PSY311 Lecture 5: Knowledge of Self & Others

The Self

• Formation of the self and others

  • Who am I? What am I like? Where do I come from? How do I identify

• Knowledge of the self and others is a lifelong developmental process

What are the 2 factors that contribute to the self?

2 key components behind this process of understanding the self and others: Cognitive development & Social experiences

Cognitive Development

• Piaget: Once you get older a teenager reaches formal operations, starts thinking hypothetical, “what if I did this”, “what if I don’t do this”, “what if my parents got married, what if they didn’t”

• Analyzing scenarios and contingencies, enables us to get into greater analysis of what were like, “Would I be the same person if my parents didn’t move to Canada vs. if I was in a communist country”

• Process of cognitive development, as we get older and older think about things in more abstract, hypothetical way that enables us to get deeper and deeper into this process

Social Experiences

• The data that comes in for us to do that cognitive analysis with

• Social experiences are everything a person experiences in life, o to new place, people like you, people don’t like you, do you think people there more pretty than you, get grade on test did you do better than average, social comparison group changes over time, more competitive.

• Social comparison that you compare self to changes over time, in grade school entire population, who is that group, what are the criterias comparing yourself with other people, both social experiences & ability to process info cognitively vert component

  • When go to university, look at applications to graduate programs comparison group is getting more competitive, over time find yourself top of class in grade 1, moving down status, not that anything changed about you bu the group comparing to yourself has

  • Process of social comparison, who is that group, what are the criterias comparing yourself with other people. Social experiences and ability to process that info cognitively important

• Over time based upon cognitive development and social comparison sense of self and others becomes much more complex over time

  • Ex. if ask 4 year old granddaughter tell me about yourself, im a girl, im a princess. If ask us won’t tell us your a girl, talk about what like doing, what character like. Becomes much more complex over time

  • If ask us, won’t tell me you’re a girl or princess talk about more complex things

What is Self-Awareness?

• A social structure which arises through social experiences (Mead, Levis)

  • It’s the fact that we’re aware we exist

2 Important Characteristics of self-awareness: Existential aspect & Categorical aspect of child’s self awareness

(1) Existential aspect

• Existential aspect: refers to feeling of being distinct from all else, possessing continuity over time

  • I’m aware I exist and continuity over time, I’m separate from others around me

  • When a child is first born, based upon baby behaviour see self as centre of the world, omnipotent, I cry people come, I control the world around me

  • Feeling of im separate & have my own will im not the same as my parent

  • Separate entity from everyone else

  • Ex. playing: mother tells kid dw you can play tomorrow, if have continuity will believe it, young child will believe they will never play again

  • Related to self permanence: possess continuity, I know im permanent

  • One aspect of self awareness is the existential aspect, is visual recognition of one self

    • See self in mirror, I know its me, i see myself in a  picture i know its me

    • Great example of existential aspect of one’s self awareness

  
  
  

(2) Categorical aspect of child’s self awareness

• A child’s ability to define themselves in terms of objective categories that other people know (age, sex, size)

  • I’m 2, im 4, my brothers 4 (category, don’t necessarily know what it means)

  • My dad a boy, my mom is a girl

• Understanding categories exist in the world & able to define myself based on these categories

  • Identify with particular categories (sex, size)

  • Size mom and dad big, my sister and I are small. 

  • Categories, categorical self that are part of self awareness

• Self awareness have existential aspect & categorical aspect

  • Existential being aware distinct from other people & have continuity over time

  • Categorical (sex, size, age)

What is the Self-Concept?

• Cognitive aspect of the self: the subjective knowledge we have of ourselves as psychological & physical beings

  • What you think of yourself, do you think your nice or not, tall or not, good student or not, good friend or not, pretty or not

  • Self-concept depends on many things: questions we ask about ourselves depends on culture

  • In canada am i good skater inf Africa won’t think about that at all

  • If come from Blue collar household, won’t think of self as good student or not, might be more about working with hands

  • Some things more standard, universal: psychological features, looks, many things depend on culture & interest in certain things

  • To the Extent if not interested in something, and know not good at it, might make you feel better about yourself. Look down to people interested in something you’re not interested at all, might make you feel better 

  • Evaluating self based on many different categories, some categories more salient, some less, some more or less important to us, universal factors (looks, kindness)

  • Discussion of self, more in individualistic culture, where we focus a lot on ourselves, want to look nice compared to collectivistic cultures of fitting in 

  • Western way of looking at things

    • Determine our values, belief system & emphasis on certain aspects of self rather than other aspects of self

What are characteristics of a self-concept?

