week 6

Question 1

What is social cognition

Answer 1

Learning how to interact effectively with other people= key to success
Understanding of how people behave
Involves making reference to internal psychological states such as emotions, thoughts and desire

Involves knowing that other people are similar in nature to the self in that they have subjective experiences

Question 2

Developmental progression

Answer 2

Preference for social stimulation
Faces, voices
Simple social interaction
Neonatal imitation
Understand the actions of others as goal-directed
Engage in joint attention/shared activities
Gaze-following, social referencing & pointing
Understand differences in desires
Understand differences in beliefs – ToM

Question 3

Goal directed actions

Answer 3

Assume the actions of others have a purpose
Infants “represent human actions with respect to the objects and outcomes to which they are directed, rather than in terms of their superficial perceptual properties”

Question 4

Rational imitation by infants Original head-touch study (Meltzoff, 1985; 1988)

Answer 4

Deferred imitation: 14-month old infants would imitate novel actions, even after a 1 week delay

Question 5

Rational Imitation by Infants
Gergely et al. (2002)

Answer 5

14 month old infants
Hands occupied vs hands free
Different intentions suggested by simple changes in context

Question 6

Intentionality

Answer 6

Not just what an actor did do, but what they meant to do
If something is done accidentally, suggests it was not the goal of the actor to perform that action
Differential imitation of the same action because of changes in context

Question 7

Intentional vs accidental actions
Carpenter et al. (1998)

Answer 7

14 – 18 month olds
Objects with 2 possible actions + end result
Modelled both actions:
One accidental (“Whoops!)
One intentional (“There”)

“Can you make it work?”
Infants much more likely to imitate intentional actions
Interpret actions as directed towards achieving goal
Screen out accidental, unintentional actions
Suggests understanding of intentions of others

Question 8

Social referencing: visual cliff Sorce et al. (1985)

Answer 8

Social referencing is a way to understand the mental states of others
1 year old infant on visual cliff

Mother at opposite side:

Fearful face – 0/17 cross

Happy face – 14/19 cross
Infant modulates reaction to object/event by reference to information gained the actions of another person

Question 9

Desire

Answer 9

What’s a desire- preference for a particular option, motivating factor for action
Infants have a concept of desire early on
when do they understand others have desire

Question 10

Early Desire-Based Psychology
Broccoli-Goldfish (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997)

Answer 10

14- and 18-month-olds
Two bowls: raw broccoli and goldfish crackers
Infants prefer crackers
Experimenter eats both and prefers broccoli
Asked to give the experimenter one

14 months: usually give the one they like
18 months: usually give the one experimenter likes

Question 11

Theory of mind (ToM)

Answer 11

The ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand that other have belief, desires and intentions, that are different from one’s own

Question 12

Understanding desires vs beliefs

Answer 12

Ability to understand desires of others develops earlier than ability to understand beliefs of others
Broccoli-Goldfish indicates the beginning of understand others mental states in a representational manner
Desires require representing objects, events and people
Beliefs require representing another person’s representation of objects, events and people

Question 13

Theory of mind and false belief

Answer 13

Are children able to hold their own belief about the world, whilst also separately representing the belief held by another person?
Hard to test if child and other person have same belief
Therefore – create situation when other person holds a belief child knows to be wrong  False belief task
Shows children understand difference between reality and a mental state
Philosopher Daniel Dennett proposes false belief as the test of understanding other’s minds

Question 14

False Location/ Unexpected Transfer (Sally-Ann) Task (e.g. Wimmer & Perner, 1983)

Answer 14

Does the child understand that the character now holds a false belief about the object’s location?

Question 15

Issues with Sally-Anne task?

Answer 15

Other task demands
Have to follow actions of 2 characters
Understand that Sally did not see switching
Remember where item used to be and where it is now
Language – appreciate precise meaning of the question
“Where” question – where Sally should look, not the child
Even if children DO understand that people can have false beliefs:
Need to override simple rules – e.g. ‘people will act in accord with their desires’

Question 16

Unexpected Contents/ Smarties task (e.g Perner et al., 1987)

Answer 16

Children are shown a smarties box and asked what is inside
All children say smarties
Shown that pencils were inside the box
Put pencils back inside. What would another person think is in the box?
Most 3’s say pencils; Most 4’s say smarties
Self version: Before I showed you what was inside, what did you think was in the box. Similar results

Question 17

Why do three-year-old fail

Answer 17

Belief-specific competence deficit
Performance deficit
More general competence deficit

Question 18

False belief in infancy?
Onishi and Baillargeon (2005)

Answer 18

15 month olds; violation of expectation task
Search paradigm: toy hidden in one of two possible locations

Familiarization

Belief-induction (true or false)

Test trial (true of false)
15-month old infants looked longer when actor searched in the box inconsistent with her belief

Question 19

Why do infants succeed 3-year-old fail, and 5-year-old succeed

Answer 19

Infants succeed on indirect test
Three-year-old fail on direct test
Performance/competence distinction in younger children?
Different ToM abilities or modules

Question 20

ToM beyond age 4

Answer 20

ToM is more than passing FB tasks-individual differences in older children and adults

Need different tasks

Question 21

Faux Pas test (Baron-cohen et al. 1999)

Answer 21

Mike was in one of the cubicles in the toilets at school. Joe and Peter were at the sinks nearby. Joe said “You know that new boy in the class, his name is Mike. Doesn’t he look really weird!” Mike then came out of the cubicles. Peter said “Oh hello Mike, are you going to play football now?”.

Faux Pas Detection Question: In the story did someone say something that they should not have said?
If “no”, proceed to the comprehension question.
Identification Question: What did they say that they should not have said?”
Comprehension Question: Where were Joe and Peter when they were talking?

