Theory of Mind and Self Flashcards
Key Points
- Theory of Mind – a theoretical concept
- Levels of Representation
- False Belief – implicit understanding
- False Belief – explicit understanding
- Social Consequences
Example of False Belief Task
To understand this task we must look at ToM
The standard false belief task was developed in 1983 for children, you see a face of a student (who was the experimenter) who investigated that task as well.
Wimmer and Perner (1983):
This student is the experimenter and shows children a set up of two different locations (cupboard and a bookshelf). you see Max puts his book into the cupboard and leaves the room. After mum comes in to tidy the room, so she takes the book out of the cupboard and puts it into the bookshelf and leaves room.
Max returns looking for his book; the test question is where will he look first for the book? As adults we believe the child will look in the cupboard as that is where he put it and he didn’t see it being moved by mum. Although what is a standard finding is that 3yr olds are going to say that he is going to look in the bookshelf, while from 4yrs on, children are more like adults saying that he is going to look in the empty location.
To see why this happens, we must dig deeper into the theoretical concept of theory of mind;
- Theory of Mind (ToM): to attribute mental states to oneself and to others
- The Mind: set of all mental states
- Mental states are, for example, thoughts, beliefs, desires, perceptions and imaging.
- They are said to have “intentionality” — they are about or refer to things.
Examples of mental states:
classified into perception and cognition (Getting it in) -
- sensations - she is thinking
classified into feelings and emotions (internal evaluation) -
- sensations - I feel pain. He is happy. He is anxious.
classified into desires and intentions (getting it out) -
- max wants a candy
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Describe two distinct ways to measure false belief. Explain each task and clarify at what level this task measures false belief. Give the typical age at which children pass each task:
False belief can be measured with explicitly [1] or implicitly [1]. For explicit tasks you can mention the Sally-Ann task (also sometimes called Unexpected Transfer task or Maxi task), the Smarties task (also sometimes called the Unexpected Contents/Deceptive Box task). [3], These tasks are typically solved around 4 years of age. [1] Also acceptable are the second order Ice Cream van task (John’s false belief about Mary’s belief). This task is usually solved around 6 years of age.For the implicit tasks you can mention infant studies (looking in expectation: Sam task) or habituation studies (looking time: Onishi et al.) [3] Depending on the task, children show sensitivity to other people’s beliefs at around 1 –2 years [1].
Intentionality (aboutness)
Propositional Attitudes
Levels of Representation
Intentionality (aboutness):
the reason we think about intentionality is that we want to differentiate the mental sort of mental states from the physical state.
Developed by Brentano’s Thesis: Intentionality is the hallmark of the Mental that differentiates it from the Physical (material, non-mental).
A physical state: John is in Salzburg.
Mental states: Mary thinks that John is in Salzburg.
Mary wants John to be in Salzburg.
Mary is happy that John is in Salzburg.
Ambiguity -
technical meaning: Intentional = being about something
usual meaning: intentional = on purpose
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Propositional Attitudes:
Logical form of statements about physical: Proposition proposition = RELATION (individual, individual, …)
IN (John, Salzburg)
e.g.: John is in Salzburg
which is basically a relation between to individual aspects, which is Jons and Salzburg.
Logical form of statements about the mind: relation is in between the individual and the proposition. There is the proposition that has already this relationship between individuals. But there is an additional attitude or an additional relation between the individual and this proposition.
For example, its about a person (Mary) and then the mental state is an attitude, then you have the proposition. even the logical and the physical differentiate. it is critical because the mental states allow us to go beyond what is the here and now.
We don’t just live in the physical world, we also have mental states that allow us to get into a relationship between those physical world and ourselves which is difficult for different individuals.
e.g.
person Attitude Propositional (content)
Mary thinks that John is in Salzburg
wants John to be in Salzburg
is happy that John is in Salzburg
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Levels of Representation
representations allow us to have a different link between an object in the world and how we represent it. Mental states can be represented in different forms, representations can be a brain activation, verbal expression, picture etc.
(Perner, 1991)
so you can see how the cat on the mat which is a physical state, can be represented in different ways. our mental world can look very different as well. we can talk about the cat on the mat, but looking at the cat on the mat may trigger certain brain activations.
Intentional mental states are defined as relations to mental representations; their intentionality is explained in terms of some mental pre presentations.
for example, to believe that elvis is dead is appropriately related to a mental representation.
