Weeks 12-16

Question 1

Conversational Coordination

Answer 1

by virtue of our ability to interactively align each other’s actions at different levels of language use - use of the same expression or syntactic structure (ex. “the girl gave a book to the boy” rather than “the girl gave the boy a book”)

Question 1

Lexicon vs. Syntax

Answer 1

Lexicon: words and expression
Syntax: grammatical rules for arranging words and expressions together

Question 2

Common Ground

Answer 2

set of knowledge that the speaker and listener share and they think, assume, or otherwise take for granted that they share

• Changes as new information is added into conversation
• Helps coordinate language use and what words are said

Question 3

Audience Design

Answer 3

design their utterances for their audiences by taking into account the audiences’ knowledge (ex. Saying a friend of mine vs. Lola)

Question 4

Situation Models

Answer 4

representations about the topic of a conversation (imagining the scenario)

• Through priming, everyone is likely to construct similar ideas of the scenario and have similar situation models - thus helps us coordinate common ground.

Question 5

Dunbar Social Brain Hypothesis

Answer 5

• 60% of our conversations are gossip: people talk about themselves and others whom they know (Gossip: Act of socializing that signals the importance of the partner)
• Communicate and share representation of social world
• regulate social world by expanding or minimizing in and out groups

Question 6

Social Brain Hypothesis

Answer 6

idea that larger brains are associated with more complex social lives

• social effects of gossip have given humans an evolutionary advantage and larger brains, which, in turn, help humans to think more complex and abstract thoughts and, more important, maintain larger ingroups

Question 7

Social Networks

Answer 7

gossip can spread quickly

• information transmitted multiple times becomes easily understood by many - information was assimilated into the common ground shared by most people in the linguistic community
• stereotypes are part of the common ground shared by the community - more likely to be remembered in retellings

Question 8

Language Use

Answer 8

ends up maintaining the existing structure of intergroup relationships & have implications for how we construe our social world

Verbs convey particularity vs. Adjectives convey permanency

Question 9

Linguistic intergroup bias

Answer 9

can produce and reproduce the representation of intergroup relationships by painting a picture favouring the in-group (use adjectives for in-group who are friends vs. verbs for outgroup; ex. He is generous vs. he gave the blind man change)

Question 10

Sapir Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 10

• the language that people use determines their thoughts.
• If a certain type of language use is repeated by a large number of people in a community, it can potentially have a significant effect on their thoughts and actions (ex. A Chinese individual might remember something better than English individual if there is a word for it rather than a description)
• habitual uses of language can influence our habit of thought and action

Question 11

labeling one’s own emotions

Answer 11

• can alter neural processes, reducing amygdala activation associated with negative emotions
• Verbalizing negative life events can also be therapeutic, improving psychological well-being, whereas merely thinking about them can worsen it

Question 12

What Three Things Must A Language Have?

Answer 12

1) semanticity - when the language can represent ideas and concepts properly
2) generativity - a language can produce an infinite number of phrases using words that can be understood
3) displacement - when a language can relate to something that is not there physically.

Question 13

Theory of Mind

Answer 13

making inferences of the mental state and perception of others and how they interpret or feel in a situation. Theory of Mind helps another person empathize and recognize the other.

-Answers 2 Questions:
1) What is the role of understanding others’ minds in human social life?
2) What is known about the mental processes that underlie such understanding?

Question 14

Theory of Mind - Why it is Important

Answer 14

• enables humans to interpret and predict behaviours in social interactions,
• understand others as intentional agents with desires, beliefs, and mental states (ex. Basic interactions such as paying with a credit card and understanding that),
• engage in the kinds of complex interactions that social communities

Examples: Teaching another person new actions or rules by taking into account what the learner knows or doesn’t know and how one might best make him understand, Learning the words of a language by monitoring what other people attend to and are trying to do when they use certain words, Figuring out our social standing by trying to guess what others think and feel about us.

