Part 3

Theory of Mind

• 4 or 5: rudimentary but organized set of ideas about people’s behavior

  • Desires and beliefs = motivations for actions

• At 5 understand that people will act on even false beliefs

  • Harder for autistic children

Moral Judgment

• Piaget’s heteronomous morality where young children think rules can’t change and emphasize consequence

• Piaget’s autonomous stage where rules can change and understand importance of motivations

• Piaget = imperfect but foundation

• Kohlberg’s preconventional, conventional, and postconventional = discontinuous stages reflecting cognitive growth

  • Not clear with continuity or across cultures

• Social domains = environmental influences → moral, societal, personal

• Conscience develops slowly

• Parental standards are effective with secure attachments and no abuse of power

  • Temperament relevant

Prosocial Behavior

• Voluntary, intend to benefit another

• Emerge after 1 and increase

  • Individual differences

• Heredity affects empathy and behavior

• Positive relationships and examples from adults → prosocial children

• School-based interventions for cooperation and perspective-taking

Antisocial Behavior

• Aggression starts before 1 and increases

• Physical aggression goes down in preschool

• Elementary school: relational aggression and stealing

• Boys > girls from preschool on

• Early individual differences and conduct problems → later antisocial

• Biological factors

• Social cognition: aggressive children have and assume hostility

• Family issues, stress, and inconsistency

• Antisocial peers…aggressive children often seek them out

• Aggression varies culturally

• Conduct disorder or ODD → severe problems

• Interventions for high-risk schools = social and emotional help

Theory of Mind: Frontal Lobe

• Development drives info processing skills

• Development also related to social cognition

Theory of Mind: Social Cognition

• Role of cognitive processes in social interaction

• Cognitive representations of social info

• Bi-directional influence

• Relevant to social psych

Theory of Mind

The construal of people as psychological beings

• Seeing oneself and others in terms of mental states

Mental States

Intentions/goals, beliefs, desires/preferences

Theory of Mind: Timing of Development

• Piaget: concrete operational stage (7-11) with mountain task as evidence

• Children demonstrate understanding others’ intentions and desires during infancy and toddlerhood

  • Hand reaching

  • Emotional desires

• Different kids understand things at different times

  • Beliefs are difficult

Theory of Mind: Understanding Mental States

• 1. Infants recognize people as distinct from objects

• 2. Understand goals/intentions

Theory of Mind: 3. Recognize diverse desires/preferences

• Repacholi and Gopnik

• 14 month-olds gave experimenter own preferred food

• 18 month-olds gave experimenter her preferred food

• Inhibiting own preference is necessary

• This takes longer

Theory of Mind: 4. Recognize diverse beliefs

• Complex

• Beliefs can be false and do not reflect true reality

• Beliefs about beliefs

False-belief understanding

Demonstrates children’s ability to distinguish minds from the external world

Theory of Mind: False Contents Task

• Box, should have smarties

• Actually pencil

• What does new character think is in the box?

• 3-year-olds: pencils

• 4/5-year-olds: smarties

Theory of Mind: False Location Task

• Sally puts marble in Sally’s basket

• Anne moves to her box when Sally is gone

• Where will Sally look?

• 5-year-olds can recognize her false belief > reality, Sally will look in her basket

• Shift from younger preschool → older preschool / elementary school

Theory of Mind: Limitations of False Belief Tasks

• Wording of question

• Limited short-term memory abilities

• Performance partly due to executive functions

• Looking time implicit tasks with expected and unexpected

  • Looked longer at unexpected, have implicit understanding in infancy

Lying, Prosocial, and Antisocial Behavior: Social Implications of Theory of Mind

• Skills → more socially competent?

• How so?

• Correlational studies

  • Prosocial behavior

  • Interpersonal interaction

  • Peer acceptance and popularity

• Unsure about directionality

Lying Behavior

• Ding et al

• Would theory of mind training change lying likelihood?