Representational Relations (Perner, 1991):
4 special characteristics
Asymmetry - Picture represents cat, but cat does not represent the picture.
Singularity - Photo of my cat represents my cat and not any other cat that looks exactly the same.
Misrepresentation - For any representation it is possible to misrepresent. e.g., a caricature misrepresents the person it represents.
Non-existence - Representations can represent non-existing entities. e.g., picture of a unicorn or a ghost.
Representations
There are different levels of representations, and they will affect what a human being is able to represent in hands, also how well they can function in the social world.
MiD-TERM REPRESENTATION LEVEL
PRIMARY - Perner (1991, p. 9)
At the primary level during the first year of life children are tied to reality by a single updating model of the currently real situation. You represent things as they are.
SECONDARY - Perner (1991, p. 9)
At the secondary level, which emerges sometimes during the second year, children have multipIe models at their disposal that allow representation of different situations. As a result the past can be compared to the present and the existing can be compared to the non-existing hypothetical. Can add another model to your representation, e.g. the brown mountain represented as a bear. which helps children acquire a lot of abilities once they can have multiple models and wants to work with multiple models
ABILITIES THAT REQUIRE 2 MODELS
- one aspect we see is the ability to recognise themselves in the mirror (Mirror recognition). why do you need two models for this? there is me in reality, and me in the mirror, and have to compare them and understand that this is the same person.
- the other ability is having desires; so one model is me not having an ice-cream, and the other model is project desired state, e.g., me holding an ice-cream in my hands
- another ability they acquire in the second year of life is pretend play. model one is holding a banana, model two is representing the banana as a telephone.
- another ability is to deny; one model is if a child sees a pic of a dog but the adult says its a cat, they will say no it is not a dog. In Hummer, Wimmer and Antes (1993) study, from 2 1/2 yrs old 86% of the children are able to deny
- another ability is the comparison of present with past, e.g., handle invisible placement. on model would be hand empty. object? and the other model would be object in hand under cloth.
Meta-Representational Level:
Perner (1991, p. 9)
At around 4 years children become proper representation theorists. mental representations means that we represent the representing relation in itself. so a child capable of mental representation who, for instance, represents the picture as a representation needs to construct a mental model containing these two substructures in their relationship. one structure has to represent the picture (physical entity) and the other picture represents the depiction.
The model has to include the links between these two structures representing how the pictures related to each other.
for example, when you’r an onlooker, you see here a turtle on its head, while hummer see it standing on its own two feet. so first of all you have the model how i see it as well as how hummer sees it. how his model links to him and reflect that this picture is represented in a different way.
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Jane has just begun to recognise herself in the mirror. How old is Jane (in months), and at what level of representation is this ability situated? Explain what it means to be at this level of representation. Name two more abilities that develop at this level of representation.
Jane is roughly 18 months old. Mirror recognition is at the secondary level of representation. At the secondary level, which emerges sometimes during the second year, children have multiple models (but at least two) at their disposal that allow representation of different situations. For mirror recognition that would be “me in reality” (model 1), and “me in mirror” (model 2). Other abilities at this level are: (a) having desires that would be stating a real state of affairs, for example, “me not having an ice cream” (model 1), and the desired state “me having an ice cream” (model 2); (b) pretend play that would be stating the object/situation itself, for example, a banana (model 1), and the pretend object/situation, for example, a telephone (model2); (c) the ability to deny that would be saying what it really is, for example, a dog (model 1), and saying what it is not, for example, a cat (model 2); (d) comparing the present with the past, for example, handle invisible placement, that would be “Hand empty. Object?” (model 1), and “Object in hand under cloth” (model 2).
Implicit and Explicit Theory of Mind
FALSE BELIEF IMPLICIT UNDERSTANDING
LOOKING IN EXPECTATION - Clements & Perner (1994):
The first time this dissociation between implicit and explicit theory of mind was discovered was by Clements and Perner (1994). They used a slightly different dependent measure.
A mouse called Sam (S) puts his cheese into the red box and then he goes to sleep, while he’s asleep his wife Katie (K) takes the cheese out of the red box and puts it into the blue box. So when S comes back, the question is where will he look for his cheese?
The explicit way of testing children would be to ask them verbally, so which box will he open first? Another way of testing this by recording where the child will look to. so a prompt would be; I wonder where he is going to look. and what you do is record where the child actually looks to, the red or blue box.
So what happened?
