Lecture 7: Self-awareness & Affiliation PDF

Summary

This document details five levels of self-awareness in early life, from confusion to meta-self-awareness. It explores different stages of self-world differentiation and imitation as vital components of social learning.

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**Lecture 7: Self-awareness & affiliation** 5 levels of self-awareness in early life: - Level 0: Confusion - Level 1: differentiation - Level 2: Situation - Level 3: Identification - Level 4: permanence - Level 5: self-conscious or "meta" self-awareness Level 0: confusion × Obliv...

**Lecture 7: Self-awareness & affiliation** 5 levels of self-awareness in early life: - Level 0: Confusion - Level 1: differentiation - Level 2: Situation - Level 3: Identification - Level 4: permanence - Level 5: self-conscious or "meta" self-awareness Level 0: confusion × Oblivious to mirrors or the reflections on the mirrors × Placing a mirror next to a canary à sing courtship songs, seek companionship × Why level "0"? Level 1: Differentiation - × Early self-world differentiation: seen vs. felt - × At birth babies differentiate their body as a "different entity" from others. - × 10-minute old babies: tongue protrusion (Meltzoff & Moore, 1995): - × 10-minute old babies: tongue protrusion (Meltzoff & Moore, 1995) - × Recent studies did not replicate this (Oostenbroek et al., 2016) - × No imitation of other acts - × Babies randomly produced actions, independent of what the adult is modeling. - × 24-hour-old babies differentiate when some touches their cheek vs. when they touch their own cheek (Rochat & Hespos, 1996). Level 2: Situation The "situated self" × How their bodies are situated in relation to other objects in the world. × By 6 weeks, imitation becomes more fine-tuned (Meltzoff & Moore, 1992). × By 2 months, they engage in protoconversations (Trevarthen, 1979). × By 2-4 months of age infants are aware that they can control objects. Level 3: Identification × Birth of "me" in the second-year of life: 18 months × Classic study by Lewis & Brooks-Gunn (1979). × Employed the 'mirror test' (previously used with non-human primates) on infants aged 9-24 months. × Infants had a red mark on their face. × Infants were placed in front of mirror and observed for 90 seconds. Level 3: Identification × 9- to 12-month-olds: did not touch nose. × 15- to 18-month-olds: a minority touched nose. × 21- to 24-month-olds: 70% - 73% touched nose. Level 4: Permanence × Birth of me extending over time after 18 months. × Me-but-not-me dilemma: "Me" as another. × Before age 4: They refer to their image in the mirror or on TV in the 3rd-person. × 3 year-old viewing herself on a TV with a sticker on her forehead: ''It's Jennifer... It's a sticker... But why is she wearing my shirt?'' (Povinelli, 2001, pp. 81). × After age 4: They refer to their image (photo from a different time, different clothes) as "me" and grasp the temporal dimension of self. Level 5: Meta-awareness × Others in mind: Evaluative and the metacognitive self-awareness at age 4-5. × Hold multiple representations and perspectives on objects and people. × Showing "embarrassment" for their image à self-conscious how others might see them. × Corresponds to the developmental period of false belief understanding (theory of mind). Is it universal? Cross-cultural studies: × 18- to 20-month-olds from Greece, Costa Rica, Germany, Cameroon: × Cameroonian children passed the test less than 4%; whereas the rest more than 50% (Keller et al., 2004; 2005). × Only 2 out of 82 18-month-old to 6-year-old Kenyan children responded toward the mark, most of them freezing while staring at their specular image (Broesch et al., 2011). × Why? × Parenting styles ("maternal contingent responsiveness") × Less exposure to mirrors × General lack of expressivity × Confused about what is expected from them. Summary × Most children can recognise themselves in a mirror by around 18 months. × Self-recognition and meta-representation are related to other developmental milestones (e.g. language, pretense). × An understanding that one thing (i.e. a mirror image) can represent something else (i.e. the child). × Different people might represent the same thing differently. Why imitate? × An important form of social learning. × A paradox: × Children imitate selectively × Children imitate faithfully à over-imitation Selective Imitation × 14-month-old children imitate selectively: understanding others' goals and intentions × copy intentional acts and not accidental acts or failed attempts (Carpenter, Akhtar, & Tomasello, 1998; Meltzoff, 1995) × copy the rational