week 6 - social cognition Flashcards
What is social cognition?
- social cognition is the understanding of how people behave
- involving reference to internal psychological states like emotions, thoughts and desires
- it includes knowing that others have subjective experiences similar to oneself
What are some early indicators of social cognitive development in infants?
- newborns show preference for social stimulation such as faces and voices, as well as simple social interaction such as neonatal imitation
- 6 month olds understand the actions of others as goal-directed
- 9 month olds engage in joint attention/shared activities such as gaze-following, social referencing and pointing
- 18 month olds understand differences in desires
- 4 year olds understand differences in beliefs
What are goal directed actions?
- infants assume the actions of others have a purpose/goal
- infants “represent human actions with respect to the object and outcomes to which they are directed, rather than in terms of their superficial perceptual properties”
Describe the “head-touch” study by Meltzoff (1985, 1988)
this study showed that 14-month-old infants would imitate novel actions, like touching their head to a box, even after a one-week delay. this is known as deferred imitation
How does the Gergely et al. (2002) study demonstrate rational imitation?
This study showed that 14-month-old infants were more likely to imitate an action (touching a box with their head) when the actors hands were free compared to when their hands were occupied.
- differing intentions of the actor were suggested by simple changes in context
- this suggests that infants consider the rationality of actions
- 69% of infants imitated the action when the actors hand were free compared to the 21% when the hands were occupied
How do infants differentiate between intentional and accidental actions, according to the Carpenter et al. (1998) study?
- 14-18 month olds were shown objects with 2 possible actions, along with the end result
- modeled as either intentional (“there”) or accidental (“whoops”)
- infants were then asked “can you make it work”?
- infants were more likely to imitate the intentional actions, indicating an understanding of others intentions
- infants interpet intentional actions as directed towards achieving a goal
What is social referencing?
social referencing is when an infant modulates their reaction to an object or event based on the actions of another person
How does the visual cliff experiment by Sorce et al. (1985) demonstrate social referencing?
- 1 year old infants were less likely to cross the visual cliff when their mothers displayed a fearful face (0/17 crossed) compared to a happy face (14/19 crossed)
- this demonstrates that infants use facial cues to understand a situation
What is a desire?
- preference for a particular option
- motivating factor for actions/emotions
When do infants understand that others have desires, and that those desires can differ from their own?
Infants begin to understand other’s desires around 14-18 months of age
Explain the method and results of the Broccoli-Goldfish study (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997)
- infants were given a bowl with goldfish crackers and raw broccoli
- infants preferred crackers, but the experimenter expressed a preference for broccoli
- 18-month-olds typically gave the experimenter broccoli (the one the experimenter likes)
- 14-month-olds usually gave the experimenter crackers (the one they like)
- this demonstrates that older infants are beginning to understand that other people have preferences that can be different from their own
What is Theory of Mind (ToM)?
theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions) to oneself and others, and to understand that these can differ from ones own
Why can children understand the desires of others before beliefs?
- desires are more closely tied to observable motivational states/expressions and are easier to predict actions based on these
- beliefs require presenting another person’s representation of the world
- Broccoli-Goldfish indicates the beginning of understanding others mental states
How can we see if children can hold their own belief about the world, while also understanding the belief held by another person?
false belief task: create a situation when the other person holds a belief the child knows to be wrong
Describe the classic False-belief task (Sally-Anne task) and its purpose (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)
- this task tests if children understand that another person can have a belief that is different from reality
- sally puts a marble in a basket and leaves the room
- anne then moves the marble to a box
- children are then asked where sally will look for the marble
- children who pass the test understand that sally will look in the basket (where she believes it to be), not in the box (where the child knows it to be)
- results show five year olds think sally will look in the basket while three year olds think sally will look in the box
What are the issues associated with the Sally-Anne task? (Bloom & German, 2000)
other task demands
- have to follow actions of 2 characters
- understand that sally did not see the 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’
Describe the Unexpected Contents task (Smarties task) and its purpose (Perner et al., 1987)
- tests understanding of false belief
- children are shown a smarties box and asked what is inside
- children typically respond “smarties”
- then they are shown that the box contains pencils
- children are asked what another person would think is inside
- most 3 year olds say pencils
- most 4 year olds say smarties
Why do 3 year olds fail false belief tasks?
belief-specific competence deficit:
- most beliefs are true (e.g. you have 2 hands and 2 feet). it takes a lot of evidence to infer that people can represent states of the world that are true
performance deficit:
- it is hard for children to inhibit their own knowledge of the world to respond to the knowledge of others
- executive function
- also language demands
more general competence deficit:
- difficulties with meta-representations (representing a representation)
- difficulty representing or reasoning about states that conflict with reality
How did Onishi and Baillargeon (2005) study false belief in infants?
