However not all newborns imitate consistently or at all, and the imitation can often be sutle.
Meltzoff (1995) investigated whether imitation require a social agent. From his study, he suggested that infants only imitate people because they can infer a goal or attention from a person, but they are not able to infer an intention of a mechanical device.
Oosten et al. (2016) carried out the longest ever longitudinal study of newly born babies. new borns were shown 11 gestures at 3, 6, and 9 weeks of age. presented 4 social and 4 non-social models. the study failed to uncover any evidence of imitation from any of the conditions. suggested that imitation occurs probably between 6-8wks.
Emulation
whereas imitation an individual learns by copying the actions of another, in emulation they learn instead about the environment - for example, about the results of what others do or about the relevant properties or tools and other objects involved.
reasons for high-fidelity imitation:
- children may be confused about the causality of the irrelevant action
- children may want to be like the model
- children may interpret the models irrelevant action as normative, hence, as an essential part of a bigger action
- different goals underlying imitation
it seems that imitation is quite inflexible, as in a way, all you do is you just copy what you see. but it is important that you know who to copy and when not to copy (could be irrelevant).
Mimicry
the replication of a models actions in the absence of any insight into why those actions are effective, or even what goal they served.
crucial difference between mimicry and imitation; imitation involves the child understanding the intention or the goal, whereas the mimicry you just copy somebody without clearly understanding why you are copying this person.
Mimicry - Meltzoff: infants stick out their tongue when watching an adult do it
Emulation - Meltzoff: infants as likely to pull off dumbbell end when full attempt vs. failed attempt
Imitation - Horner & Whiten: Children copied both relevant & irrelevant actions, even when clear (dubbed overimitation)
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
imitation and emulation are two types of social learning. How are the two types oflearning defined and how do they differ? Describe an experimental procedure with which you could distinguish the two types of social learning. Outline the design. What behaviour will children show when they imitate as opposed to when they emulate in your study?
Imitation: The recognition and reproduction of the goal of the observed behaviour, as well as the specific actions that brought about that goal.[2]
Emulation: Whereas in imitation an individual learns by copying the actions of another, in emulation they learn instead about the environment—for example, about the results of what others do or about the relevant properties of tools and other objects involved.[2]
Experimental Procedure: Horner and Whiten (2005): Young wild-born chimpanzees from an African sanctuary and 3-to 4-year-old children observed a human demonstrator use a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box. The demonstration involved both causally relevant and irrelevant actions, and the box was presented in each of two conditions: opaque and clear. In the opaque condition, causal information about the effect of the tool inside the box was not available, and hence it was impossible to differentiate between the relevant and irrelevant parts of the demonstration. However, in the clear condition causal information was available, and subjects could potentially determine which actions were necessary. When chimpanzees were presented with the opaque box, they reproduced both the relevant and irrelevant actions, thus imitating the overall structure of the task. When the box was presented in the clear condition they instead ignored the irrelevant actions in favour of a more efficient, emulative technique. [6]
various kinds of learning are present in infancy. infants habituated to repeated stimuli and form expectancies about recurrent regularities in events. Habituation is the gradual reduction in the strength or intensity in the response as a result of repetitive stimulation. it shows that cognitive learning has taken place. Dishabituation involves an increase (or recovery) of responsiveness after stimulation changes. A child who habituates very fast has been shown to have a higher IQ when they are mature adults. There are different types of Habituation (Linear, Categorical),
- Linear - once your habituated to a stimulus, this habituation can be in direct proportion to the difference between the stimuli.
- Categorical - could be a failure to discriminate between Habituation and Similar stimuli, but novel is seen as different (2 shades of blue, vs. red), need to separately demonstrate discrimination between Habituation and Similar stimuli.
Through active exploration, they engage in perceptual learning. the key process in perceptual learning is differentiation, which involves extracting the relationships that remain constant from the ever-changing environment. A particularly important part of perceptual learning is the infants discovery of affordances, which is the possibilities for action offered, or afforded, by objects and situations. for example, small objects (not large ones) afford the possibility of being picked up.
a type of learning also involves simply picking up information from the environment, specifically, detecting statistically predictable patterns. they can track statistical patterns in their environment and make use of prior experiences to generate expectations about the future. by acting on the world, infants have the opportunity to make their own choices about what to learn. a common example for a baby is the regularity with which the sound of Mom’s voice is followed by the appearance of her face. Infants are highly sensitive to this, and has been proposed to have vital importance in language learning.