DISSOCIATION - Clements & Perner (1994):
Tested 2 1/2 yr olds to 4 1/2 yr olds on average, what you can see is when they are being asked directly in answer to explicit question, it is only by around 4 1/2 years that children answer it. Over 80% of the question correct. compared to 2 1/2yrs old who are below chance level (50%). Even the 3yr olds are only about 40% correct.
What is interesting though is that when they recorded the child’s looking behaviour, what you see is that already in the 2-3yr olds they reach about 80% correct.
This dissociation is something that has triggered a lot of research in the past.
Onishi & Baillargeon (2005):
In the test trial, one group of children receives the screen where the person reappears and looks into the green box. The other group of children sees how the person searches in the yellow box.
What is expected or what the adults would expect, of course, is that having seen the false belief condition, you expect the person to look in the green box. When she does this, the looking for the green box is roughly 15 seconds looking time.
However, these children who have seen the false belief condition are shown that the person is going to look in the yellow box (so where the melon is actually in), their looking time almost doubles. Due to children not expecting it. in the true belief condition however, it looks completely the other way around (the person knows the melon is in the yellow box, so expectation for them to look there).
When the person is shown to look at the green box, you see how again, the looking time almost doubles. And together these finding have been interpreted the following way. so a rich interpretation is that children really attribute false belief to the searcher. so in other words, they attribute mental states to the searcher in the represent how the searcher has not seen the malum be moved. so they understand that he was searching in the wrong location.
A more lean interpretation is so called the behavioural rule. so the person will look where she has last seen the melon in the green box (false belief condition). she last seen the melon in the true belief condition in the yellow box, so she should look there. This doesn’t require any mental state attribution, you can just have a behavioural rule that you are always going to search for your object where you last saw it.
Another lean interpretation is the sensitivity to . When you look at the false belief condition, you see how the person put her melon into the green box and that is very similar to the test screen where the person reaches into the green box, but it is very dissimilar to the screen where she reaches in the yellow box.
Because of this dissimilarity, the screen where she reaches into the yellow box need a lot more processing time, hence extending the time. In the true belief condition you see how the person last seen the object in the yellow box. This is very similar as to when she reaches into the yellow box, but it is more dissimilar when she reaches into the green box.
This is why reaching in the green box requires more processing capacities in hands and increased looking time when she looks into the yellow box.
So all together, what we can at the moment say,is that implicit measures of false belief have been either really tricky to replicate and the ones who can be replicated, a lot of them are also liable to lean interpretations. meaning that do not clearly show with 100% certainty that children indeed ascribe mental states to the protagonist.
Implicit and Explicit Theory of Mind
FALSE BELIEF EXPLICIT UNDERSTANDING
Explicit understanding of false belief have been tested in different ways.
We know that the unexpected transfer task where an object is being placed into location A but in the person’s absence, it’s put into location B. This was developed by Wimmer and Perner (1983), but was followed by Gopnik and Astington (1988) called the Sally Anne task where Sally puts a marble into a basket and then she walks away and then Anne comes and she puts the marble from the basket into the box instead. So the question is where she is going to look for her marble?.
The unexpected content task is another explicit task. A child is being asked what he thinks is in the box (visibly some smarties on the outside). so he thinks there are smarties in there, but when the experimenter opens the smarties box, there are pencils in there.
Billie walks past and he hasn’t seen the box being opened, so you would ask the child; what does Billie think that’s in the box. the child answers smarties, keeping in mind that 3yr olds say they think billy thinks there are pencils inside. But you can also ask the child, what did you say when i first showed you the box? the child should say smarties. then when you ask what was really in there, the child should say a pencil.
But sometimes they also confuse that and they might say that they knew all along that there was a pencil in there.
A META-ANALYSIS - Wellman, Cross, & Watson (2001):
There is a puppet, she puts her teddy bear into the red basket she leaves. then her brother comes, he takes the teddy bear and puts it into the yellow basket then leaves. when she comes back, where will she search for the teddy? A robust finding that from about 4yrs of age, children will see that shes going to search for her Teddy in the red basket. But up to 41mnths, they will systematically be wrong and say that she is going to search in the yellow basket. Between 41 and 48mnths we see more or less chance level performance (50% get it right, 50% get it wrong). this might indicate that half of them really understand it and half of them don’t. or it could indicate that they are starting to guess.
Why is this task so difficult?