• Goal of lying = give someone false belief

• Participants = 3-year-olds without lying tendencies

• Being taught skills increased ability to lie

Prosocial Behavior

• Behaviors performed to benefit others

  • Sharing

  • Helping

  • Comforting

  • Informing

• Clear in children’s everyday life and in labs

  • As young as 14 months

• Some think children are naturally immoral, aggressive, and selfish and need to be taught generosity

• Others think children are naturally kind, fair, and become selfish through development, teaching, or socialization

  • More evidence

• Prosocial behavior is intuitive and early-emerging

• People are happiest after giving to others > self-serving

  • Emotion reinforces behavior

Lying, Prosocial, and Antisocial Behavior: Empathy and Sympathy

• Empathy = experiencing someone else’s emotion

• Sympathy = feeling bad or supportive of someone

• Children experience these

• Learning to regulate and use for good

• Navigating with others

Lying, Prosocial, and Antisocial Behavior: Induction

• Point out effects of misbehavior on others

• Note others’ distress

• Make clear the child caused the distress

• Empathy-based guilt (can be repaired)

• Guilt = adaptive emotion

Lying, Prosocial, and Antisocial Behavior: Aggression

• Classifying by motive

  • Proactive

  • Reactive

• Classifying by form

  • Direct

  • Relational

• Hostile attribution bias

Proactive Aggression

Behaving aggressively to reach specific goal

Reactive Aggression

Response to threat

Direct Aggression

Obvious, overt, physical or yelling

Relational Aggression

Focused on damaging relationships, less obvious and harms reputation and self-esteem

Hostile Attribution Bias

Tendency to see others’ behavior as hostile

• Children with this see accidental behaviors as threats → aggression

Moral Reasoning: Kohlberg’s Theory

• Cognitive developmental theory

• Emphasis on moral reasoning, particularly about moral dilemmas

• Stage theory based on Piaget’s cognitive stages

• Preconventional → conventional → post

• The way an individual reasons about dilemma → stage

  • More important than answer to dilemma

Moral Reasoning: Preconventional Stage

• Punishment and self-interest

• Preoperational stage

• Morality = conformity for self-interest

• Accept rules of authority figures

• Judge actions by consequences

Moral Reasoning: Conventional Stage

• Group norms and harmony

• Concrete operational stage

• Morality = conformity for greater good

• Actively maintain social order

• Ensure positive human relationships

Moral Reasoning: Postconventional Stage

• Universal human rights and ethics

• Formal operational stage

• Morality = abstract principles and values

• Question laws and rules of society

• Seek values that apply across stations and societies

Moral Reasoning: Limitations of Kohlberg’s Theory

• Most adults don’t reach postconventional stage

  • Cultures

• Reasoning is not the same as behavior

• Decisions involve emotions too

• Emotion → judgment → reasoning when faced with dilemmas

Moral Evaluation in Infancy

• “Mean puppet” and “nice puppet”

• Infants prefer to play with “nice”

  • 6 months

• Depends on whether target of helping is similar or different from the infant

  • Snack preferences

  • Enemy of enemy = friend

Self-Concept

• Concrete (physical and behavior) and usually positive

• More about internal and relationships as children age

• More realistic, integrated, abstract, and complex over time

• Imaginary audience and personal fable

Self-Esteem

• Genetics, relationships, attractiveness, academics, and social factors have influence

• Differs cross-culturally

Ethnic and Racial Identity

• Identify self as member of group

• Understand group constancy

• Ethnic-role behaviors

• Learn about group

• Belonging to group

• Family and community have influence

• Adolescent exploration

• Diffused/foreclosed → search/moratorium

• Some will embrace ethnicity/race, some will go towards majority, and some will be bicultural

S*xual Identity

• Special difficulties for LGB children

• Recognition → test and exploration → identity acceptance → identity integration

• Stages can be nonlinear or nonexistent

Developing Self-Awareness: Enduring Self

• Toddlerhood → preschool and elementary

• Maturing of language skills allows children to develop autobiographical memories through conversations with parents

• These memories reflect on self as having a life history

Developing Self-Awareness: Description of Self

• Preschooler (4): physical, external

• Elementary (9): cognitive, emotional, may compare self to others and be more realistic about abilities