Cognitive aspect of the self: the subjective knowledge we have of ourselves as psychological & physical beings

• Our self concept is made up of our subjective knowledge & evaluation of ourselves in many different areas, difficult to compare ones self concept to another unless pick an area thats equally important to all of us

• Self concept is not stable, changes with development of cognition and social experiences

  • Ex. more and more into competitive circles, change about how feel about self, academic self concept, given the process of social comparison with more competitive groups self concept and view of self

• May not be congruent with true self

  • True self is objective evaluation opposed to subjective self. You may have subjective sense of self as university student, i think im a good student or not. Objective evaluation of how good academically, prof can make, have GPA, how grades have increased or decreased over the years, level of difficulty of courses have taken, can put together & come up with objective assessment. That is your true academic self. Evidence based objective not opinionated. Might be inconsistent with academic self concept, may think smarter & doing better than others, or not. Can be incongruent. E.g., Had students with 2.0 thinking better than are, or 4.0 and don’t think they will get into grad school. Incongruency between self concept and true self. Equally incongruent academic subjective self concept, felt performance lower to other people. Two examples of incongruence between ones self concept which is subjective and one’s true self

  • Realistic sense of sense: if you have GPA of 3.5 good student, UTM hard school may not be good to go to Harvard, more accurate true self concept. 

  • People Healthier when subjective self concept and true self are congruent with one another

    • It is what is is, do you know what it is. Its your perception of self actually similar and congruent with the reality. If it is and you accept it, higher level of adjustment and well-being

    • Ones ideal self also tends to be incongruent: this is what i want to be like, academically want to be at 4.0. Ideal at the top but self concept may not be. Depends where place contingencies. Each think about whats important to us. Dont care about sports, dont care if good soccer player, so dont have ideal self in these areas because I don’t care about them. But in areas that do matter, you may have your ideal self. 

• Have 3 different selves

  • Have ideal self (very high), true self might be a bit lower, much lower. Usually not higher than ideal self. Ideal self as high as it goes. Then have subjective self concept. 

  • Can be incongruent, more incongruency the more stress & difficulty this creates.

  •  When look at people healthy psychologically, may have high ideal self, true self lower

    • Better looks, more money, 99% not in top 1%

    • If subjective self and true self lower than that and you’re ok with that, they’re consistent with one another & your ok with that and accept that, then people are well adjusted

• If subjective self and true self lower than ideal self, consistent but ok with that then people in general well adjusted. 

• Creates emotional self

What is the emotional Self?

• Self evaluation normally results in the production of affect

  • Of comparing different selves to one another

  • Emotional self results from that self-evaluation process of comparing these different selves with one another, and that has potential of causing a lot of emotion

What is Self-Esteem?

• An individual’s feelings of his/her own worthiness and competence

• Similar to self concept, self concept may have self concept in many categories, self esteem global evaluation, taking everything together

• If look at self from 0-100, taking everything into account (looks, personality, psychological characteristics, successes, friendships, type of family come from)- take them all together, where are you on that scale

• Like self concept but more global evaluation

• Difficult to come up with true self esteem, how do you combine these many many different areas. Great degree of subjectivity. 

• The ideal self esteem is one very high: one with high self esteem feels good about themselves, doesn’t matter what true self is

  • If highschool dropout, average job average salary, higher self esteem happy life 

• Self esteem can be incongruent with the true self, but very difficult to measure true self

• Not static, but can be so in extreme circumstances

• When take a young child that has been abused, neglected, parents did not respond to them when crying, child developed low self esteem when very young & that's difficult to correct over time. 

  • Critical periods of time in developing attachment and self esteem, if don’t have good self esteem may last life time

  • If constantly told off by parents & teachers: young kid cannot sit still, may have ADHD, constantly told to sit still, bad boy, unless do better life will be a failure, kid brought up like that, becomes apart of their self esteem

  • Self concept im a bad kid, not good at school, people don’t like me, then globally evaluation negative & difficult to overcome. 

What are the Stages of Development of Self-Awareness in the First 2 Years?

0-3 months

• Interest in social objects but no self-other distinction

• Child is interested in things but don’t see any behavioural evidence of distinction

• Don’t see intentionality or will or agency or symmetry or any of these things that indicate that child different entity/person than others

• Child reactive, child observing things, social smiles that are reactive, sense is the self is omnipotent, child is surrounded by interesting things in their life and that child controls whats happening, don’t see any distinctions that suggest to us they may see other people as different from themselves 

3-8 months

• First signs of self-recognition, based on contingency clues, but still tentative and unreliable.