acts (Gergely, Bekkering, & Király, 2002) Overimitation × Children also copy slavishly à over-imitation: learn about objects whose causal properties are not immediately obvious × 3-5-year-olds & chimpanzees observed an adult using an unfamiliar puzzle box with opaque walls (so how it worked was not clear). × CHIMPANZEES imitated only the necessary actions, not the unnecessary actions × CHILDREN imitated all actions, including the unnecessary actions Imitate to Affiliate × Social side of imitation: People's dependence on others & need for belonging to a group creates motivations and pressures to imitate. × Learning goals: usually selective × Social goals: usually faithful and conveys social information such as "I am like you", or, at a group level, "I am one of you". × Empathetic responses ("I feel your pain"); competition ("I can do that too"), relative status ("I admire you"); Machiavellian ends to increase one's influence over others × Learning and social goals (Norms): copy the actions of ingroup members (e.g., native speakers) more faithfully than those of the outgroup members. × Social pressures: children might feel pressure to imitate (e.g., making a wrong choice simply because they want to stick with the group (Haun & Tomasello, 2011) How do children respond to the threat of social exclusion? × Being excluded from the group is painful for adults. (Uskul & Over, 2014; Williams et al., 2001) × Adults sometimes respond to exclusion with affiliative behaviors. × How sensitive are young children to ostracism? × Third-party observation × Do children respond with affiliative behaviors? × Imitation Response to ostracism × Children who watched the ostracism videos imitated more (and more faithfully) than children who watched the control videos. × Children are sensitive to social exclusion and modify their social behavior in response to ostracism. × Ostracism elicits affiliative behavior. × They try to affiliate with others through imitation Ostacism and affiliation: Further evidence: Do children draw more affiliative pictures after observing ostracism? Participants: 5-year-olds Response to ostracism × Children in the ostracism condition drew themselves and their friend standing significantly closer together. × Adults rated the drawings in the ostracism condition as more affiliative than the drawings in the control condition. × Drawings in the ostracism condition were more complex. Reputation management To avoid exclusion and ostracism àreputation management As adults, our behavior is modulated by our perception of what others think of us. × We adjust our behavior so that others see us in a positive light. × We are more generous in the presence of others (Ernest-Jones, Nettle &, Bateson, 2011; Haley & Fessler, 2005; see Kelsey, Grossmann, & Vaish, 2018 for 3-year-olds). Audience presence When observed: Children stole less and helped more. When unobserved: Children stole more and helped less. Summary × Children imitate to affiliate × The imitation is selective, when the goal is to learn × The imitation is faithful, when the goal is to convey the messages such as "I want to be like you", "I am one of you" × Children are sensitive to ostracism × Even if it is not them who is being ostracized × Even if it is an inanimate object who is being ostracized. × Witnessing ostracism elicits more affiliative behavior (e.g., more faithful imitation). × Children manage their reputation. × They act in norm-conforming ways more often when they are observed as compared when they are unobserved. Commitment to the group × Children prefer members of their own group to members of other groups (Dunham et al., 2011). × 5- to 8-year-olds predict that their team preferences would not change even if their team lost all their games (James, 2001). × 5-year-olds are loyal to their groups, e.g., keep the secrets of their groups, even when receiving bribes (Misch et al., 2016). Reputation management × The strategic management of reputation requires not only that we care whether people are watching but also who is watching (Banerjee, 2002; Goffman, 1959). × Do children care more about their reputation with potentially important social partners? × Children were more generous when they were observed by an ingroup member than when they were observed by an outgroup member (Engelmann, Over, Hermann, & Tomasello, 2013). General Summary × "I" vs. "The world" × Basic self-awareness around 18-24 months of age. × More sophisticated self-awareness around age 4-5 àmeta-representation (how others see them) × "I" and "We": Seeing the self in the social context × Children imitate to affiliate ("I am one of you") × Children avoid ostracism × Children manage their reputation × "We" vs. "They": Seeing oneself as part of a group × Children are loyal to their groups × They act more generously when observed especially by in-group members **Lecture 8: The importance of play.