Developing Self-Awareness: 3-5 Years

• Observable characteristics

• External factors

• Overly positive

• Typical emotions and attitudes

Developing Self-Awareness: 6-10 Years

• Psychological characteristics and personality

• Internal facts

• Positive and negative

• Social comparison

Self-Esteem

Judgments we make and feelings we have about our own worth

• Whole self or parts of self

Developing Self-Esteem: Children’s Self-Esteem

• Scholastic competence

• Behavioral conduct

• Athletic skills

• Peer likability

• Physical appearance

Developing Self-Esteem: Preschool (3-5)

• Usually rate own ability very high

• High self-esteem adaptive → intitiative

Developing Self-Esteem: Early Elementary School (6-7)

• Decline due to social comparison

• Balances out when children develop personal achievement goals

Promoting Realistic Self-Esteem: Increasing Self-Efficacy

• Adult belief that child is capable

• Effort statements > trait statements

• Learning goals > performance goals

• Important for both succeeding and non-succeeding children

• Growth mindset → less likely to develop learned helplessness

Promoting Realistic Self-Esteem: Encouraging Accurate Perceptions

• Accurate feedback

• Caring feedback

• Parents, teachers, coaches

Gender Cognition and Identity: Children’s Early Awareness

• 3 months: distinguish masculine and feminine faces

• 9-11 months: associate voices and faces

• 2-3 years: categorize unfamiliar children with gender labels

  • Stereotypical appearance cues

Gender Cognition and Identity: Stereotypes

• Toy and activity preferences (2-3)

• Girls like dolls, help mother, cook dinner, clean house (2-3)

• Boys like cars, help father, build things (2-3)

• But when asked “boys, girls, or both” children are a bit more flexible

  • 3-5: saying both 55% of time

  • 6-8: saying both 65% of time

Gender Cognition and Identity: Stereotyping in Play

• Preschoolers associate everything (toys, clothes, jobs) with gender

• Early childhood strengthens these beliefs

  • Don’t want friends who violate stereotypes

  • Don’t want to attend school where violations are allowed

• Even children of intentional parents show this in early childhood

  • Rigid time, cognitive limitations

  • Broader cultural narratives

Gender Cognition and Identity: Gender Segregation in Play

• Preschool: seek own gender

• Boys = rough and tumble

• Girls = verbal

• Rooted in self-identification

  • Trans children will identify with own gender > birth gender

Gender Cognition and Identity: Why Gender is Important to Kids

• Society tells them it’s important

• Using labels every day

Gender Cognition and Identity: Functional Use In Classroom → Stereotyping?

• Hillard and Liben

• 3-5 year-olds in lower salience school

• “High salience condition” with verbal labels and physical dichotomies

• “Low salience condition” with no verbal labels or physical dichotomies

• Shift to increased stereotyping and preferences for high-salience

Gender Cognition and Identity: Gender Schema Theory

• Children’s gendered behavior and expectations are influenced by schemas they have for “boy” and “girl”

• Created based on particular society/culture child is brought up in

• Will move onto interest filter if schema allows certain things

• Identification > birth

• Gender-schematic children emphasize gender as first filter

• Gender aschematic children emphasize interests as first filter

• Gender salience filter overall?

Identity Development in Adolescence and Beyond: Constructing an Identity

• Identity vs role confusion

• NOT identity crisis, more exploration

Marcia’s Identity Statuses: Identity Achievement

• High commitment

• High exploration

Marcia’s Identity Statuses: Identity Moratorium

• Low commitment

• High exploration

Marcia’s Identity Statuses: Identity Foreclosure

• High commitment

• Low exploration

Marcia’s Identity Statuses: Identity Diffusion

• Low commitment

• Low exploration

Identity Development in Adolescence and Beyond: Identity Status and Psychological Well-Being

• Achievement and moratorium are healthy routes to mature self-definition

• Long-term foreclosure and diffusion are maladaptive

• Ruminative moratorium (anxiously obsessing about all possibilities) can also lead to high distress

Family Structure

• Recently: parents are older, more single mothers, smaller families, more cohabitation, divorce, and remarriage

• Adolescent mothers are more likely to be low-income and children are at risk

  • Better if mothers have parenting knowledge and if children have a warm relationship with father

• No evidence for risk for children of same-sex parents

• Hostile and dysfunctional interactions → negative outcomes for children of divorce