  • Rogue test : paint red dot on nose and question put in front of mirror what do they reach out to, if reach out to the mirror, see entity in mirror separate from them, if reach out to themselves, then they know what see if mirror is themselves, see picture in mirror & recognize its them. When reach out to self awareness, self recognition they exist, leads us to believe they are aware

  • Contingency clues: when touch toes, see someone touching their nose too, withdraw hand from nose and mirror image also withdrawn hand. whatever I do, mirror doing the same in return, what I’m observing contingent on what I am doing

    • Can experiment with that 

    • Might be at baseball game think person on screen is you, so start waving in the air and see someone waving in air on screen, youl’ll know its you, contingent on that

    • Contingency clue to use 

  
  

  • From 3-8 months See child's self recognition only based on contingencies

  • Tentative and unreliable: sometimes see it, other times they don’t, some kids will some won’t, tentative

8-12 months

• Emergence of self-permanence. Recognition of self through contingency. Emergence of feature recognition.

  • We all exist 

  • Recognition of self through contingency pretty established, by 1 year old, contingency established, when look at mirror and have red on it, touch nose, if they don’t may suspect child is missing a milestone. 

• Start seeing the Emergence of feature recognition

  • Feature recognition more difficult, when look at picture of yourself rather than live image do you recognize yourself

  • You will based upon features, i know what i look like (clothes, eyes, hair). Feature cannot experiment in real time need to recognize the features

  • If you take a pic of an infant then show right away a better chance of them recognizing their features in themselves bc identically match features of themselves rn (beige shirt in pic, im wearing beige) A week or month later, a year later. 

    • Start seeing that emerging, last third of the first year 

12-24

• Consolidation of basic self categories (age, gender etc.). Feature recognition without contingency.

  • By time the kid is 2, able to say things like “im 2 im a boy”

  • Child will be able likely to answer these, at 1 wont be able to

  • Feature recognition without contingency: but has to be relatively easy task

• This is a process 

• Topic we can only address in first 2 years of age, not when 12

What are the Developmental Changes in Self-Concept?

Stage 1: From Simple to Differentiated

Younger children form global concepts; older children make finer distinctions and allow for circumstances

• Global concept very young child might have: Overgeneralization of nouns, categories

  • Ex. Im a boy, all boys like trucks, all boys good at sports

  • Im a girl, all girls are princesses
    
    

• Have categorical self, this is how things are, bigger broader principles, child does not understand complexity of the world

• Differentiated within the individual 

• Younger children form global concepts; older children make finer distinctions and allow for circumstances

  • Might be girl i love being princess sometimes i like playing with trucks, might start with global concept girls are princesses and boys like trucks, i usually like being princess, sometimes i like trucks. 

  • Greater differentiation, greater willingness and ability to move on from broader, global concepts that will lead to the self

Stage 2: Inconsistent to Consistent

Younger children are more likely to change their self-evaluation; older children appreciate the stability of the selfconcept.

• Young kid now playing hockey for first time in grade 1, scores a goal set up for them that made it easy from them, kid saying im going to NHL, next time they fail have temper tantrum and say never playing again. Young kids have constant up and downs of how see themselves based on social experiences have had, their cognitive analysis. Poor analysis if each time experience changes evaluation of self

  • Little consistency, constantly change self evaluation as information comes in

• As get older less likely to change evaluation 

  • If straight A student, get C on test may be upset, depressed for an hour, self-doubt of that areas but if healthy in general, not going to ruin overall self evaluation

  • May rationally think about why didn’t this happen (did I not understand the material),  not change whole perspective of how you see yourself

  • Older children like that stability: life better when have stable self concept and when our emotions aren’t up and down.

Stage 3: Concrete to Abstract

Younger children focus on external, visible, physical aspects; older children focus on internal, invisible, psychological aspects

• Young kid talk about im strong, im big, i like blue, im a boy, physical, external aspects, objective aspects that are easy to identify. 

• Older children: western type of view

  • When a teen talk about these features compared to objective categorical types (personality, music you like, friends you have, how spend time)

  • Gradually if relationship gets closer, might be about deeper things, intro vs. extro, fears, relationship with parents, etc

• Move from more concrete to more abstract 

• Categories focus on more abstract over time

Stage 4: Absolute to Comparative

Younger children focus on self without reference to others; older children describe themselves in comparison with others.

