Social development

What are newborn preferences?

• specific preferences that drive their learning

• preference for face like paddle over plain paddle

• human speech over artificial sound

• maternal language sounds

• maternal accent

When do infants learn sensitivity to emotional cues?

• within first 6 months

• as young as 36 hours could differentiate positive emotions from negative emotions

• 5 months - prefer sound that matches emotion of face

When do infants start responding to emotions?

• start smiling at 1 month when full or well rested

• start smiling at 3 months in response to social cues

• at 6 months particularly tuned in to people they’re familiar with

What is contagious crying?

• 3-6 months cry when they see another infant cry

• basic empathy?

• hyper-reactive?

What is joint attention?

• 6-18 months - infants more active in learning about the world

• get attention of another person so they’re looking at the same thing

• do this through gaze and pointing

What is social referencing?

• exploring somewhere new/unfamiliar

• if mum looks happy, keep exploring

• if mum looks scared, infant retracts

• develops at 10-12 months

What is scaffolding?

• 6-18 months

• build an infants knowledge through teaching them about something

• mental states - desire, thoughts, beliefs, knowledge

• mothers talk more about desire than thoughts or beliefs

When does helping behaviour develop?

• 6-18 months - beginning of engagement in prosocial behaviour

• 14 months - first prosocial behaviour emerges - helping

When does sharing behaviour develop?

• 18 months

• show some sharing behaviour- continues to develop

• not spontaneous like helping behaviour- need explicit cues until 3 ½ to 4 yrs old

When does comforting behaviour develop?

• 24 months - only emerges with prompting

• hardest prosocial behaviour for children to demonstrate

• helping/sharing - can see the needs of the other person- can’t with comforting

What is theory of mind?

• 4 years

• ability to understand other people’s mental states and predict behaviour

• 3+ yrs - start to use contrastives (statements that contrast each other

When do children understand ‘seeing’?

• 3 year olds struggle

• 4 year olds begin to understand that other people’s vision is different from their own

• visual perspective taking test (puppet)

When do children understand knowledge?

• other people have knowledge that is different from your own

• appearance reality task (band aid box)

• 4-5 develops

When do children understand beliefs?

• false belief test (sally and basket)

• pass at 52 months (3-6 yrs)

When do children develop sense of self?

• 18 months - continues to develop 3-4 yrs

• start to recognise themselves in photos at 2, videos at 3, consistently at 4

When do infants start to talk about their own mental states of desire?

• 18 months

• two word utterances / telegraphic speech

• 30 months or 2 ½ yrs - start to talk about thoughts

• talk about desire, perception then thoughts and beliefs

When do infants develop self vs other distinction?

• 18 months - basic understanding

• Repacholi and Gopnik - two plate test

• understanding scaffolded by mother/ primary caregiver

What is the timeline of newborn developmental progression?

Newborns- prefernces dor social stimuli

3 months - social smiling

6 months - joint attention

18 months - concept of self, own desires

30 months - talk about own thoughts

36 months- contrastive speech

50 months - theory of mind