THEORY THEORY - e.g., Gopnik & Meltzoff (1997, p. 126)
They argue that children develop a theory, so basically a system of causal regularities. the theory consists of knowledge about internal observable states that need to be inferred from observable behaviour.
so for example, in the false belief test involving a mistaken protagonist, one need the knowledge that firstly not witnessing a transfer makes agents believe the object stays in its original place. Second, that if the agent wants this object, he will go where he believes the object to be.
so initially, children treat mental states, for example science, as only causally linked with the world, which still bears predictive power. so you could say; if an agent desires X and see that X exists, he will do things to get X. Later they will develop an understanding of the representational nature of mental states which equips them with an understanding that different agents can have different beliefs about the situation. But ultimately, you have a theory that if a psychological agent wants even Y and believes that action X will cause event Y, he will do X.
So if sally wants to get the teddy bear, it will go where she thinks the teddy is. you can see that there are a lot of mental states already involved with thinking and wanting. And basically they are linked together in terms of regular system causal regularities and that’s how children solve and how adults empathise with each other.
Simulation Theory - e.g. Gordon (1986):
In contrast, they argue that the children imaginative power becomes more flexible when they move from the third to the fourth year. so in their view, humans do not need a theory of an agents intermental states to predict and understand how this agent is likely to act in particular circumstances. But instead, they exploit the structure of their own mind as a model of the agent’s mind which triggers relevant similar mental states and action tendencies, telling them what a stimulated agent thinks and what it is likely to do.
For example, the way it works in false belief tasks is that you imagine oneself in the psychological agent’s situation and then use one‘s own reasoning by asking oneself: what do I want and where do I think the object is? (place yourself into the persons shoes and then what do i want and where do I think the object is?).
Theory is not necessary because we have a working model of others‘ minds (mirror neurons help us to find an answer ). once we have simulated this we attribute the answer that we get from questioning ourselves, we attribute it to the protagonist. so what does that mean?
in essence this means i ask myself, where do I in the shoes of sally think teddy is? Where will I in the shoes of Sally go to retrieve the teddy bear?
TELEOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE - Perner & Roessler (2010):
What this theory basically says is that a lot of the time in our world when we try to explain other peoples actions and justify our own action, we don’t usually use mental states like wanting or believing in term to really make sense of actions.
What we do instead is try to explain each others behaviour in terms of goals and objective instrumental facts of how this goal can be obtained. Sally has a good reason to look in the yellow basket, as this will enable her to satisfy her desire. So basically this theory explains in a different way why children fail the false belief test.
We make sense of others‘ actions and justify our own not in terms of what we want and believe but by appealing to typical (valuable) goals and objective instrumental facts of how this goal can be attained.
e.g., given Sally’s desire to get her teddy, she has a good reason to look in the yellow basket (for doing so will as a matterof fact enable her to satisfy her desire).
While theory theory thinks that they fail because children haven’t yet acquired a useful system of causal regularities and by building the system they eventually will overcome it.
The simulation theory would say that 3yr olds are not yet able to use their own system, they do not have the needed introspection into themselves to then really understand what other people would do in the same situation.
Teleology in perspective however, is slightly different. believes 3yr olds say the yellow basket because, if Sally really wants to be with her teddy, it makes sense for her to go to the yellow basket where teddy is.
it is only when children really understand that this practical reasoning has to be put into perspective. then they start to see that they would have to answer a red basket. essentially what they have to do is think if my world were like Sallys in which i didn’t see the teddy being moved, it would make sense for Sally to go and search for her teddy in the red basket. But essentially we use schools and objective instrumental facts usually to explain each other’s behaviours. But in the false belief condition, we have to put it into perspective.
There is new research that suggests that we use counterfactual thinking to put this perspective. So its basically when we think about if the world was like Sally’s beliefs then it would make sense for her to look in the red basket. but if the world was like mine, it would make sense for her to look in the yellow basket.
There are another set of tasks, explicit false belief tasks, that are not solved until later;
2nd order false belief task
source knowledge task
droodle task
There are another set of tasks, explicit false belief tasks, that are not solved until later. so one is the 2nd order false belief task. John and mary see the ice cream on the playground and then you see them both leave. then Sean on his way back home sees the ice cream van at the church. but later, we see how mary sees the ice cream van when at the church too. so now what does sean think mary thinks? the correct answer is that sean thinks mary thinks the ice cream van is in the park because he doesn’t know she has seen it in the church.
children around the age of 5 to 6yrs find that quite difficult. also what is quite difficult for them is to understand the source of their knowledge (how or why do they know something?
so when children have a belief for example, they should find out how to find out something they find it quite difficult. so for example,
in the source knowledge task, there is tunnel where you can look inside or you can feel. children see two similarly looking objects or two same looking objects like say two yellow balls that look completely the same. they are asked whether they have to look inside the box or whether they have to feel to find out which of the balls is heavier. A lot of children when they are 3 to 4yr old, they don’t think they have to touch the balls, but they have to look inside.