They also learn through classical conditioning, created by John B. Watson, which involves forming associations between natural and neutral stimuli as well as through instrumental conditioning, which involves learning about the contingency between one’s own behaviour and some outcome. For example, the nipple in the infants mouth is an unconditioned stimulus (US) that reliably elicits a reflexive, unlearned response - in that case, the sucking reflex - called the unconditioned response (UR). Learning, or conditioning, occurs when an initially neutral stimulus - the breast or bottle, which is the conditioned stimulus (CS) - repeatedly occurs just before the US (the baby sees the breast or bottle before receiving the nipple). Gradually, the originally reflexive response becomes a learned behaviour, or CR, triggered by exposure to the CS.
instrumental learning (or operant conditioning) is also a key form of learning for infants, which allow them to understand the consequences of one’s own behaviour through positive and negative reinforcements. children will repeat behaviours that are rewarded, and stop behaviours that are punished.
from the second half of the 1st year on, observational learning - watching and imitating the behaviour of other people - is an increasingly important source of information. Infants assessment of intention of a model affects what they imitate.
infants use rational learning which involves the ability to use prior experience (in tasks ranging from word learning to social interactions) to predict what will occur in the future. integrating the learners prior beliefs and biases with what actually occurs in the environment. Rational Constructivism;
-infants are sensitive to probablistic relations when making inferences from samples to populations.
- when infants are given prior constraints, they can integrate them into their statistical computations.
- this sensitivity to probability can be used to make predictions and guide actions.
this is a new way of looking at development aside from nativism and empirism.
the forms of learning we have discussed can work together towards a common goal of figuring out how the world works:
Infants kicking to operate a mobile in an instrumental-conditioning procedure are engaging in active learning, trying to figure out how the mobile works. Rational learning depends on infants ability to track statistics about their environment, such as the distribution of colours in a box of Ping-Pong balls.
Cognition
Object Knowledge
Research techniques that enable developmental scientists to assess infants beliefs - most notably the violation of expectancy procedure - have established that infants display impressive cognitive abilities. much of this work on mental representation and thinking was originally inspired by Piaget’s concept of object permanence. But it has been revealed that, contrary to Piagets belief, young infants can mentally represent invisible objects and even reason about observed events.
Physical Knowledge
other research, focused on infants developing knowledge of the physical world, has demonstrated their understanding of some of the effects of gravity. it takes babies several months to work out the conditions under which one object can provide stable support for another.
Social Knowledge
infants pay particular attention to the intentions of other people and to objects that behave like humans.
Psychoanalytic Theories
Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development
it was first designed to explain why some adults become mentally ill (normal and abnormal personality development). He saw many patients whose physical ailments had no apparent biological causes. he invited these patients to talk in length without any interruption about their past lives and their current thoughts, wishes and emotions. He called this method of treatment Psychoanalysis. after listening to the adults talk about themselves, Freud became convinced that the psychological problems orginated in childhood.
He believed that young children have a sexual nature that motivates their behaviour and influences their relationships. Freud assumed that all human beings are endowed from birth with libido, this psychological energy (the biologically based, instinctual drives that fuel behaviour, thoughts, and feelings) is focused on different bodily organs (erogenous zones) such as the mouth, anus, and genticals at different ages. when the focus of libido changes, changes of behaviour occur. Freud called these stages psychosexual because they reflect the psychological consequences of the various modes of sexuality.
the stages occur in the following sequence:
0-2yrs - oral - infant achieves gratification through oral activities such as feeding, thumb sucking and babbling.
2-3yrs - anal - the child learns to respond to some of the demands of society ( such as bowel and bladder control)
3-7yrs - Phallic - the child learns to realise the differences between males and females and becomes aware of sexuality
7-11yrs - latency - the child continues his or her development but sexual urges are relatively quiet
11-adult - genital - the growing adolescent shakes off old dependencies and learns to deal maturely with the opposite sex.
for boys, superego development occurs by the resolution of the Oedipus complex, a psychosexual conflict in which a boy experiences a form of sexual desire for his mother and wants an exclusive relationship with her.
for girls, their experience is similar but less intense conflict - the Electra complex, involving erotic feelings toward the father.