** **The importance of play** - "Play is essential to development \... so important \... that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child" - Entire preschool curricula are designed around pretend play because of the "unequivocal evidence for \[its\] critical importance" to children's development. **core features of play:** - Flexibility: in different forms and lengths - Positive affect: about having fun - Non-literality: paradoxical literacy - Intrinsic motivation: voluntary. **Types of play:** **Piaget (1932)** × Functional play: when a child repeats motor actions on objects × Construction play: when a child build things × Pretend or symbolic play: when a child substitutes an imagined world for reality. × Games with rules **Functional play:** **Functions about objects:** - Playing to resolve uncertainty - Playing to explore the unexpected - Influence of adult pedagogy (playing to discover the unseen). **Playing to resolve uncertainty:** - Children like to play with new things (novelty preference). But what is something they've already played with that has left them uncertain about how it works -- will they be more motivated to keep playing if they figure it out? **Playing to explore the unexpected:** × Toddlers' play can look very unpredictable × But even toddlers have expectations about the world! × When the world surprises them, do even very young toddlers know what to do to figure out why? **Playing to discover & pedagogy** × Children are naturally curious to discover new things. × But they also pay attention to others who might indicate whether there is something interesting to be discovered. **Pedagogical signals and exploration** × Butler & Markman (2012, 2014): 3- and 4-year-olds × Children learn that this "blicket" is a magnet in 3 conditions: × Accidental condition: E says "Ooops!" × Intentional condition: \-- × Pedagogical condition: "Look watch this" × Children were given 10 inert blickets and some paperclips and were asked to play. × Exploration: Number of attempts Both 4- and 3-yearolds continued to test the magnetic feature of the blicket in the pedagogical condition, but immediately stopped in the accidental condition. In pedagogical condition, something was shared for their benefit. **Playing to discover the unseen: "Pedagogy as a double-edged sword"** Demonstration provides evidence about what causal relationships exist......but also about what relationships do not exist. When the experimenter demonstrated a function within the toy "pedagogically", children did not explore the toy as much. When the experimenter introduced a function within the toy "accidentally", children explored the toy further and discovered more things in the new toy. **Pretend (symbolic) play** × "as if" stance (Garvey, 1990) × Pretense is complex × The pretender intentionally projects an alternative on the present situation (Lillard , 1993). à COUNTERFACTUAL × A group of children collectively "pretend", acting like different people. × Meta-representative and linguistic skills × It is hard to distinguish pretend play from other types of play, e.g., physical play. Plays are infused in one another! × Emerges around the age of 12-15 months and peaks around 3-5 years. **Decontextualization and imagination** × A key aspect of early pretend play is the use of realistic objects. × Over time children become more skilled at decontextualization - using non-realistic objects in pretend play. × By age 3, children display more imaginative behavior - less reliance on props. **Development of pretend play** × 18-month-olds begin to perform individually "pretend" acts such as pretending to eat, drink etc. à individual × By age 2-3, children start engaging in joint pretense with play partners (Harris & Kavanaugh, 1993) à cooperative × when a partner pretends to pour tea into two cups and then to drink from one cup, children say that the one cup is "empty" now and the other still "full of tea". × By age 3, children could coordinate fictional scenarios with others! **Three views** All focus on the relationship between pretense and ToM (mental state attribution) × Rich Account × Lean Account × We-intentionality account **Rich account** Alan Leslie (1987) × Being able to keep reality apart from fiction is a complex ability. × Children are not ego-centric in this ability. By 18-24 months, children also "respond" to others