- used a violation of expectations task witth 15-month-olds
- infants watched an actor hode a toy in either a tellow box or green box, and looked longer when the actor searched for it in the wrong place, even if they knew the location was wrong
Why do infants suceed, 3 year olds fail, and 5 year olds succeed in false belief/violation of expectations tasks?
infants succeed on indirect tests
- false-belief understanding has to be inferred indirectly from infants’ or taddlers’ spontaneous behaviour in the test situation
three year olds fail on direct tests
- children are directly asked about the mistaken agent’s belief or behaviour
Performance/competence distinction in younger children?
- but recall that three-year-olds don’t merely fail to inhibit their own true knowledge, they confabulate explanations for their own and others’ behaviour
Different ToM abilities or modules
- Implicit versus explicit knowledge?
- minimal ToM (e.g. Apperly & Butterfill, 200()
- analogy to different number systems
no one account explains all the data…
What is the difference between explicit and implicit knowledge of false beliefs?
Infants succeed on indirect tests of false belief, which has to be inferred from their spontaneous behavior. Three-year-olds fail on direct tests, where they are asked directly about the mistaken agent’s belief. This may suggest that implicit false belief understanding develops before explicit knowledge of false belief
How have beliefs on Theory of Mind changed over time?
- until 2005, thought that fundamental change in theory of mind understanding occured around 4 years
- based on standard false belief task
- since 2005, work with infants using versions of false belief tasks with reduced demands suggest that rudimentary theory of mind understanding occurs around 13 months, but the debate is ongoing
What is the Faux Pas test? (Baron-cohen et al. 1990)
The Faux Pas test assesses the ability to detect social blunders, where someone says something they shouldn’t have. Participants have to identify the faux pas, what was said, and where the speakers were
- 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 they shouldn’t have?
- 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?
What is the Silent Films Task, and how does it measure theory of mind? (Devine & hughes, 2013)
This task requires participants to interpret social scenarios depicted in silent films. It measures ToM by requiring participants to infer the mental states of the characters. Participants are asked questions about the characters’ intentions and beliefs
What are some factors that influence the development of Theory of Mind?
Factors include:
- social environment
- Devine & Hughes (2018) - family factors such as parental SES, number of siblings, parental mental state talk, mind-mindedness, and genetics
How does socioeconomic status (SES) correlate with false belief understanding (FBU)?
- SES is multifaceted - parental income, occupation, education
- SES strongly related to language ability (Hoff, 2006)
- Majority of initial FB studies = small sample size and middle class, SES overlooked
- newer studies show that there is a modest correlation between SES and FBU, with stronger correlations in older children
How does family size correlate with FBU?
- number of siblings correlates stringly with FBU
- children from larger families develop ToM (pass the false belief test) up to 6 months earlier (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam, 1994)
- other researchers struggle to replicate these findings
- research in this area has contradictory findings
How does parental mental state talk affect children’s theory of mind development?
Children whose mothers use more mental state terms at 6 months perform better on false belief tasks at 4 years (Meins et al., 2002)
Also, shared book reading is an important context for ToM development (Ensor et al., 2014)
- reading more in middle childhood is related to improved ToM
What is mind-mindedness, and how does it relate to false belief understanding?
Mind-mindedness refers to a parent’s tendency to engage in mind-related talk, which is predictive of children’s FBU
- mind-minded comments by mothers during freeplay at 12 months predicts FBU at age 4 (Laranjo et al., 2014)
What genetic evidence is there for the development of ToM? (Hughes & Cutting, 1999)
- tested 120 pairs of 40-month-old twins for ToM
- show a stronger correlation between monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs (r=.66) compared to dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs (r=.32) in terms of ToM abilities, with heritability estimates of around 67%
What is the link between Theory of Mind and social development?
children with higher theory of mind scores tend to be more popular in their peer group, possibly due to their engagement in prosocial behaviour (Caputi et al., 2012)
How does prosocial behaviour develop?
Prosocial behavior begins as sympathy-based, evolving from helping with practical goals to addressing emotional problems. Later, prosocial behavior becomes more strategic, influenced by factors like audience visibility
- strategic prosociality is more cognitively taxing
How does strategic prosociality develop, according to Leimgruber et al (2012)?
- the ability to decide when to act prosocially also enables children to be strategic in their own behaviours
- strategic prosociallity emerges around age 5, increasing in complexity
- Five year old children are more generous when they are visible and their actions are transparent. Children were more mean 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)
when does sympathy based prosocial behaviour develop in children? (Warneken & Tomaello, 2006) (Brownell et al., 2009)
- between 14 and 18 months old, children help with practical goals
- e.g. remove barriers, fetch out of reach objects
- Around age 2, help with emotion based problems
- suggested intrinsically motivated to alleviate negative affect in others
- e.g. comfort others when distressed, share toys/food
- these behaviours are shaped by parental scaffolding and observational learning
Who do infants have sympathy for?
- for help with practical goals, 14-month-olds preferentially helped those who had previously engaged in synchronous bouncing with them (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)
What was Leimgruber et al’s., (2011) method for the strategic prosociality study?
- 32 5-year-olds (Actors) allocated stickers
- 32 5-year-olds (recipients) 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