Question 15

Autism and Theory of Mind

Answer 15

• They are missing “automatic processing of ‘people information’” and process in a more “analytical way”
• May miss certain aspects of an interaction and unable to know what information they are processing about another individual

Question 16

Agents Goals and Intentionality

Answer 16

Bottom of Pyramid (Simple & Automatic)

• Agent: allows humans to identify those moving objects in the world that can act on their own (ex. being self-propelled, having eyes, and reacting systematically to the interaction partner’s behavior, such as following gaze or imitating)
• Goals: to see the systematic and predictable relationship between a particular agent pursuing a particular object across various circumstances. - connects to agent
• Intentionality: human perceivers recognize that some behaviors can be unintentional even if they were goal-directed; an agent has the skill to perform the intentional action in question (ex. Flipping a coin being luck)

Question 17

Imitation Synchrony and Empathy

Answer 17

Second to Bottom (Less Simple & Automatic)

• Imitation: the human tendency to carefully observe others’ behaviors and do as they do—even if it is the first time the perceiver has seen this behavior (ex. Mimicry and reaching synchrony)

Synchrony: people who enjoy an interaction synchronize their behaviors more - in monkeys, it is mirror-neurons

Automatic Empathy: builds on imitation and synchrony (if Elena watches or interacts with a sad Bill, then she will subtly imitate his dejected behavior and, through well-practiced associations of certain behaviors and emotions, she will feel a little sad as well

Question 18

Joint Attention and Visual Perspective Taking

Answer 18

Middle Level (Between Simple & Automatic and Complex & Deliberate)

Joint Attention: each looking at an object and are both aware that each of them is looking at the object - children learn the meaning of objects—both their value and the words that refer to them

Visual Perspective Taking: When we overcome our egocentric perspective this way, we imaginatively adopt the other person’s spatial viewpoint and determine how the world looks from their perspective (ex. is it their left or my left?)

Question 19

Projection and Simulation - understand another’s psychological state

Answer 19

Second Level (Complex & Deliberate)

Projection: A social perceiver’s assumption that the other person wants, knows, or feels the same as the perceiver wants, know, or feels. - can be hard if they come from a different background (ex. Recognizing sarcasm)

Simulation: using one’s own mental states as a model for others’ mental states: “What would it feel like sitting across from the stern interrogator? I Would feel scared . . .”

Question 20

Mental State Inference

Answer 20

Top Level (Complex and Deliberate)
The ability to truly take another person’s perspective requires that we separate what we want, feel, and know from what the other person is likely to want, feel, and know.

Rely on stored knowledge (both general and agent-specific info about the person) and perceived facts about the situation such as what happened, facial expressions, etc.

Question 21

False Belief Test

Answer 21

assesses whether a perceiver recognizes that another person has a false belief—a belief that contradicts reality (ex. Sally leaves a ball in a basket and leaves, Joe takes the ball and leaves… as adults, we know sally will look in the basket, but children under 4 may not know)

Question 22

Category

Answer 22

A set of entities that are equivalent in some way. Usually the items are similar to one another (ex. Items on a desk are a category, but also categories can include trucks and psychopaths - which are more universal)

Question 23

Concepts

Answer 23

mental representations of categories & are essential for intelligent behaviour - navigate new situations and recognize objects even if they are new (ex. Knowing what a classroom is will help us infer what objects are for) & generalize information (ex. Learning how to use a phone and using a new one)*

Question 24

Issue with Categories

Answer 24

it has not been possible to find definitions for many familiar categories - ex. Not all dogs bark and have four legs, but are still recognizable as dogs; one could say all dogs have blood and breathe, but then every animal is a dog)

Question 25

Typicality

Answer 25

The difference in “goodness” of category members, ranging from the most typical (the prototype) to borderline members (ex. A robin and sparrow are typical birds… penguins and ostriches are atypical)

Question 26

family resemblance theory

Answer 26

what makes something typical… items are likely to be typical if they (a) have the features that are frequent in the category and (b) do not have features frequent in other categories (ex. Robin vs. penguin in shape, size, body parts, and behaviours)

Question 27

Prototype Theory

Answer 27

people have a summary representation of the category, a mental description that is meant to apply to the category as a whole.

when you learn a category, you learn a general description that applies to the category as a whole: Birds have wings and usually fly; some eat worms; some swim underwater to catch fish
Heavily weighted features play into typicality

Question 28

Exemplar Theory

Answer 28

denies that there is a summary representation. Instead, the theory claims that your concept of vegetables is remembered as examples of vegetables you have seen.

When you see an object, you (unconsciously) compare it to the exemplars in your memory, and you judge how similar it is to exemplars in different categories
you calculate how similar it is to each exemplar in your memory… highest similarity score is chosen

Question 29

Category Prototype

Answer 29

the most typical category member

Question 30

Knowledge Influencing Concepts

Answer 30

• If people are asked to learn about concepts that don’t make sense, it is harder for them to learn. features that seem connected to one another are learned better than features that don’t seem related to the others.
• The knowledge approach to concepts emphasizes that concepts are meant to tell us about real things in the world, and so our knowledge of the world is used in learning and thinking about concepts.