• Remarriage can be positive or negative

  • Children do best when all parents are supportive

Family Dynamics

• Socializing children through direct instruction, modeling, and managing experiences

• Discipline emphasizing reasoning > punishments like spanking

• Authoritative balances warmth and control → promotes social competence

• Parenting styles and effects vary across cultures

• Child characteristics influence parenting

• Economic stress → undermines interaction qualities

  • Increases risks for children

• Mothers interact with children more than fathers

• Fathers do more physical play

• Siblings learn from each other, support, and have conflict

• Sibling relationships are most stable when parents treat equally and have good relationships with children

Child Maltreatment

• Puts children at risk for cognitive delays, antisocial behavior, and mental health issues

• Leads to long-term changes in brain structure and functioning

• Neglect = most common form

Family Socioeconomic Context

• Nonviolent > violent across cultures predicting better outcomes

• Economic resources → parenting behaviors → child development

• 15% of children live below poverty line in US → at risk for cognitive and behavioral problems

• Maternal employment has few negative effects if children are in quality, supervised care

• US makes work choices hard due to lack of paid family leave

• Childcare effects depend on child characteristics, relationship with mother, and care quality

Parenting Styles

The combination of parenting behaviors that occur over wide range of situations can be classified into 1 of 4 styles

Central Dimensions of Parenting: Nurturance

• Acceptance

• Sensitivity

• Attention

• Care

• Love

Central Dimensions of Parenting: Discipline/Control

• Expectations

• Rules

• Structure

• Supervision

• Appropriate autonomy

Parenting Styles: Authoritative

• High nurturance

  • Very accepting, caring, loving

  • Positively attentive to child’s life

• Appropriate discipline/control

  • Limits/rules are reasonable

  • Expectations clearly communicated

Parenting Styles: Authoritarian

• Low nurturance

  • Cold

  • High expectations for what child should do and who they should be

• High discipline/control

  • Strict limits/rules and are not negotiable

  • Heavy punishment/force when child does not comply

Parenting Styles: Permissive

• High nurturance (but lack of emotional connection)

  • Accepting, caring, and loving

• Minimal discipline/control

  • No limits on child behavior

  • Allows child complete freedom to make decisions

• May think parenting = no limits set

• May also have a lack of confidence in setting limits

Parenting Styles: Rejecting-Neglecting

• Minimal or no nurturance

  • Inattentive to child

  • Lacking displays of love, care, or emotional support

• No discipline/control

  • Child neglected and ignored

  • Left to raise themselves

• Severe cases = child abuse

Parenting Style Outcomes (WEIRD): Authoritative

• Independent

• Creative

• Self-assured

• Socially skilled

Parenting Style Outcomes (WEIRD): Authoritarian

• Dependent

• Passive

• Conforming

Parenting Style Outcomes (WEIRD): Permissive

• Irresponsible

• Conforming

• Immature

Parenting Style Outcomes (WEIRD): Disengaged

• Impulsive

• Behavior problems

• Early s*x and drugs

Parenting Style Outcomes (WEIRD): Culturally and Critiques

• Likely different

• Variations by culture, ethnicity, and SES

• Different children may fit best with different parenting

  • Ex: More/less structure

• Parents may use different styles when children are different ages

• Each parent may adopt a different style

Parenting Style Outcomes (WEIRD): Agreements

• Consistency = most important

• Provide parenting that matches child’s needs

  • Goodness of fit

• Provide parenting that matches societal conditions

Discipline: Corporal Punishment

• Spanking

• Positive punishment

• Extreme: maltreatment/abuse

• Low levels: can be beneficial and effective

Discipline: Psychological Control

• Withdrawing signals of love

• Negative punishment

• Low levels > extreme

Discipline: Overall

• Should be consistent so children know what to expect

• Developmentally appropriate

  • Understanding what’s typical

• Culturally appropriate

  • White American children don’t do well with corporal because it is often angry and responsive

  • Norm: less reactive for African Americans, calm yet stern and include conversation about why, often due to environments that are risky