pretend-acts. × They fill-up their empty teacups or wipe off when their pretend tea is spilled. × Children have adult-like meta-representations **Lean account** × Angeline Lillard (1993; 1998): children are behaving-as-if, without really understanding the difference between fiction and reality. × Stories about a character, Moe, from another planet. Moe hopped like a rabbit (the as-if behavior) × Study 1: Moe's behavior lacked the cognitive prerequisite---he did not know about rabbits because they don't exist on his planet (Lillard, 1993). × Study 2: Moe's behavior lacked the intentional prerequisite--- he did not want to hop like a rabbit at all (Lillard, 1998). × Was Moe pretending to be a rabbit or not? × 4- to 5-year-olds said "yes" **Methodological issues** × Confusing: × Verbally demanding, counter-factual thinking. × What does it mean "to hop like a rabbit without wanting to"? × Action-based methodology to investigate the intentional prerequisite with 2- and 3-year-olds (Rakoczy et al., 2004): × Pretending to pour water from a container into a cup. × Condition 1: playful, making water noises × Condition 2: surprise & frustration as if trying to really pour × When it was child's turn to play with the container: × Condition 1: they pretended to pour water. × Condition 2: they tried to pour water and said "I can't do it either" **"We-intentionality"** × Joint pretending is acting in accordance with our "weintentionality" or "shared-intentionality". × We "both" need to pretend X is Y. × Pretend identities: × Green blocks: soap × A puppet joins them and acts × Appropriately: pretends to wash her hands with "soap" × Inappropriately: pretends to eat the "soap" × 2- and 3-year-olds protested the puppet when it performed the inappropriate act. × Around age 2, they understand pretending as a specific form of intentional, non-serious activity. **How crucial is pretend play?** × Lillard et al., (2013) reviewed the work done on pretend play and its relation to development in the past 40 years. × Inconsistent results and methodological issues: × Most studies are correlational. × Nonrandom assignment of children × Experimenter are unmasked -- not blind × Areas of development × Non social aptitudes: Creativity, Intelligence, Problem solving, Reasoning, Conservation × Social aptitudes: Theory of Mind × Symbolic Understanding: Language Development × Self-regulation: Executive function, Emotion Regulation **Non social aptitudes: Intelligence** × IQ tests × Correlational studies: More intelligent children engaged in pretend play more often × Direction of effects is uncertain. × Training studies: Other adult interventions, music interventions raised IQ scores just as much. **Nonsocial aptitudes: Reasoning** × Logical syllogisms: × Dogs live in trees. Rex is a dog. Does Rex live in a tree? × Correct answer: yes but one needs to inhibit their reallife knowledge. × Pretend play might help children to reason about false premises, since they are definitional to pretend play: × One acts as if something false were true. **Social aptitudes: Theory of mind** × False belief understanding requires the same architecture as pretending X is Y. × Through role play children put themselves in someone else's shoes. × Multi-party pretense à pay attention to the roles of others and coordinate roles. × Do children who engage in pretend play perform better in false-belief tasks? × Direction of correlations is unclear × Linguistic abilities may mediate this correlation. **Symbolic Understanding: Language Development** Pretend play, like language, is symbolic. × Children who are more advanced in their play at 1;0 display better language skills at 2;0 (Lilliard et al., 2013). × Some evidence to indicate that play-based interventions affect later language development (Christakis et al., 2007). **Summary: Lillard et al. (2013)** × Play is very important and it is correlated with many important aptitudes in various areas of development (social, non-social, etc.). × Correlational studies × Training studies: × Pretend play has similar effects as other interventions such as music, adult training **Cross-cultural differences?