Question 31

Psychological essentialism

Answer 31

the belief that some categories have an underlying essence that defines their features and causes their behaviors (ex. Many people believe that there is a gene that makes all dogs bark, have fur, and look the same… This belief can influence how people classify things, often beyond observable features, as they assume the presence of an unchanging cause within a category.)

Question 32

Piaget’s Stage Theory

Answer 32

Sensorimotor - birth to 2 years: represent the enduring reality of objects; realized through their perceptions of the world and their physical interactions with it

Preoperational Reasoning - 2 to 6 or 7: symbolic-representation capabilities, such as those involved in drawing and using language; focus on a single dimension, even when solving problems would require them to consider multiple dimensions

Concrete Operational Reasoning - 6 or 7 to 11 or 12: can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systematic scientific reasoning. (ex. if a boy believed that weight was the only variable that mattered, he might put the heaviest weight on the shortest string and push it the hardest, and then conclude that just as he thought, weight is the only variable that matters)

Formal Operational Reasoning - 11 or 12 on: continuing for the rest of life, in which adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults.

Question 33

Sociocultural Theories

Answer 33

emphasize how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture, influence children’s development

Theory founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky that emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development.

Question 34

Information Processing Theories

Answer 34

examine the mental processes that produce thinking at any one time and the transition processes that lead to growth in that thinking

Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time.

Question 35

Continuous Development

Answer 35

Ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps.

Question 36

Object Permanence

Answer 36

the Piagetian task in which infants below 9 months of age fail to search for an object that is removed from their sight and, if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist. - not seen in stage 1

Question 37

Conservation Problem

Answer 37

Problems pioneered by Piaget in which physical transformation of an object or set of objects changes a perceptually salient dimension but not the quantity that is being asked about (ex. A thin cylinder of water is more than a shorter cylinder despite being the same) - not seen in stage 2

Question 38

cognitive development used to improve education

Answer 38

Phonemic awareness, awareness of the component sounds within words, is an indicator for reading level from kindergarten to third or fourth grade

Mathematics level between low to middle/high high class families differs because the children in middle- and upper-income families engage more frequently in numerical activities (ex. Chutes and ladders - improves numerical magnitude, how big a number is, and spatial, kinesthetic, verbal, and time-based cues)

Question 39

Which part of the brain, important in planning and flexible problem solving, continues to develop throughout adolescence?

Answer 39

PreFrontal Cortex

Question 40

Symptoms in Autism

Answer 40

• Difficulties in Social Interactions: making eye contact, navigating group conversations, processing social information across visual and auditory sensory modalities.
• Impaired Communication: difficulties with gestures, facial expressions, and language.
• Repetitive or Restricted Interests and Behaviors: Engaging in repetitive actions or behaviors, Exhibiting restricted interests or fixed patterns of thinking.
• Social Information Processing Deficits: Difficulty in understanding and responding to social cues.
• Variability in Symptom Expression: severity and specific characteristics (e.g., high-functioning vs. low-functioning individuals).
• Early Onset: Social deficits often appear as early as 6 months of age, before other symptoms such as language difficulties or repetitive behaviors emerge

Question 41

Science-y Part of Autism & the Brain

Answer 41

ERP and MRI used to measure
superior temporal sulcus (STS) - the perception and interpretation of biological motion
fusiform gyrus (FG) - supports face perception: reduced activity

• pinpoint when these anomalies occur in the processing stages
• identification of stable neurobiological markers, or “endophenotypes,” will not only clarify individual differences but also provide insights into the genetic underpinnings of autism, facilitating more focused investigations into the disorder’s genetic causes

Question 42

Understanding social and personality development requires looking at:

Answer 42

1) social context - which each child lives, especially the relationships that provide security, guidance, and knowledge

2) biological maturation - supports developing social and emotional competencies and underlies temperamental individuality

3) children’s developing representations of themselves and the social world

Question 42

Security of Attachment

Answer 42

An infant’s confidence in the sensitivity and responsiveness of a caregiver, especially when he or she is needed. Infants can be securely attached or insecurely attached.