  • Psychological control = norm in East Asia, effective

Childhood Maltreatment

• Endangerment to child’s physical or emotional well-being

• Physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or sexual abuse

• Destructive to young child in variety of ways

  • Internalizing vs externalizing problems

• Mental health issues for parent and difficult quality of life → risks

• Children who are difficult or slow-to-warm-up → risk

• Different types of abuse have different effects on brain

• Resilience: some children more or less affected

Changes to Family Systems

• ¼ of kids live with single parent

  • Increasing, harder for them

• Moving away from traditional nuclear family (not necessary)

• More blended families

• Adoption

• Homosexual parents

• Grandparents raising children

• Unmarried parents

Changes to Family Systems: Divorce

• Global studies show children = more at risk for difficulties

• Parental conflict/alienation is the most important factor

  • Alienation from one parents is extremely harmful

• Parents need to regulate emotions and be respectful in co-parenting

• Staying married can be harmful if there is high conflict

Teenage Push for Autonomy: Relations with Parents/Family

• Most happy times = with family, though these are uncommon

• Tension/conflict surrounding push for autonomy

• Initial push: keeping secrets and being distant

• Closeness decreases to 9th grade

  • Decreases slowly for boys after

  • But increases for girls after

Teenage Push for Autonomy: Cultural Similarities

• Keeping some secrets

• Feeling “in-between” child and adult

• Some feelings of love/warmth for caregivers/family

Teenage Push for Autonomy: Cultural Differences

• Not all had push for autonomy

• Not all had emotional conflict

Play

• Voluntary activities, motivation is enjoyment

• Benefits many areas of development

• Social play increases in complexity with age

• Basis for mental health and trauma interventions

Friendships

• Peers often similar in age, sex, race, and behavior

  • Matters less with age

• Even young children prefer some friends > others

• Preschoolers have more complex and cooperative play but also more conflict with friends

• Young children = more about activities

• Older children = more about trust and understanding

  • Self-discipline and intimacy

• Internet and social media → lead to more friends, anonymity and feelings of control

• Friends → positive development, but not when they engage in negative behaviors

• Time with unrelated peers varies across cultures

• Peer group ←→ risky behaviors

• Bullying is common, bullies have power and status while victims struggle

Status in the Peer Group

• Varies based on social behavior and thinking, attractiveness

• Can change over time

• Popular = high in social skills, regulation, and aggression

• Rejected = aggressive or withdrawn

• Neglected = less sociable, less aggressive, and less disrupted

  • Not noticed

• Controversial = characteristics of both popular and rejected

• Similar across cultures but used to be more valued to be quieter in East Asia

Parents’ Role in Children’s Peer Relationships

• Secure attachment → positive behavior and social skills → more liked

• Bidirectional between parents and child

• Positive relationship with parent(s) can be a buffer against negative effects of peer relationships

Peer Acceptance

The extent to which a child is viewed by a group of same-age children as a worthy social partner

• Popular children

• Rejected children

• Relational aggression and popularity are positively correlated, especially for girls

Popular Children

• Do better in school

• Prosocial

• Kids may want to copy / be like them

• Children assume a link to wealth

  • Think they’re mean

Rejected Children: Socially Aggressive

• More likely to be aggressive physically

• More often boys

• Stay stuck in rejection

  • May have hostile attribution

Rejected Children: Socially Withdrawn

• May have social anxiety / lack of confidence

• May not make effort to reach out

• Could be awkward or seem different

• Passive, expecting negative treatment

  • Self-fulfilling prophecy

• Tend to be bullied

Bullying Causes / How to Stop

• More likely to happen if peer group allows it

• Bystanders need to not accept bully

Consequences for Victims of Bullying

• Anxiety, depression, poor self-concept

• Loneliness and powerlessness → can lead to s*idcidal thoughts

• Absenteeism → academic decline

Cyberbullying

• Less research

• Schools may decide it’s not their problem

• Larger audience

• Anonymity

• No immediate consequence

Friendship: With Bullying

• Children need one good friend

• Can be a protective factor

Friendship: Development

• Young children: playing together

  • Even once, very open

• Elementary/Middle School: trust

  • Not obligated like family, choice

Friendship: Benefits

• Protection from home and school issues

• Enhance happiness

• Practice managing emotions and handling conflicts