• Over time social experiences become meaningful, learn more from social experiences

• 6 yr old who scored for first time, going to NHL no comparison with other kids their age, its “ i scored a goal im going” But world competitive & comparative, not learning 

• Overtime learn from social experiences

• Process of coming to understand the social world is difficult, complex many components to it 

Stage 5: Self as public to Self as Private

Younger children do not distinguish between private feelings & public behaviour; older children consider private self as true self

• Lack of awareness of what it means to be decent person, how to behave in person (e.g. kid tells someone they are fat) 

• When define self “who am i? “, based upon what im like in private vs. public sense

• E.g., people who really know prof is parents, family, siblings, how how silly and inappropriate, but at school have to maintain professional editor

  • Difference between own feelings & intentions & understand these cannot be displayed publicly 

  • Who am I? Best way to define myself is based upon what I’m like in my own private type of space, ratchet than public sense

• Self concept more complex over time

  • Have self consent in professional life, which is different from self concept from private life, which might be different in different types of scenarios

  • Depending on what friend group with, that are very different from each other, be different with different people, different self concept about who I am

What are the different components of self Esteem according to CooperSmith? (4)

4 key factors that contribute to self esteem & self concept

Significance

• How much is a person loved and approved by others 

  • A kid loved by others, approved by others will likely develop to have a higher self-esteem

  • Needs to be unconditional, no conditional love, parents always love no matter what they do

• Show significance by physical warmth, time spent with child, showing belief in the child, showing care in the child, enjoying time with child

• Not just childhood thing but also as adult if feels significant about people around them, feel more significant and better about self, higher self esteem

Competence

• How well does a person perform tasks he or she considers to be important

  • Competent people have higher self esteem

  • Want to be good student & you are good student = higher SE, want to be good student but not = lower SE

• What are the standards? 

• Are the standards unrealistic? If theres a clinical psych program 800 applicants want 5, unrealistic statically speaking to even want to go there, don’t feel like failure, if feel competent or not based on whether you succeeded in a task that was unrealistic, thats problematic

• Important the tasks we have, that expectations are realistic. Often use the word “scaffolding” always be a little ahead/above child not too much, too much the child won’t try, keep raising bar slowly, gradually lifting them up,each time achieve little tasks

• Competence important but parent & teachers have to be skilled to have realistic (not low, realistic expectations) of the child, achieve with effort but effort consistent with that can do

Virtue

• To what extent does a person feel he or she has attained the expected moral standards of their culture

  • Brofensbergger when kid small and learning to eat at home (2 yrs) mom and dad have expectations, are you able to fulfill mom and dad expectations, if you do feel good about yourself, if don’t, don't feel good about it

  • E.g., if parents say don’t play with milk, and drop it. Granddaughter cries hysterically not because milk spilled but reaction of parents, parents warned her, parents gentle, continuous letting her play but natural consequence of her own actions

  • You don’t like broccoli, if eat it get ice cream afterwards, child overcome fears & dislikes, do whats expected of them, by whats available, feel good about themselves, they achieved something, they’re competent

    • Get virtue, competence and significance. Mom and dad proud of you 

Power

• How well and to what extent can a person control him/herself and his/her influence on others

  • If powerful, do things want to do, people powerful able to do things want (physically, psychologically) thats good, when speak up people listen to you

  • Power goes in other areas too

  • Power goes into areas like Self control, if someone teases you are you able not to react, if that'll cause you trouble 

    • Someone makes fun of hair want to punch them in the face, know get thrown out, no tolerance for violence. If don't have power, you get into trouble, no control over own behaviour, over outcomes I experience

    • Power might get back on my own life, off school yard, have power to control their behaviour, not be pushed, have control over their own behaviour, have power to control their behaviour

• Kids/people that have all of that higher self esteem 

How do we foster self esteem in children?

Keep your own self-esteem high.

• Kids learn vicariously, they learn from observation

• Imagine type of parent that's always happy, competent when around other people but when get off phone not kid blame self

• If on phone then got off and nagging kid, kid will think its them, low self esteem

• When happy person, confident person, competent person when you’re around other people, when you’re around me, you’re not, what does that say about me? Kids tend to blame themselves, kids tend to blame themselves first

• Keep own self as being high when around kids

Communicate concern and interest with children.

• When kid comes from from school 9-4, thats there whole life, more time there than with you. You come home from work and have your own things from your own day. They dont know, they dont care, they dont have any capacity to be part of your life. Your the parent, they want you to listen to their stories and understand what their life was like during the day 

• Important to be there and interested that we show interest in what they do

Engage in joint activities. 

• Doing dishes, incorporate child into that activity, activity won’t be able to be successful on own, with you able to take part in success, by doing that able to be part of 4 different categories (significance, power, virtue, etc) part of parent success story

Use reinforcement rather than punishment to reinforce rules. 