Securely attached when treated well and insecurely when neglected (ex. An overworked mom is insecurely attached)

Securely attached = develop stronger friendships with peers, more advanced emotional understanding and early conscience development, and more positive self-concepts and greater sense of self

Question 43

Strange Situation

Answer 43

an experiment where guardian leaves child to play and comes back; we see how the child reacts and how attached they are

Question 44

Family Stress Model

Answer 44

how financial difficulties are associated with parents’ depressed moods, which in turn lead to marital problems and poor parenting that contributes to poorer child adjustment (outside factors affect the home)

Question 45

Authoritarian

Answer 45

Low Warmness & High Expectations

Question 45

Uninvolved

Answer 45

Low Warmness & Low Expectations

Question 46

Permissive

Answer 46

Low Warmness & Low Expectations

Question 46

Authoritative

Answer 46

High Warmness & High Expectations

Question 47

Peer relations

Answer 47

learn how to initiate and maintain social interactions with other children; skills for managing conflict, compromise, and bargaining

Being accepted by other children is an important source of affirmation and self-esteem, but peer rejection can foreshadow later behavior problems (especially when children are rejected due to aggressive behavior)

children evaluate their skills, knowledge, and personal qualities, but it may cause them to feel that they do not measure up well against others

Question 48

Social Referencing

Answer 48

The process by which one individual consults another’s emotional expressions to determine how to evaluate and respond to circumstances that are ambiguous or uncertain - can be seen in one year old who look to mom in new situations

Question 49

Temperament & Personality

Answer 49

Early emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation, which constitutes a foundation for personality development.

“goodness of the fit”: The match or synchrony between a child’s temperament and characteristics of parental care that contributes to positive or negative personality development. A good “fit” means that parents have accommodated to the child’s temperamental attributes, and this contributes to positive personality growth and better adjustment (ex. An adventurous kid is better with hiking parents)

Question 50

Social & Emotional Competence

Answer 50

refers to a child’s ability to engage in socially constructive behaviours, regulate emotions and impulses, uphold moral values, build a healthy sense of identity, and develop talents for success. It emerges from the interaction of social, biological, and representational influences over time.

Question 51

Conscience Development in Childhood

Answer 51

This process is influenced by a nurturing relationship with parents, who set clear expectations and provide responsive care. A child’s temperament (e.g., ability for self-regulation or sensitivity to parental disapproval) also plays a role, as does their capacity to view themselves as moral beings who strive to “do the right thing.”

Question 52

Effortful Control in Childhood

Answer 52

Temperamental traits combined with guidance from caregivers help children learn self-regulation and impulse control, which are critical for positive social interactions.

Question 53

Moral Self Concept

Answer 53

By the end of the preschool years, children internalize moral values through repeated experiences of moral discussions and by observing others’ behavior.

Question 54

Attachment Behavioural System

Answer 54

Developed by Bowlby: observed infants would go to extreme lengths to prevent or reestablish proximity to their parent (attachment figure - main caregiver)

A motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain accessibility and proximity between a young child and primary attachment figure; if nearby, they will feel fine and loved & if not, anxiety

evolutionary history: infants who were able to maintain proximity to an attachment figure would be more likely to survive to a reproductive age.

Question 55

Three Attachment Patterns

Answer 55

Attachment patterns: Individual differences in how securely (vs. insecurely) people think, feel, and behave in attachment relationships
1) those who are secure in their relationship with their parents - have parents respondent to their needs, are sad when parent leaves but happy when they return

2) those who are anxious-resistant - less likely to respond to needs, extremely distressed and difficult time being soothed (want to ‘punish’ parent for leaving

3) those who are anxious-avoidant - less likely to respond to needs, do not consistently behave as if they are stressed by the separation but, upon reunion, actively avoid seeking contact with their parent

Question 56

What do Secure Attachment Styles lead to?

Answer 56

high functioning relationships with peers, to be evaluated favorably by teachers, and to persist with more diligence in challenging tasks

gradually transfer attachment-related functions from parents to peers as they develop; rely on romantic partners and close peers

Question 57

Importance of Emotion

Answer 57

emotions inform us of who we are, what our relationships with others are like, and how to behave in social interactions

Give meaning to events, role in the cultural functioning of keeping human societies together, coordinate interpersonal relationships

Question 58

Intrapersonal Function of Emotions

Answer 58

Help us Act Quickly with Minimal Conscious Awareness: attack, defend, flee, care for others, reject food, or approach something useful (ex. the emotion of disgust helps us avoid consuming spoiled food, which can be harmful)

Prepare the Body for Immediate Action: perception, attention, memory, and physiological reactions (ex. Fear triggers physical changes like reduced saliva, altered blood flow, and expanded vision, all preparing the body to flee)