Another task is the droodle task where initially you see only a small picture of a bigger one. you are asked to think what this might be. you probably certainly don’t get it right. you will then see how this is an elephant, and asked what did you think it was before you saw what it really was? children often get the answer wrong. so what this shows is that false belief understanding as a measure of theory of mind development, is something that continues develop even beyond the age of 4yrs. even in adults there are tasks, they shows slight differences and false belief performance when you measure reaction times for example.
It is certainly something that seems to require some cognitive effort, although there are some indicators that a false belief understanding is solved at the age of infant stages. however the evidence is not yet fully conclusive, so we are still waiting to collect more evidence. in terms of what infants actually do understand about other peoples mental states.
Social Consequences of Developing Theory of Mind
Deception
Subjectivity of Desire
DECEPTION - Stouthammer-Loeber (1986)
what about deception, one thing that becomes apparent is that around the same age, when explicit theory of mind develops, you can see an increase in parents and teachers reporting that their children are capable of lying.
4yr olds - about 80% of mothers/teachers think they can lie
in comparison,
3 1/2yr olds - around 40% think they can lie
perhaps what happens is that an insight into other peoples minds, it actually makes you more aware of the fact that you can lie. as long as you think that other people know the same thing as you do and everyone sees the world as you do, it doesn’t make sense to lie because why would you?
it only makes sense once you have insights into the fact that other people might or can have a false representation of the world
PENNY HIDING GAME
a game where you hide a coin in one of your hands and the other person will seek it. although, when a child is asked to play the game, they close their hands but as soon as you start to guess, they will show you where the coin is. unclear why that might be because on one side you might think children don’t need to show you because they might think you know it anyway, but at the same time they find it quite difficult to not tell you where the penny is.
SUBJECTIVITY OF DESIRE
Another ability that links with the theory of mind is this understanding that science can be subjective. children seem to crackers a lot, but a lot of them don’t like raw broccoli. so in this session, they are being told how the experiment actually loves raw broccoli, but they don’t like crackers at all. when they have the choice to give them something (crackers or broccoli), it is the older children from 18mths that they give them the raw broccoli (start to understand the subjectivity of desire). but 14mth old still give them the crackers.
but that does not make sense because how can somebody have an understanding of subjectivity of desire when they don’t have any insights into mental states until they are 4yrs old. because a desire is equally a mental state (you want/desire something). if it goes by the explicit theory of mind test, the false belief task, it is said that its only from around 4 to 8mths onwards that children do understand that people have different mental states. so how can somebody of 18mths understand that they might have a different desire? no real agreement on what is happening.
lean interpretation of this (counterargument):
•This kind of subjectivity can be understood without understanding subjective differences in attitude (perspective) towards the same target. for example, if A doesn’t like raw broccoli, but B likes it, it means that broccoli in A’s mouth is negative but a broccoli in B’s mouth is positive. very much like the behavioural rule.
•It can be understood in terms of involvement of different persons in different situations:
rich interpretation:
children really understand the subjectivity of desires, to take other people’s perspectives, and hence that have insights into their mental states
Trying to see how this relates to teleology and teleology perspective as well;
PURE TELEOLOGY
Objective reason - evaluative fact/goal - “a good desirable needed positive state of the world.”
- Instrumental fact - “under given circumstances the goal will result from Action A”.
-> A should be done (by anyone/who is in charge)
TELEOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE
Subjective Reason - desire - “X desires, wants, needs a certain state of the world”
- Belief - “X believes that the desired state will result from Action A”.
-> X should do A (preserves his reason for acting)
For example:
PURE TELEOLOGY
Objective reason - evaluative fact/goal - maxi should be with his book
- Instrumental fact - looking in the left cupboard will bring about the goal
-> maxi has reason to go to the left cupboard
TELEOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE
Subjective Reason - desire - maxi wants his book
- Belief - maxi thinks, looking in the right cupboard will bring about the goal
-> maxi has reason to go to the right cupboard
To summarise this, sometimes you can solve tasks purely on objective reasons. so there is no need to understand subjective desires or subjective beliefs. there are other ways how you can solve the task by using teleology in perspective or by other lean interpretations by something like broccoli in her mouth is good but broccoli in my mouth is bad.