• If you do such and such things will happen (reinforcement), positive reinforcement if do something good, give something in return. 

• Punishment opposite if you dont do something else, i will give you punishment and take something away as punishment

  • E.g., reinforcement: if eat broccoli get icecream

  • if won’t eat broccoli won’t get icecream

  • Parent conveying expectation, trust you will and know you are a good kid, prepared in advance knowing its difficult you will do the right thing

    • Trust you will do the right thing

  • Punishment know you will fail, purposely put together scheme to tech you a lesson

  • Hear very different message 

  • Positive reinforcement does not always work

    • Start with reinforcement, kindness, at some point draw line

    • If trying to get 3 year old overtired to go to bed, need to take control of situation, physically address them and put them into bed

    • Never start with that, start with reinforcement, some point have to go to another extreme 

  
  Encourage self-reliance and independent behaviour tempered with protection from too much pressure.

  • Protection from too much pressure 4 year old expected to get 2 year old ready for daycare, don’t want to do that, need to have expectation, not baby them, but don’t put too much pressure

  • People feel better about themselves when overcame challenges 

  • Not taking over for children won’t have ability to do on own

  • Put on shoes, mom will tie them

Knowledge of Others

• Learning to understand others is similar in some respects to learning to understanding oneself.

  • Depends on cognitive development & social experiences, not clear which occurs first

  • Differentiation between self and others is a long process 

  • Not sure its even a good question to ask which comes first, they very much happen

  • Happen at some time-opinion 

• It is unclear which occurs first but the differentiation of self from others is a long process. 

• Children develop both a sense of self and of others through experiencing relationships. (Bowlby, attachment theory)

  • Learn more about self & other people through relationships with others

  • Romantic relationships learn aspects of self you never knew before

  • Tell us things about self wouldn't know otherwise about ourselves

• Young children already have some capacity to understand that other people have their own feelings. 

  • Key time see that is through observing child showing first signs of empathy, during infancy but continue on throughout childhood

  • First opportunity have to think about notion possible the child may understand other people have own feelings

    • First signs of empathy: cry when another baby cries, they are not hurt, they are ok, see in daycare

    • First sign child able to feel, not self-awareness necessarily, not rational ability, but know what its like when im crying, perhaps kid crying feels how I feel when Im crying 

• Conversations help young children develop an understanding of why other people behave the way they do.

  • More complex over time, but help child understand things & move away from subjective way of looking at world to broader way of looking at world

  • Ex. standing in line someone pushes you, 3-4yrs old, tell parents had bad day, johnny pushed me, i hate johnny. 

    • They know johnny is a good kid & you are good friends, kids perception of another persons behaviour, now mom & dad there and come up with other possibilities, maybe someone pushed johnny and if pushed johnny

    • Got child to understand this is how other people behave, blame not that obvious/apparent, think more deeply 

    • Parents need to be patient, gentle conversation, recognizing child's distress and feelings, taking time to problem solve, understand what happened

    • Not dismissal 

    • Child who has these conversations with parents on regular basis will develop better social skills, develop better understanding of people around it

What is Theory of Mind?

• Enables children to explain people’s actions (observable) by suggesting possible reasons (unobservable).

  • Might observe a kid crying (observable), but do you know why crying (unobservable). Hurt, manipulative, sad?

  • Understanding of the other, important milestone

• Develops around 3-5 years old and becomes increasingly complex with age.

  • Well developed TOM understand other persons manipulative, criminal behaviour, more complex over time

• May also assist in the explanation of emotions

  • Sadness

  • By providing suggesting possible reasons for things one can observe

  • Kid crying, why?

  • Once TOM established key sign child has achieved milestone understanding to other people, and how other people think & feel

• Requires self awareness, the capacity of pretense and the ability to distinguish reality from pretense

  • Self awareness how would i feel, what would i do? I like marbles, if i came into room would I borrow them and play with them? Do I have that awareness? Do I understand my own drives, how i behave, how i act on those drives?