Influence Thoughts: emotional connection helps us remember events, shape our attitudes, values, and beliefs, giving meaning to otherwise neutral statements

Motivate Future Behaviors: strive to experience the feelings of satisfaction, joy, pride, or triumph in our accomplishments and achievements while working hard to avoid negative feelings (ex. Avoiding spoiled milk)

Question 59

Interpersonal Function of Emotions

Answer 59

Facilitate Specific Behaviors in Perceivers: convey not only a person’s emotional state but also their intent and likely behavior… guide social interactions (ex. fearful faces prompt approach behaviors, while angry faces lead to avoidance behaviors)

Signal the Nature of Interpersonal Relationships: provide information about the nature of the relationships among interactants (ex. Discrete expressions of contempt in men & disgust in women, predicted later marital dissatisfaction and even divorce)

Provide Incentives for Desired Social Behavior: facial expressions shape social behavior in early development (ex. Social referencing & In a study on the visual cliff, infants’ actions were influenced by their mothers’ facial expressions: fear or anger caused the infants to avoid crossing, while joy or interest encouraged them to move forward)

Question 60

Socio-Cultural Function of Emotions

Answer 60

through the development of worldviews (including attitudes, values, beliefs, and norms) related to emotions

desirable emotions that facilitate norms for regulating individual behaviors and interpersonal relationships

Cultural display rules: These are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of emotional expressions according to social circumstances. (ex. “big boys don’t cry” or to laugh at the boss’s jokes even though they’re not funny)

Question 61

Cognitive Development in Adolescents

Answer 61

concrete to more abstract and complex thinking, increase in attention, memory, processing speed, and metacognition

Early on: changes in dopaminergic system contribute to increases in adolescents’ sensation-seeking and reward motivation

Later: cognitive control centers in the prefrontal cortex develop (self-regulation and future orientation)

Lack of prefrontal cortex development early on contributes to more risk taking during middle adolescence; not yet developed the cognitive control to resist impulses or focus equally on the potential risks

Question 62

Social Development in Adolescense

Answer 62

Parents: renegotiation of parent–child relationships as adolescents seek greater independence; distal supervision and monitoring become key (rules, knowing, friends, etc,)

Psychological Control: Parents’ manipulation of and intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world through invalidating adolescents’ feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways

Peers: evolve from single-sex to mixed-sex, and members tend to exhibit similar behaviors and attitudes due to homophily (choosing similar peers) and mutual influence (shaping each other’s behaviors)
Deviant peer contagion, where peers reinforce problematic behaviors, highlights the negative potential of peer influence

Romantic: influencing their identity formation, emotional adjustment, and changes in family and peer dynamics (LGBTQ+ recognition); replace the same-sex groups of childhood

Question 63

Theory of Adolescent Development

Answer 63

1) Foreclosure: when an individual commits to an identity without exploring options
Identity diffusion: adolescents neither explore nor commit to any identities

2) Moratorium: state in which adolescents are actively exploring options but have not yet made commitments

3) Identity achievement: when individuals have explored different options and then made identity commitments.

Question 64

Factors of Diversity in Adolescent Development

Answer 64

factors such as gender, ethnicity, immigrant status, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and personality contribute to diverse developmental trajectories (ethnic and sexual minority adolescents often face unique challenges, including discrimination, that can affect their development)

Question 65

Five Features of Emerging Adulthood

Answer 65

1) the age of identity explorations: age when people explore various possibilities in love and work as they move toward making enduring choices; clearer sense of who they are (strengths and values) Erikson’s identity formation occurs here

the age of instability: explore different paths in love, work, and living situations; rates of residential change are highest between ages 18 to 29

the self-focused age: prioritize their personal development; focus on themselves, developing the knowledge, skills, and self-understanding necessary for adulthood, including making independent decisions on various aspects of life

the age of feeling in-between: not adolescent but not fully adult, either; reach their late twenties and early thirties that a clear majority feels adult

the age of possibilities: many different futures remain possible, and when little about a person’s direction in life has been decided for certain; age of high hopes and great expectations

Question 66

Emerging Adulthood Around the World

Answer 66

OECD countries, especially in Europe, emerging adulthood is longer and more leisurely, with individuals often entering marriage and parenthood later (around age 30).

In non-industrialized countries, the concept of emerging adulthood is still developing (ex. lower socioeconomic backgrounds, enter adult roles like marriage and work much earlier)