Question 22

Devine et al. (2016)

Answer 22

Longitudinal study – tested children at age 10 (previously tested between ages 4 & 6)

T1: Fb task, unexpected contents task, emotion FB task

T2: Strange stories, Triangles task, Silent film task

Findings:
Individual differences in ToM ability
Differences moderately stable across childhood
ToM ability related to social competence as rated by teachers

Question 23

All measuring the same thing?

Answer 23

Term ToM used generally to refer to performance on all tasks
some task relate to each other due to them
Research shows minimal correlations between different tasks after controlling for age and IQ (Warnell & Redcay, 2019)
ToM is a diverse construct that likely requires other social and cognitive abilities.
Important because researchers tend to choose1 or 2 tasks to represent ToM.

Question 24

Factors Influencing ToM

Answer 24

Social environment is hugely important for ToM development
Devine & Hughes (2018) – Meta-analysis of family factors affecting false belief understanding in early childhood.
3-7 year olds
93 studies
Parental SES
No. of siblings
Parental mental state talk
Mind-mindedness

Question 25

SES & FBU

Answer 25

SES is multifaceted – parental income, occupation , education or combination.
SES strongly related to language ability (Hoff, 2006)
Majority of initial FB studies = small sample size and middle class. SES overlooked.

7,000 3-6 year olds
Modest correlation between SES and FBU
Stronger for older children.

Question 26

Family size & FBU

Answer 26

Number of siblings correlates strongly with FBU.
Children from larger families develop ToM (pass the false belief test) up to 6 months earlier (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam,1994)
Other researchers struggled to replicate (e.g. Cole & Mitchell, 2000).
Contradictory evidence as to whether total siblings, similar age siblings or older siblings (see Peterson, 2000).
5,000 3-5 year olds
Modest correlation
Strongest when using total no. child-aged siblings rather than total no. or older siblings.
Stronger for studies that had more boys.

Question 27

Parental mental-state talk

Answer 27

Children whose mothers who refer to mental state terms at 6 months perform better on false belief tasks at 4 years (Meins et al. ,2002)
Shared book reading is an important context for theory of mind development (Ensor et al., 2014) .
Reading more in middle childhood related to improved ToM (Hamilton, O’Halloran & Cutting, 2020).
Lots of differences in how mental state talk is measured.
2,000 3-5 year olds
Modest correlation
Unrelated to whether observed in structured (e.g. shared book reading) or unstructured (e.g. conversation) situation.
Weaker correlation in studies where researchers controlled for overall talk.

Question 28

Mind-mindedness & FBU

Answer 28

Children whose parents engage in more mind-related talk have superior FBU.
Mind-minded comments by mothers during freeplay at 12 months predicts FBU at age 4 (Laranjo et al., 2014)
1,200 3 to 5 year olds
Modest correlation
Unrelated to whether data from observation or interview.
All correlations modest accounting for between 2 and 4 % of variance. Weaker than language and EF.

Question 29

Family factors important
But genetics should not be underestimated…

Answer 29

Hughes and Cutting (1999)
Tested 120 pairs of 40-month-old twins for ToM
Stronger correlation between MZ twin pairs (r = .66) than DZ twin pairs (r = .32)
Model fitting analyses suggested a heritability of 67% (for this sample)

Question 30

ToM & Social Development

Answer 30

Children with higher theory of mind scores tend to be more popular in their peer group:

Link may be mediated by engagement in prosocial behaviour (Caputi et al., 2012)

Question 31

Prosocial Behaviour

Answer 31

Requires:
future planning
capacity for delaying gratification—the willingness to relinquish resources that could be consumed now in favour of better rewards late
understanding of that other people’s perception of you may change their later actions etc.

Question 32

The development of Prosocial behaviours

Answer 32

Prosocial behaviour starts as sympathy-based.
Children then learn about social norms surrounding prosocial behaviour.
Then develop ability to be strategic.

Question 33

Sympathy-based Prosocial Behaviour

Answer 33

Between 14 and 18-months children help with practical goals.
E.g. remove barriers, fetch out of reach objects (Warneken & Tomaello, 2006)

Around age 2 – help with emotion-based problems.
Suggested intrinsically motivated to alleviate negative affect in others.
Comfort others when distressed
Share toys/food (Brownell et al., 2009)
These behaviours are shaped by parental scaffolding and observational learning.

Question 35

Who do infants have sympathy for?

Answer 35

For help with practical goals, 14 month olds preferentially helped those who had previously engaged in synchronous bouncing with them (vs. asynchronous) (Cirelli et al., 2014).

By pre-school age (3+) more prosocial towards those who have acted prosocially towards self (Vaish et al., 2018) or have been nice to others (Kenward & Dahl, 2011).
Before this, sharing equally.

Question 36

Strategic Prosociality

Answer 36

The ability to decide when to act prosocially also enables children to be strategic in their own behaviours.
Strategic prosociality emerges around age 5 and then increases in complexity

Actors – N = 32, 5-year-olds – allocated stickers
Recipients – N = 32, 5-year-olds – received their allocation.
Actor shown stickers in either transparent or opaque containers.
Actor either visible or occluded.
Pull lever to decide which allocations to give.
Actor options always same
Recipient allocation varied.
High Value Choice –
Self = 4
Recipient = 4 or 1
Low Value Choice –
Self = 1
Recipient = 4 or 1
Study provides evidence that 5-year-old children’s generosity (prosocial behaviour) is influenced by having visible audience and their actions being transparent.
Children were meaner when they were not visible, and their actions were hidden.
This goes against previous studies showing children to be overall quite generous (e.g., Blake & Rand, 2010)
Children may interpret as a ‘game’ and want to beat their ‘opponent’.
Or rather than audience and transparency increasing generosity as proposed they may inhibit ungenerous tendencies.
Something to investigate further….