According to Freud the structure of personality also changes during early and middle childhood, he proposed that infants behaviour is controlled by the id (the component of personality that seeks desires, this is unconscious). no other component exists during early infancy. the infant is continuously trying to increase feelings of pleasure and reduce tension. As children grow older, they face demands from parents to restrain their impulses. as a result a second component develops the ego (tries to satisfy the impulses of the id, but not always immediately or directly), which begins to develop into the individuals sense of self. the third component, superego, develops in early childhood and represents the norms and standards of the culture as children have internalised (the process of adopting ones own the attributes, beliefs and standards of another person) them. Freud used the analogy of the iceberg to describe the three levels of the mind.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
He proposed eight stages of psychosocial development and few sexual instincts (far less than Freud did). Each of the stages is organised around a type of psychosocial conflict. these conflicts are the challenges that people face in relating to others to society at large. they occur throughout the lifespan and must be addressed in order to establish an identity within the social world. the challenge at each stage may be successfully handled and form a good foundation for the next stage. while it may be unsuccessfully managed and not only form a weak foundation for the next stage, but also reappear later, especially in times of stress.
- Basic Trust vs. Mistrust (infancy) - children develop a sense of trust when caregivers provide reliability, care and affection. a lack of this will lead to mistrust
- Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (early childhood) - children tend to develop a sense of personal control over physical skills and a sense of interdependence. success leads to feeling of autonomy, failure results in feelings of shame and doubt
- Initiative vs. Guilt (preschool) - children need to begin asserting control and power over the environment. success in this state leads to a sense of purpose. children who try to exert too much power experience disapproval, resulting in a sense of guilt.
- Industry vs. Inferiority (school age) - children need to cope with new social and academic demands. Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feeling of inferiority
- Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence to early adulthood) - critical stage for the achievement of a core sense of self. going through physical changes such as puberty and feeling sexual urges. new social pressures including educational and occupational decisions.
weaknesses of both theories:
- too vague to be testable
- specific elements, especially Freuds are questionable
Comparison:
Freud - emphasises the psychic energy and sexual impulses as major forces in development
Erikson - emphasises the social factors
similarities:
- both theories maintain that early experiences in the context of family have a lasting effect on the individuals relationships with other people.
- maturation plays a key role in both theories
- propose that social and emotional development proceeds in a series of stages, with each stage characterised by a particular task or crisis that must be resolved for subsequent healthy development
Learning Theories
NEED SKINNERS OPERANT CONDITIONING
Skinner’s operant Conditioning
proposed that behaviour is under environmental control. we tend to repeat behaviours that lead to favourable outcomes - reinforcement - and suppress those that result in unfavourable outcomes - punishment. two discoveries, one is the fact that attention can by itself serve as a powerful reinforcer, therefore attention would be the reward and ignoring the child would be punishment. Time-out, which involves withdrawing attention and thereby removing the reinforcement for inappropriate behaviour, with the goal of extinguishing it. the second discovery was the difficulty of extinguishing behaviour that has been intermittently reinforced, that is, that has sometimes been followed through by reward and sometimes not.
Skinners work led to a form of therapy known as behaviour modification, which can be quite useful for undesirable behaviours. it involves reinforcement contingencies that are changed to encourage more adaptive behaviour.
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
behaviourists emphasise the importance of learning for children’s development. learning is defined as a change in behaviour, in a specific situation in which is due to experience in that situation (not because of boredom or tiredness).
learning theorists have a particular aim (want to identify the processes by which learning occurs). bandura argued that people can learn behaviours rapidly and efficiently by observing other people who model their behaviours. children for example, often learn how to cook or use tools by watching their parents. Bandura defined the principle of learning from models as observational learning. His social learning theory emphasises learning from other people. He also argues that people do not imitate all the behaviours that they observe. people only imitate a models behaviour if they think they will be rewarded or at least not punished for doing so.
there is a link between social learning theory and the theory of operant conditioning, Bandura agreed that learning depends on reinforcement and punishment. yet he proposed that children learn not only from reinforcement and punishment that they themselves receive, but also from those given to their models. Bandura gradually refined his theory by adding assumptions and hypotheses about thinking and reasoning (cognition). Bandura described several cognitive processes that intervene between children’s observation of a model and their imitation of the model.