Social Consequences of Developing Theory of Mind
Sabotage
TELIC PERSPECTIVE TAKING
= the ability to give reason explanations of actions invoking evaluative premises one doesn’t agree with
Competition: I may not be able to share the agent’s goal because it conflicts with my own goal. We are competing because my goal to win is not the other agents goal.
Sabotage: In order to make his action intelligible in terms of his reasons I simultaneously have to understand the action he is targeting (trying to thwart) in terms of the agent’s reasons; and the evaluative premises informing the two actions are mutually incompatible.
SABOTAGE - Priewasser, Roessler, & Perner (2013):
Q:Why is sabotage difficult for the teleologist?
- A has goal G, B has goal nonG
For B to know what to do, he has to know
- what A is likely to do on basis of G, and that
- his pursuit of nonG requires to stop that action.
G and nonG cannot both be understood as objectively desirable.
- impossible for teleologist
So what is the prediction???
TAKING BEADS – WHERE FROM? - Priewasser, Roessler, & Perner (2013):
Bead Collecting Game
The aim is to fill your stand to the top as quickly as possible.
•You roll the dice and take a number of beads according to the dice throw.
•You are allowed to take the beads either from the common basket or from one of the other two players.
•The player whose stand is filled to the top first, is the winner of the game.
After every dice throw each child was asked:
Where do you want to take the beads from?
Neutral move: Taking beads from the common basket
Poaching move: Taking beads from another player
Results:
what should happen is that there should be a correlation between false belief, understanding and in their ability to handle this game.
- children who have no false belief understanding, they are also the ones who don’t show many poaching moves from the other person
- those who really understand false belief, they show the poaching moves much more simply because they understand they have competing goals and that brings them to sabotage.
Poaching Ration:
see whether the number of being poached and the number of poaching relate.
- the non-understanders never poached, but they are being poached a lot. they do not retaliate simply because it doesn’t make sense to them
- understanders much more likely to retaliate and poach whenever they are being poached as well.
what this shows you is that by developing a theory of mind, you start to see how lying makes sense, how you can manipulate other peoples representations of the world. you also see how sabotage in competition all of a sudden kicks in simply because children truly understand that there are competing goals and desires.
It does clash a little bit with the finding that 18mth olds do understand the subjectivity of desire. it was difficult to replicate the finding in general, so still ongoing debates on whether children understand competing goals and desires.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF
There are loads of ways a person can think about themselves, this changes all the time from infancy to adulthood. They all rely on different developmental processes.
There are different aspects of ones self that link together what somebody intuitively thinks of themselves;
physical self (appearance and body movements)
- I am tall
psychological self (awareness of how you feel)
- I am happy
social self (awareness of other people)
- I am a good friend
conceptual self (defining self in a more abstract level)
- I am a student (so aspirations)
How do the different aspects of the self develop at a very young age:
self at birth -
compelling evidence that infants have a rudimentary self-concept in the first few months of life.
•Neonates discriminate between external (other people/objects) and self-stimulation (themselves)
•Newborns tended to display significantly more responses following external compared to self-stimulation.
•Innate ability to discriminate between self versus other?
It is really not until later stages of development when we start to see more advanced levels of discrimination.
- by 2 to 4 months infants have a sense of their ability to control objects outside themselves.
on of the next earlier signs when a child shows more self-awareness is separation anxiety (6-15mnths).
- at around 8 months, according to the attachment theory, infants react with separation distress if kept apart from a parent, suggesting they recognise that they and their mother are separate entities. therefore the development of self-concept is the first crucial step in the development to a caregiver.
- around 1yrs old, infants begin to show joint attention with respect to objects in their environment. for example, they will visually follow a caregivers pointing finger to find the object that the caregiver is calling attention to, and then turn back to the caregiver to confirm that they are indeed looking at the intended object.