** × Big cultural differences in the attitudes towards "play". × Mayan culture (Gaskins & Goncu, 1992): × Children do not have time to play. Early on they are engaged in chores. × Children do not spend much time with sameage peers, mostly with family members who are older children and adults × Adults do not value play. × Pretend play seems to show same developmental trajectory across cultures (Lillard, 2017). **Summary** × Play provides a very important context to learn and practice various socio-cognitive skills. × Children explore and investigate various "hypotheses" in their functional play (object functions, exploring the unexpected) × Double-edged sword of pedagogy × Pretend play: × Children become skillful pretenders around age 2&3. × It is a very sophisticated socio-cognitive act. × Fiction vs. reality × Requires an understanding of "we-intentionality" **Week 9: Morality** What are social norms? Norms are a form of "social reality" prescribing people act in certain ways in certain contexts (Searle, 1995). - One must or must not do X in context to Y. - As opposed to idiosyncratic behaviors or preferences. Kinds of social norms: Domain Theory: 2 general categories (Killen, 1991; Smetana, 2006; Turiel, 1998) ⋅ Moral norms: concerning the welfare of others evolved from two natural tendencies: 1) People have natural tendency to help one another (Warneken & Tomasello, 2006, 2009). 2) People avoid to harm one another (Nichols, 2004). ⋅ One must help others ⋅ One should not hurt others ⋅ One should not steal ⋅ Conventional norms: do not directly concern the welfare of others and have the following 3 properties (Rakoczy & Schmidt, 2013): ⋅ Rule: In this nursery, blue toys must go into blue boxes. Conventional norms are: 1) Idiosyncratic: what is wrong with putting yellow toys in blue box? 2) Agent-neutral: it is not a rule for one child but all children who go to that school should respect this rule. 3) Context-specific: this rule is only valid in this nursery. A child who does not attend this nursery is not expected to follow this rule. Classic view ⋅ Children are "egocentric", "selfish", "amoral" (Piaget, Kohlberg, Damon) Domain Theory: In Piagetian tradition ⋅ By age 4, children are able to distinguish different "domains" of social norms (Smetana, 2006; Turiel, 1998). ⋅ Interview method: hypothetical scenarios in which people commit norm violations: moral (hitting someone) vs. conventional (eating while standing): ⋅ Is it ok for this child to...? ⋅ If the teacher says it is ok, is it ok for this child to...? ⋅ This child goes to a different school, is it ok for this child to...? Moral norms Conventional norms Unchangeable Changeable Serious Less serious Punishable Less punishable Context-independent Context-dependent Authority-independent Authority-dependent Evidence not consistent with standard view The standard view ⋅ Children begin as amoral agents, eventually bound by rules ⋅ Only gradually begin to reason morally Evidence against Piaget/Kohlberg ⋅ Infants/young children show important precursors to morality: early prosociality ⋅ Even young children show sophisticated understanding of social norms. Two-step model: Tomasello & Vaish (2012): Two key steps in the ONTOGENY of human morality ⋅ Step 1: Second-person morality before age 3 (Preference) "I don't like to see you suffer" "I like to help you" ⋅ Helping, sympathy ⋅ Collaboration and sharing ⋅ Step 2: Preschoolers' norm-based morality (Agent-neutral) "People should not harm others" "People should help each other" ⋅ Enforcement of social norms ⋅ (Guilt and shame) Step One: Second-person morality ⋅ Infancy: 0-12-months: ⋅ Empathy ⋅ Social preferences ⋅ Ages 1-3: More "active" prosociality ⋅ Helping, sympathy ⋅ Collaboration and sharing Empathy: Newborn distress was significantly greater for other babies' cries than for their own recorded crying Social Preferences: "Good" over "Bad" ⋅ Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom (2007): 6- and 10-month old infants prefer "good guys" ("helpers") to "bad guys" ("hinderers"): ⋅ "Helpers" to "Hinderers" ⋅ "Helpers" to "Neutral" objects ⋅ "Neutral" objects to " Hinderers" ⋅ Helpers -- Neutral objects -- Hinderers Methodological differences - Indirect measures are used with younger children (infants): touching one object over another, preferential looking. - Ages 1-3: Active behavioral paradigms (directly dealing with "moral behavior or sentiments") (Helping, sympathy, Collaboration and sharing). Active helping at age 1-2 - Children read the intentions/goals of individuals and determine whether that individual needs help or not. - Children help others to achieve their goals. ("He wants to open the door but his hands are not free"). - When adults are in the exact same situation but make it clear that he is not interested in opening the cabinet, children do not help. (Control conditions) **Motivation for helping: Intrinsic or extrinsic motivation?