4 important factors in social learning:
To learn from a model, children must first attend to the models behaviour (attention), then they must retain or remember that behaviour later (retention). Later they must produce a replica of the behaviour they have observed by retrieving and processing the information they have retained (reproduction). and then must be motivated to imitate that behaviour (motivation).
children develop internal standards for evaluating their own behaviour. a major element in this self-regulation is children’s self efficacy which refers to children’s beliefs about their ability to behave in a way that produce its desired outcomes. Bandura also added the idea of reciprocal determinism, which is the concept that child-environment influences operate in both directions; children influence the environment as well as the environment influencing them. He believed that children are not completely controlled by their environments because they partly create these environments themselves.
Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment.
Socio-cognitive Theories
Robert Selman’s Stage Theory of Role Taking
He believed that being able to take another persons point of view is essential to understanding others thoughts, feelings and emotions. As children develop a greater understanding of themselves, they also develop a greater understanding of other peoples perspectives. in particular children gradually realise that other people may have different perceptions, knowledge and beliefs.
Selam and his colleagues described 5 levels of role taking between approximately 3yrs old and adulthood. he has often called these levels of social perspective taking because they reflect children’s growing ability to take the perceptive of other people.
the first level is egocentric, (undifferentiated perspective taking or UP) which exists between 3-6yrs old. children at this level cannot clearly differentiate between one persons thoughts or feelings and those of another person. therefore they don’t realise that a person’s perspective on some event or situation may differ from their own.
the next level for 5-9yrs old is Social-informational perspective taking (SIP). children at that level appreciate that two people may interpret the same situation differently. they also understand that two people may have different ideas about a third person’s motives or doing so for doing so.
the next level is Self-Reflective Perspective Taking (SRP) for 7 to 12yrs old. children at this level can put themselves in another persons place and understand how the other person might view their actions. therefore, children can reflect on their own thoughts and feelings and also assume others understand their thoughts and feelings.
the next level is the Third-Party Perspective Taking (TPP) for 10-15yrs old. children at that level recognise that a person can mentally step outside of a social interaction and think about the perspectives. Of the two people who are interacting, this ability is the basis for an understanding of interpersonal relationships in which people appreciate their mutual or shared perspectives.
the final level is the Societal Perspective Taking (SP) for 14yrs-adulthood. they appreciate that a social situation can be viewed from the perspective of commonly accepted social norms. they also appreciate that two peoples interactions can be understood in terms of their social behaviour, their likes and dislikes, and the deeper unstated motives and feelings.
in short, children progress from the simple appreciation that someone can have a view different from their own to being able to think about the view of a “generalised other”.
In longitudinal studies, children’s course improve as they grow older and little regression or skipping of stages occurs. this evidence suggests that the level of role taking follow a cognitive development sequence. Selam’s levels of perspective-taking are a good example of peer shared and cognitive developmental approaches to analyse social cognitive development.
For several years, researchers tried to test the hypothesis that children who are better at role taking are more generous and helpful classmates (Hudson, Forman and Brion-Meisis, 1982). these researchers assumed that better role takers can better charge when such prosocial behaviour is needed and appropriate. the research findings are however mixed. sometimes children with higher scores on role taking tasks were less generous and helpful to classmates. A closer look at the findings of role taking clarified that being able to take another persons role does not always go with wanting to help the other person.
Michael Chandler’s experiment used police records to identify delinquent adolescent boys. these boys received 10 sessions of training on role taking which was highly enjoyable for them. the training improved the boys course for different role taking tasks, and affected their social behaviour. Juvenile court records show that boys who received training had fewer encounters with juvenile court than did boys in a control group. However, Chandler remained cautious as he pointed out that few court contacts may not mean fewer delinquent acts. perhaps the role taking training improved the boys skills in taking the perspective of the police so they commit delinquent acts without getting caught.