  • Many people do not have self awareness, even adults

  • To have TOM if don't understand self and motivates hard for you to understand others, why sense understanding of self and others happens at same time

• Requires ability to distinguish reality from pretense:

  • Ex. kid crawling like dog, pretend-game, as pretend-pretending to be someone or something else, learning about how other entity behave. Important activity in terms of understanding what that someone or something else is. At the beginning, young children cannot distinguish well between reality and kids. so when mom calls for dinner, say no im a dog i want to eat on floor. Parents dont feed kid on floor

  • Dont have ability, show potential but no ability to go back and forth 

  
  

  • Young children play pretend games, cannot establish reality from pretend: temper tantrum

  • Show pretense but don’t have ability to go back and forth

• When child has that do better on TOM tasks

  • For e.g., Sally Anne task may have Anne and dog, does child understand Anne may steal marble but the dog wouldn't, how dog & human different from each other  

  • If able to distinguish between that, shows the child can understand how the other dog vs. the other human are actually different from each other

What is the False-Belief (Sally Anne) Task?

• Sally has a basket, anne had a box. Sally has a marble and puts it into her basket. Sally goes out for a walk, Anne takes the marble out the basket and puts it into the box. Now Sally comes back and wants to play with her marble, where will she look for her marble? 

• Depending on answer, gives understanding based on answer if does child understand what another kids motives might be?

• There like Sally likes playing with marbles do does Anne like playing with marbles

• Does kid testing understand that im Julie i like marbles, and so do Sally and Anne 

• Generalize behavioral pattern to other people

• If Julie says Sally will look in the basket, she won’t find it. Then say if don’t find in basket where will they look? 

  • If kid doesnt say anything, not successed, hasn’t developed TOM

  • Child who says basket first then box: has TOM, understanding of how other people may behave

    • Kids who go to daycare will get task before, at earlier age than kids that don’t go to daycare, because they will have had much better opportunity to observe the behaviours of other kids their age, compared to if they were raised alone in their family home

• See kids as young as 3 years developing TOM

  • 3-5 depends upon genetic factors, environmental degree to which exposed to other kids & learning about their/others behaviours

  • Healthy for kids to be exposed to other kids their age

  • Kids exclusively raised by mom,  that one day go grade one, after they go to classroom where most of the kids were SK and perhaps JK and daycare, these other kids have much more developed social skills than these kids have on other things like false belief much more developed, in false belief then kids raised alone with mom

What does it enable? 

• Enables children to explain peoples actions, which are observable by suggesting possible reasons which are unobservable 

  • Observe kid crying (observable), but why crying (unobservable) 

  • Important milestone that shows they have understanding of others

• Task more complex, not just about whether marble was taken

• If have a well developed TOM, may be able to understand not the persons manipulative behaviour, criminal behaviour, behaviour that they had certain motives that they try to prevent other people from understanding 

• Understanding of others becomes more and more complex over time

  • You see a kid crying, can you come up with different reasons as to why they are crying? 

  • Once TOM established around 3-5, sign child achieved milestone that they have some understanding about other peoples behaviour & how other people think it feels

The Development of Social Cognition

• How individual conceptualize & reason about social world

  • Social cognition how we think about social situations, how make analyses about social situations we’re in

• Refers to how individuals conceptualize and reason about social world

  • Conceptualize and reason about Ourselves, conceptualize people interact with, relationships we have

  • Why did my friend ghost me? Do you have self awareness or their issue. What did I do that resulted that or did this happen because of something im responsible for? Observable ghosted, unobservable don’t know why

  • Cognitive analyses of social situations & dealing with it

• We use heuristics: mental cognitive short cuts when make these judgments

  • Walking on the beach see two people with tshirts and jeans walking from the back, one has long hair, one has short. Mental shortcut will be that short hair guy, long hair girl

  • Might both me girls, might both be guys

  • Prone to error, more invest into perception, lower likelihood there will be error 

  • Use these a lot, tradeoff positive in terms of accuracy

  • More invest into perception, lower likelihood is that there will be error. The less you invest in them, the higher likelihood is that there will be error. Trade-off. 

  • Use these trade off positive in terms of accuracy

• Big questions are

  • How does kid gradually over time progress? How does social cognition develop

    • Based upon Piaget's work, what tasks use to evaluate their cognitive development (famous conversation task), measure whether child has moved from one stage to another cognitively

    • How do we do that in social cognition? 

      • 2 key areas this has been studies

        • Content

        • Structure

What are the components of the development of social cognition?

Content

• Shift from physical and material aspects to more psychological descriptions of self, others, and relationships.

  • As they get older and older, what are they talking about, in terms of making judgement, social situations around them

• Shift from physical and material aspects to more psychological descriptions itself, others and relationships

  • As kid gets older & older type of things talk about less physical more psychological, more hypothetical, less objective, less trivial and obvious

  • See gradual shift toward more psychological attributions

Structure

• Complexity, sophistication, integration

• More difficult

• What kind of Piajet task do we use to understand something like Sally Anne task?

  • What gets a child to understand that another child will also want to play with a toy? 