** - **[Intrinsic motivation:]** One does things because it feels nice and right - **[Extrinsic motivation:]** One does things because of external rewards (e.g., praise, money) Intrinsic or extrinsic motivation? Pupil dilation: indicating distress Adult needs help: - ⋅ "Help" condition: ⋅ The child helps the adult ⋅ children's distress is reduced (reduced pupil dilation) - "No-Help" condition: ⋅ No one helps the adult ⋅ children's distress remained - "Other-help" condition ⋅ Some else helps the adult. Children's distress is reduced (reduced pupil dilation) ⋅ What if the child causes the harm himself and someone else helps the "victim" before the child? ⋅ When they caused the harm, they want to help themselves! Selective helping Will 3-year-olds help one of the following people or a neutral person? ⋅ Harmful person: destroys someone's picture ⋅ Helpful person: helps someone ⋅ Neutral person: does not help or harm anyone ⋅ Intended but failed to harm ⋅ Accidental harm Helping comes naturally ⋅ Early emergence ⋅ Ineffectiveness of encouragement & rewards ⋅ Cross-culturally similar in infants ⋅ Rootedness in sympathetic emotions ⋅ Cognitively flexible "Naturally" ⋅ As opposed to "culturally" (Tomasello, 1999) ⋅ Does not mean independent of social experience, but only not taught or imitated ⋅ And only at early ages; once kids are helping, socialization can then "shape" it Collaboration ⋅ What about children worked together with a peer and earned something together. ⋅ One child gets lucky (e.g., get more rewards than the partner) ⋅ Will children notice the "unfairness"? Will they make things "fair" by sharing? ⋅ Towards Step 2 -- sense of fairness and deservingness emerging ⋅ Seeing my partner as "equal" ⋅ If we put same effort, we should get the same rewards. Collaborating and sharing ⋅ 2- to 3-year-olds ⋅ Unequal distribution of resources: 1 vs. 3 marbles ⋅ Collaboration → Children shared the marbles equally ⋅ Parallel Work → Children did not share the marbles Summary ⋅ Early prosocial morality based on second-personal interactions and relationships \[0-3 years of age\]. ⋅ Helping and concern about other individuals emerges early and comes naturally. ⋅ Children are motivated to collaborate and consider their partners as equal. ⋅ "Natural" morality becomes increasingly flexible. ⋅ Morality begins in dyadic interactions without group norms. ⋅ Second-personal! Two-step model ⋅ Step 2: Preschoolers' norm-based morality (Agent-neutral) "People should not harm others" "People should help each other" ⋅ Enforcement of social norms ⋅ (Guilt and shame) How can full-fledged morality be investigated? ⋅ How do young children make moral judgments? ⋅ Evaluation of an action as right or wrong ⋅ Do children have normative expectations? ⋅ Do they enforce norms on others? ⋅ Do young children appreciate generality of norms? ⋅ Do they enforce norms as an unaffected observer? ⋅ Impersonal perspective ("We/one should do X") Limitations of moral judgment studies ⋅ Interview method relies on verbal ability, hypothetical thinking, counterfactual reasoning. ⋅ Cannot observe young children. ⋅ Is moral judgment enough? ⋅ I might know what is wrong or bad but may not act on this knowledge? ⋅ Moral judgment in action: ⋅ Do children enforce norms on others? ⋅ Do young children appreciate generality of norms? ⋅ Do they enforce norms as an unaffected observer? ⋅ Do they have an impersonal perspective ("One should do X")? Moral judgment in action ⋅ Experimental studies ⋅ How do children react when they witness norm violations? (Rakoczy, Warneken, & Tomasello, 2008). ⋅ 2- and 3-year-olds were taught a novel game called "daxing". Then children witness puppet playing the game wrong. ⋅ 3-year-olds intervened using "normative" language. ⋅ "No you shouldn't do that." ⋅ "No that is not how it goes." ⋅ "One has to put it there." Norm enforcement in peer interactions 3- and 5-year-olds. ⋅ Incompatible condition: conflicting rules ⋅ Child A: Hedgehogs here, ducks there ⋅ Child B: Green ones here, yellow ones there ⋅ Compatible condition: same rules ⋅ Child A: Green ones here, yellow ones there Hedgehogs here, ducks there ⋅ Child B: Hedgehogs here, ducks there Green ones here, yellow ones there Normative Conflict ⋅ Both 3- and 5-year-olds protested and corrected their peers' actions ⋅ "No that is not how it goes. You have to put the yellow ones there" ⋅ It took 3-year-olds much longer to resolve the conflict and agree one a rule than 5-year-olds. ⋅ What the peer is suggesting is a "reasonable" alternative. ⋅ 3-year-olds did not realize that the experimenter was the reason for disagreement. ⋅ The normative understanding gets more flexible in later preschool years. Is norm enforcement universal? Kanngiesser at al., (2021) ⋅ 5- to 8-year-old children from eight highly diverse societies enforced conventional