Dodge’s Information Processing Theory of Social Problem Solving
He focuses on the crucial role of cognitive processes in social behaviour. For example, he thought of children’s use of aggression as a problem solving strategy. In his research, he presented children with stories that involved a child that suffers because of another child’s actions, the intentions of which are ambiguous. children were asked how they would respond if they were the victim of the scenarios. Critics found in some children what they called a hostile attributional bias, which is the tendency to interpret the behaviour of others across situations as threatening, aggressive, or both. they think that ambiguous behaviour of others is hostile and often directed toward them, which leads to responding aggressively.
some scholars argued that certain kinds of social cognitive styles (US Researchers believe there are 3 kinds) emerge out of parent child interaction and then come to influence peer interactions. it can affect the goals, strategies and attributions. if a parent is constantly berating and coercing a child, that child might focus on instrumental goals. for example, obtaining a good grade, rather than relational goals (developing a better relationship with the parent).
the social cognitive approach is broken up into 5 steps that outline the child's processes in social information that lead to a behavioural response: 1)encoding of cues 2)interpretation of cues 3)clarification of goals 4)response access or construction 5) response decision 6)behaviour enactment the process is seen as a repeating cycle that can lead a child to have a hostile attributional style and to be rejected child or to have a more positive attribution style in a popular child. rejected child almost always has deficits in every one of the steps.
Dweck’s Theory of Self Attribution and Achievement Motivation
in the study by Licht & Dweck (1984), the students first read a brief booklet on psychology and then answered questions about what they had read. Half the students read a section on imitation that was highly confusing, while the other students read a section in imitation that was clearly written. then all students read additional sections of the booklet that were clearly written. The same question in the study was how students who first encountered either confusing or a clearly written section would react to the later section.
Several weeks earlier, they had also completed a brief questionnaire that assessed a causal attributions for academic failures. the students were asked about occasions on which they did poorly at school. they could attribute this poor performance either to a lack of effort or to external causes not under their control. the results show that the confusing section did not disrupt the learning of the mastery (incremental) oriented students, whereas students with the helpless (entity) attribution also learned the material well when they did not encounter the confusing section, however when the section was confusing, helpless students felt they could not understand the unit, so they did not even try.
the distinction between the helpless and mastery orientation is related not only to causal attribution but also to children’s school in achieving situations. Students prone to helplessness when faced with a difficult task often set a performance or ability goal, which is a goal of showing competence. they want to avoid making errors that would make them look dumb. By contrast, mastery students often approach tasks with the learning goal and the goal of increasing their competence.
Fixed mindset:
1) ability goals
2) ability attribution
3) loss of interest, shame
4) withdrawal
Growth Mindset:
1) learning goals
2) effort attribution
3) sustained interest
4) persistence, planning remedial action
the difference in their reaction is attributable to a difference in their achievement motivation - in whether they are motivated by learning goals or by performance goals.
Ecological Theories
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory
is concerned not with children’s development itself, but with the environment in which children develop. He has encouraged to study the changing relations between children and the environment in which they live.
He proposed an ecological system theory.
Ecology is the science of the relationship between organisms in their environment.
He distinguished 5 levels of children’s environment:
- microsystem (in the centre) - refers to the setting for a child’s behaviour and to the activities, participants and roles in that setting. the child is directly a participant in their own learning.
- mesosystem - Is defined by the connections within the microsystem, includes links between home, school, childcare etc.
- ecosystem - which includes settings that children do not enter but did affect them indirectly (parents work, mass media).
- macro system - refers to the consistencies in the system at lower levels across an entire society or culture (values, beliefs, social status)
- chronosystem - deals with variations in time, refers to the patterns of stability and change in children’s environments or what time (transition from nursery to primary school, move home, new baby)
He wanted to primarily emphasise the characteristics and effects of children environments. he did not take the strong position on whether developmental changes are mostly quantitative or qualitative. He also did not argue for continuity or discontinuity of individual differences in development. he assumes children play an active role in their own development. He also argues for cultural specificity in development (he expects the aspects of a culture to define a macrosystem to influence the characteristics of other ecological systems).
factors such as maltreatment, mass media, physical inactivity, academic achievement, pornography, socio-economic status (poverty) can affect a child’s development.