  • We have not been successful, difficult to demand particular shifts in the quality of social reasoning 

  • Understanding social situations much more complex than that

  • Research is descriptive and does not address how children progress from stage or stage. Thats the issue with stage theories

Inconsistent Findings because…

• It is difficult to define particular shifts in the quality of social reasoning.

• Research is often descriptive and does not address how children progress from stage to stage

  • Look at the different stages but not process from one stage to another. 

• Talking about Complexity, sophistication, integration

• Use Piaget tasks to understand what's going on

• Most part not successful, hard to define particular shifts, will see or not look for marble? 

• Development of social cognition, cognitive development about social situation

• Way learn to understand ourselves and others depends upon cognitive depending, and social experiences we have

• 3-5 TOM milestone did kid achieve it or not? 

  • Whether or not they achieved the ability to understand that another person might think differently or that another person might have their own way of doing things that might similar or not to ours

  • Developing stage theory or contributing social cognition addendum to Piaget theory of cognitive development don’t have that 

    • Structure, content 

    • Structure cannot design tasks when we look at simple matters of cognition

    • Gradually over lifetime better understanding of ourselves and of other people 

Selman’s Work on Perspective Taking

• Provided a detailed account of the development of the understanding that several perspectives can simultaneously exist and that different or same people may have different perspectives

  • Different perspective from me or two perspectives that simultaneously exists

  • Not always the case of right and wrong 

  • More than one perspective can exist simultaneously both within an individual or between individuals 

• Able to understand multiple perspectives & how exist at the same time

• Came up with vignettes, stories, reading these stories to individuals of different ages, to kids of different ages and asking them questions about these stories and based upon the answers to these questions, which were transcribed (recorded), how score them based on different levels of perspective taking describes

Example of Selman’s Perspective Taking

• “Holly is an eight year old girl who likes to climb trees. She is the best tree climber in her neighborhood. One day while climbing down from a tall tree, she falls...but does not hurt herself. Her father sees her fall. He is upset and asks her to promise not to climb trees anymore. Holly promises”

• “Later that day, Holly and her friends meet Shawn. Shawn’s kitten is caught in a tree and can’t get down. Something has to be done right away or the kitten may fall. Holly is the only one who climbs trees well enough to reach the kitten and get it down, but she remembers her promise to her father”

• Moral dilemma, there's different people in story each with a different perspective

  • Dad wants daughter to be safe, Holly wants to be a good friend to Shawn, Shawn wants kitten saved, deeper moral principles about listening to parents and being respectful to parents

  • Can simultaneously exist

Questions Researchers asks: 

• Does Holly know how Shawn feels about the kitten?

  • Child asked this, might have their own opinion but asked whether they understand different perspectives exist, does Holly understand Shawn's perspective. 

• How will Holly’s father feel if he finds out she climbed the tree?

  • Asking child about what someone else might feel

• What does Holly think her father will do if he finds out she climbed the tree? 

• What would you do in this situation?

  • Comparison/contrast between Holly, Shawn, the father and kid being interviewed, try to look at consistencies and inconsistencies, see whether child is able to understand the tension between these different perspectives and that each of these 3 have their own view and child who's been interviewed may as well

  • Once these questions are asked, the interviewer probes more deeply into it, ask questions to make sure get down to the bottom of what the questions are all about 

  • Too advanced, TOM 3 year olds, enable us to understand what happens after TOM has developed. 

What is Interpersonal Negotiation? What are the Different Stages?

• Overlap between the stages 

Stage 0

• 3-6 

• Egocentric viewpoint

• Only one perspective

• No evidence whatsoever of being able to assume multiple perspectives, there's only one perspective in mind

• What should happen? Holly save cat, why because she would, what about her dad being angry? Doesn't matter she would save cat

  • Everything goes back to that one perspective 

Stage 1

• 5-9

• Recognition, but cannot relate perspectives to each other

• Get something like Dad doesn't want her to get hurt but she should still climb the tree

  • Another perspective, recognition of a different perspective BUT the But doesn't infer there is a comparison between the two, but seen as a dismissal of one perspective 

  • 2 perspective but dismissal but, there is right and wrong, cannot coexist

  • More than one perspective but “but” dismissal but, that two perspectives cannot coexist, there is a right and wrong 

Stage 2

• 7-12 

• Can reflect on another person’s point of view, but still not consider both at the same time

  • Gradually, the child more abstract thought, greater ability to answer questions

  • More abstract thought, greater ability to answer questions like “what if” 