norms (i.e., game rules) when they observed a peer who apparently broke them. ⋅ Germany, Argentina (2 samples), Kenya (2 samples), Namibia, India, Bolivia ⋅ Style of enforcement varied across societies. ⋅ Imperative protest vs normative protest ⋅ Third-party enforcement of conventional norms appears to be a human universal that is expressed in culturally variable ways. Intervention against moral norm violations Property rights: "Mine!" ⋅ Rossano, Rakoczy, & Tomasello (2011): 2- and 3-year-olds. ⋅ An actor took away and threw away objects belonging to ⋅ himself, ⋅ the child ⋅ a third party. ⋅ Both 2- and 3-year-olds protested frequently when their own object was involved. ⋅ Only 3-year-old children stood up for the property rights of a third party So why do children transgress? Possible reasons: 1. Don't know it's wrong (failure of knowledge) 2. Didn't consider that it would hurt someone else (failure of empathy/perspectivetaking/theory of mind) 3. Knew it was wrong or would hurt someone but did it anyway (failure of inhibition) Do other species have norms? ⋅ Understanding of norms ⋅ Social groups of chimpanzees: when there is food in the middle, the dominant chimp eats everything (Melis et al., 2006). ⋅ Is this "routine" a norm? ⋅ Perhaps respect for the alpha male? ⋅ Dominance! ⋅ Subordinate chimps let alpha male to eat everything out of respect but out of fear. ⋅ Chimps do not have this "collective" understanding. **Summary** Contrary to the traditional views, young children are not amoral agents. By age 3, young children display sophisticated understanding of morality. ⋅ - They intervene to third-party norm violations, when they are the observer and unaffected by the transgression - In their interventions they use "normative" protests highlighting "obligation" and "agent-neutrality": - Everybody playing this game has to follow these rules. This agent-neutral understanding of norms paves the way to larger social contracts and social institutions: marriage, laws, etc **Week 10: Theory of Mind.** **What is theory of mind?** - Our everyday understanding of people is mentalistic, we think of people in terms of their goals, beliefs, desires, hopes and feelings. - People act in accordance with their goals and beliefs coherence. - However, mental states are invisible, opaque, and private -- how do children ever learn about the mental states of others? - Theory of mind: proposed to explain this acquisition process and development. **Mental states:** **Goals/intentions and desires** - People act in accordance with their goals - People with different goals would act differently **Understanding perception and knowledge "access"** - Visual perspective taking: can others see what I can see? - Seeing is not necessarily the same thing as knowing. **Beliefs or representations of the world or reality.** - True belief -- correctly represents the reality. - Ignorance -- unaware of the reality. - False belief -- incorrectly represent the reality. - Second-order beliefs -- beliefs about beliefs. **Goals and intentions** - Unsuccessful actions allow us to explore "goals" of agents - Behne, Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello (2005): 6-, 9-, 12-, and 18-month olds - An adult fails to hand infants a toy for different reasons: - Unwilling adult teases the infant or play with the toy herself × Unable adult (tries but) drops the toy so can't give it to the infant. - Only 9-, 12-, and 18-month olds were more "impatient" or "frustrated" (e.g., banging, looking away) in the unwilling condition than unable condition - Infants adapted their responses to different intentional acts of the experimenter. **Desires** - × Children often assume everybody likes what they like (e.g., goldfish crackers) and everybody dislikes what they dislike (e.g., broccoli). - × When the adult expresses that she likes "broccoli"; and she hates "goldfish crackers"... - × Then the adult said, "Can you give me some?" - × Children younger than 2: handed in "gold-fish crackers" (could not perceive how one can like broccoli!) - × Children around age 2: handed in "broccoli" (so they could appreciate people might have different likes and dislikes.) **Perception & knowledge "access"** 12-month-olds (Moll & Tomasello, 2004) - When an experimenter looks behind a barrier and shows excitement "Oh!", 12-month olds walk around to look at what is behind the barrier. 