- around 15months, most children can distinguish themselves and others by both gender and age
- around 18 to 20months, emerging recognition of the self becomes apparent when many children look into the mirror and recognise themselves. this requires them to have memories of their appearance that they can match to the image in the mirror. the rouge test can be used to measure the ability of this.
rouge test
delayed self-recognition
However, the “litmus test” of self-awareness is the “rouge test” (or known as the mirror self-recognition test), where we show how children recognise themselves in the mirror. usually it is around 18mths (2nd level of representation) when children recognise themselves in the mirror. experimenter puts a dot of rouge on a child’s face sneakishly, places the child in front of the mirror, and observes the child’s reactions.
children younger than 18 months usually respond by trying to touch the image in the mirror or doing nothing. most children between 18-24mnths will touch the rouge on their face, therefore recognise themselves in the mirror.
children begin to recognise themselves in other forms. so for example, they also begin to show more interest in photographs of themselves around the time when they start to recognise themselves also in the mirror. (2yrs old)
If the child passes the “rouge” test, it means they have got some understanding of what they look like currently, there have been more advanced forms of the “ruge” tests and one is the delayed self-recognition.
by age 3, children’s self awareness becomes quite clear in other ways as well. similar to how memory aids in self-recognition, young children use language to store memories of their own experiences and behaviours, which they then use to construct narratives of their own “life story” and develop more enduring self-concepts.
“the terrible twos” are also known to be a time where children are notoriously self-assertive, they try to determine their activities and goals.
Delayed self-recognition paradigm:
even 18mth olds struggle to solve. although children at 18mths have got a rudimentary understanding of what the currently look like. they have got some difficulty when looking at a delayed image of themselves.
in a delayed self-recognition task, researchers play a game with the child, and during the game at some point, the researchers places a post-it note on the child’s back. and at all this time, the child is being video recorded. after the game the child is being taken to a different room and is being told they they are going to watch a video of what has just happened.
If children have an understanding that it is them and not somebody else in the video, they are expected to do what they would do in the ruge test. namely at the point of the video where they watch a post-it-note being placed on their back, they should turn around and enquire when they have a post-it note on their back.
It is not until the age of 4yrs that children are successful at doing this. children who succeed in the ruge tasks can regocnise themselves in the mirror and in pictures but they wont pass the self-recognition task until the age of 4.
An understanding of the self across time is a much more complicated task. to understand that, you look at the same across time and the post-it note will still be there involves an understanding how time works. not until the age of 4yrs when children understand experiences that happened to them in the past are the experiences that happen to the person who they are now.
•Typically developing children pass DSR task at around 4 years of age (Povinelli et al., 1996; Suddendorf, 1999; Zelazo, Sommerville, & Nichols, 1999).
•Correlates with an understanding of time
Pronoun use
Emerging self-concepts
Indications of self-awareness
more explicit forms of self awareness can be seen in the use of pronouns.
Pronoun use:
•Early signs self-awareness can be seen in the language children begin to use at around two years of age.
•The use of personal pronouns (such as “I”, “Me” and “You” etc.) is a relatively unambiguous expressions of self-awareness.
beginning of an understanding of the self-concept. so it not just about an understanding of the physical self once they use personal pronouns, they also have an understanding of self concepts more generally
Emerging Self-concepts
•3-4 tend to understand themselves in terms of concrete observable characteristics related to physical attributes (I have blue eyes, I can run fast) social relationships (I have a brother Jason) and psychological traits (I am happy)
•By primary school also begin to engage in social comparison (I am smarter than Jane).
•8-11 year old: “I am popular, at least with the girls. That is because I am nice to people and helpful and can keep secrets. Mostly I am nice to my friends”
As children age, their self-concepts are increasingly based on internal qualities and the quality of relationships with others; they also become more realistic, integrated, abstract, and complex.
Indications of self-awareness:
From Birth: Self/Other differentiation
18 months: Children can recognise themselves in a mirror
24 months: Display “secondary emotions” e.g., embarrassment/pride.
24-38 months: Understand 1st/2nd person pronouns (e.g., ‘I’, and ‘You’)
Around 4yrs: Start to pass ‘self’ version of ToM tasks
e.g. the smarties task
Self Concept in Childhood
Social Comparison
children begin to refine their conception of self in elementary school, in part because they increasingly engage in social comparison, comparing themselves with others in terms of their characteristics, behaviours, and possessions.
at the same time, they increasingly pay attention to discrepancies between their own and other’s performance on tasks.
by middle to late elementary, children’s conceptions of self have begun to become integrated and more broadly encompassing.
the developmental changes in older children’s self-concept reflect cognitive advances in their ability to use higher-order concepts that integrate more specific behavioural features of the self. for example, the child can relate to being “popular” to several behaviours, such as being “nice to others” and “keeping secrets”. In additions, older children coordinate opposing self-representations (smart/dumb) that, at a younger age, they would have considered mutually exclusive.
because older children’s conceptions of self are strongly influenced by the opinion of others, children at this age are vulnerable to low self-esteem if others view them negatively or as less competent than their peers.