  • E.g., reflection like “I understand dad doesn't want Holly to get hurt, and therefore doesn't want her to climb tree but she should climb the tree to get the cat” 

  • Here we get reflection on it, understand dad doesnt want her to climb the tree bc might get hurt, not complete consideration of the two, no simultaneous consideration (key consideration)

  • Reflection, theres no simultaneous consideration, key difference

  • Greater understanding of merit of other perspective 
    
    

Stage 3

• 10-15

• Get simultaneous consideration

  • Hear things like: On one hand dad doesnt hurt her to get hurt, on the other hand she is a good friend, tough situation, given both i think this should happen

  • OR add something like: If tree not too tall should climb, if super tall shouldn't reflection on both, validation, might add new information to help determine how to make that decision 

  • Recognition, validation of both perspectives, reflection on both perspectives, child sitting on the fence, but might add new information in order to help determine how to make that decision

  • So that tells us considering both perspectives, don't care about answer but whether they considered both simultaneous consideration

Stage 4

• 12+

• Comparison can be made with societal points of view

  • E.g., life matters more than anything else, worth taking risks to save lives

  • Saving cats life, Holly should do it, after providing the different perspectives

  • Life matters very much, human life matters more than an animals, not risk human life to save an animals life

  • Broader societal view provided after the conditions were made for simultaneous considerations 

• According to Soloman people progress in these stages, these stages represent an understanding of complexities of the world, understanding of the fact that given its complexities, different people may have different perspectives & the same person may have different perspectives within them too

• A mature way of looking at that is understanding the different perspectives, considering them all simultaneously with one another, choosing one but the choice will be arbitrary

  • Based upon deeper, broader societal principles 

  • Highest level of perspective taking when simultaneously consider the different perspectives that exist before making your decisions

• Longitudinal, repeated measure, seen before, when advanced later may have greater level of perspective taking but also saw before and had chance to think about it

  • Give them another dilemma 

What are some Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies (INS)?

• A developmental trend from concrete to abstract descriptive style

  • Knowledge of self, knowledge of others, the way the child describes themselves, often, moves from physical to more abstract, overtime more psychological, relational, how people get along with one another, and connect with one another

• Increasing ability to consider more perspectives simultaneously

• Pratt and colleagues showed that parents use scaffolding to teach their children perspective taking skills

  • Wanted to study process of how parents help children develop perspective taking, does this happen on their own? Like we gradually grow like puberty , part of maturational process, hereditary structure of all of that, keep on growing. How does it happen, does that happen in same kind or way? Or does that relate a lot to how were brought up?

  • To what extent does parenting matter, the environment matter
    
    

• Went into family homes with teenagers, did a dilemma once with the teenager on their own, dilemma once with parents on their own. Scores them on perspective taking, 0,1,2,3,4,

• Had a score for teens alone and  parents alone

  • Parents score higher

• Then brought parents and teens together, and had them talk about it. Gave different dilemma had them talk about it

  • Calculated score for parents separately, child separately while talking to each other about dilemma

• 4 scores Parent alone, parent when talking to teenager, teenager alone and teenager when talking to parent together

  • Highest score parent on own, lowest with teenager alone

  • Parent talking to kid, in middle on higher end. 

  • Why was the parent higher alone vs. with the kid? 

    • Parent broke it down a bit, used scaffolding, lowered their level a bit to be closer to teenagers level so teenager will be able to understand what the parent is talking about 

    • Go a bit above, so gap relatively small, what tell them will be accessible, then gradually pick it up

    • The parent level a bit lower when with the kid, kid level higher than when they were on their own

    • As evidence that scaffolding was expected

    • Parents make big difference in conversations with their children

    • E.g., kid pushed and go to parent know kid best friend and kid wouldn't do it. Conversations with the parents that often help that child gain broader understanding of the world, experiences they have around them, that help them or lead to better understanding, that multiple perspectives about the same thing that exist 

    • Evidence that scaffolding one mechanism used in order to help kids develop perspectives 

    • When look at perspective taking easy to show, when kids taught about these types of coplex thing, how life works, how people get along with one another, makes huge difference in kids life

  
  

  • Many parents feel kid teenager they dont wanna hang with parents, parenting job not done at all, these conversations are exceptionally meaningful for kids

    • Yell, scream, disagree, parent fool to think that if they have a conversation like this about something like that that happened to the kid, and they provide the kid a different perspective that they don’t want to listen to

    • If parent loving enough and strong enough willing to have conforntal perspectives, overtime child more likely to get down to here 

    • Better life, better relationships 

  
  

  • Overtime more psychological, relational