Self Concept in Adolescence
the ability to use abstract thinking allows adolescents to conceive of themselves in terms of abstract characteristics that encompass a variety of concrete traits and behaviours.
adolescents typically develop multiple selves - the self they are with their parents is different from the self they are with their friends, and both of these are different from the self they are in school or at a job.
Initially, adolescents may lack the ability to integrate these different selves into a coherent whole, resulting in feelings of uncertainty and internal conflict. However, as they develop, adolescents can appreciate that they can act differently in different situations, and still be the same person, thereby resolving this sense of confusion.
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According to Elkind, because young adolescents focus on what others think of them, they think about an “imaginary audience” and “personal fables”;
thinking about the self in early adolescence is characterised by a form of egocentrism called personal fable, in which adolescents overly differentiate their feelings from those of others and come to regard themselves, and especially their feelings, as unique and special.
the kind of egocentrism that underlies adolescents personal fables also causes many adolescents to be preoccupied with what others think of them. this preoccupation is called having an imaginary audience; in practice it means that because adolescents are so concerned with their own appearance and behaviour, they assume that everyone else is, too.
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Middle teens - often begin to agonize over the contradictions in their behaviour and characteristics. they tend to become introspective and and concerned with the question “who am I?”
although adolescents in their middle teens can identify contradictions in themselves, such as being different with friends than with parents, and often feel conflicted about these inconsistencies, most still do not have the cognitive skills needed to integrate their recognition of these contradictions into a coherent self-concept. as a consequence, adolescents of this age often feel confused and concerned about who they really are.
Development of the Self
Self esteem
the self is made up of three components, self concept, self-esteem, and identity. So now onto the topic of self-esteem.
self-esteem incorporates a child’s overall subjective evaluation of his or her worth and the feelings he or she has about that evaluation. self esteem does not emerge until the age of 8yrs old or so.
low self-esteem linked with:
- feeling worthless and hopeless
- aggression, depression, substance abuse
- social withdrawal, suicidal ideation, cyber bullying
- mental health problems in adulthood
- criminal behaviour in adulthood
- dependence in adulthood
-weak economic prospects in adulthood
High self-esteem linked with:
- feeling good about themselves
- hopeful
however combinations of high self-esteem and aggressiveness, or high self-esteem and narcissism, is not good.
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Individual Differences in Self-Esteem:
age - is not constant and varies by developmental stage (tends to be high in childhood before declining in adolescence and then rebounding in adulthood)
physical attributes - attractiveness (attractive people are more likely to report high self-esteem possibly because they are viewed more postiively by others and receive better treatment)
gender - in western countries boys tend to have overall higher self-esteem than girls which presists across the lifespan. although women have higher self-esteem in some domains.
Approval and support received from others - especially parents. certain theories believe self-esteem is a reflection of what others think of us. Erikson (1950) and Bowlby (1969) had similar ideas, children;’s self-esteem is grounded in the quality of their relationships with their parents. peer acceptance is also important taking into account their appearance, likeability, and athletic ability. also is affected by how peers respond to them. also affected by the standards and values of important people and cultural groups in their lives. can also be affected by their school and neighborhood environments.
cultural differences affect how self-esteem is expressed, and therefore self-evaluations and self-esteem scores also differ.
fundamental differences between asian and western countries;
western - self-esteem is related to individual accomplishments and self-promotion
asian - self-esteem is related to contributing to the welfare of the larger group and affirming the norms of social interdependence.
the scores differ due to;
- the greater emphasis that the Asian cultures place on modesty and self-descriptions.
- In European American and African American adolescents, tend to be more comfortable with being praised and with events that make them look good and cause them to stand out.
this could affect the degree to which they report high self-esteem, and hence could account for the pattern of ethnic differences in self-esteem.
In addition to this;
- asian communities tend to be more comfortable acknowledging discrepancies in themselves (good and bad personal characteristics) than are people in Western countries, this tends to result in lower self-esteem in late adolescent and early adulthood
there are consistent gender differences in levels of self esteem.
were largest in countries that were wealthy, individualistic, and egalitarian, where women officially have the same freedoms as men, rather than in highly patriarchal countries where gender roles are traditionally more restrictive.