24-month olds (Moll & Tomasello, 2006) - An adult entered the room searching for an object. - Object 1 was out in the open - Object 2 was visible for the child but not to the adult (behind an occluder). - When asked to help the adult find the sought-for object, 24-monthold children handed him Object 2. **Beliefs: True vs. False** - People act on their beliefs. - BUT what they believe may not always correspond to reality: A false belief - I know you are looking for your keys, I know your keys are on the floor, but you don't. And you are looking for your keys in the drawer: "Ah! She must think her keys are in the drawer!" - False-belief tasks assess whether children can recognize that people would have multiple representations of one situation. - Someone thinks something that is not true and children are asked to contrast this "false belief" with "reality". - "A child's understanding that a person has a false-belief -- one that contradicts reality -- provides compelling evidence for appreciating this distinction between mind and world" (Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001, p.655). A variety of tasks have been used, mainly variations on one of two: - Unexpected location task. - Unexpected contents/identity task. **Unexpected location task** **Wimmer and Perner (1983)** - Maxi puts chocolate in the kitchen cupboard and leaves the room. - His mother then moves the chocolate from the cupboard to a drawer. - Where will Maxi look for the chocolate? - 3-year-olds typically answered "the drawer" and acted on how the world is as opposed to understanding that we act on our beliefs and knowledge about the world. - 4- to 5-year-olds answered "the cupboard" Unexpected contents task Experimenters ask children what they believe to be the contents of a box that looks as though it holds a candy called \"Smarties\". After the child guesses (usually) \"Smarties\", it is shown that the box in fact contained pencils. The experimenter then re-closes the box and asks the child what she thinks another person, who has not been shown the true contents of the box, will think is inside. **False belief questions:** If I showed this to your friend, what would he/she think was in here? - 3-year-olds: "pencils" - 4-year-olds: "smarties" What did you think was in here at first? - 3-year-olds: "pencils" - 4-year-olds: "smarties" At age 3, children do not seem to understand that another person could have a false belief about the world. Implicit ToM vs Explicit ToM: - Explicit theory of mind: more conscious tracking of other's mental states measured by standard false belief tasks. For example, interviews with 3-to-5 year olds. - Implicit theory of mind: being able to track others' mental states consciously. For example, with infants, similar stories in false belief tasks are used. Instead of interviews, infants' looking times were measured. Is it "competence" or "performance"? Different models explaining ToM: 1. Conceptual change model Children's early ToM equates to a desire psychology -- a theory of persons based on an initial, simplified understanding of the following internal states: - Goals & intentions - Perception and knowledge access. The development represents a shift from a situation/reality-based to a representation-based understanding of the mind Must explain how children go from believing that belief equates to reality, to believing that belief equates to an internal reality (or representation of reality). 2. Competence model (a critique of conceptual change model). Traditional false belief tasks underestimate young children's abilities because of task demands. - Task complexity: requires verbal ability, memory, attention, counterfactual thinking wording of the questions. - Reason for displacement (deception): salience of the mental states of the protagonist, what if children involved in the story. - Perhaps, it is about executive function: inability to inhibit the knowledge of reality. Wording of the question: Perhaps children thought that the experimenter meant: - Where should Maxi look for his chocolate? - Where will Maxi look for his chocolate? - Where will Maxi look for his chocolate first? - Where does Maxi think his chocolate is? × Where does Maxi say his chocolate is? Deception Provide a reason for the displacement - A hide-and-seek game: The child hides the toy in one of the 4 boxes. If the experimenter cannot find the toy, the child wins - Children younger than age 5 came up with deceptive strategies: false trails! - The adult is going to falsely believe that the toy is in the right box, but actually the toy is another box **Inhibitory Control** **Inhibitory control:** ability to suppress actions or thoughts that are relevant to the task at hand. - False belief tasks requires children to inhibit their knowledge about reality. - This ability develops in preschool years. - When children do not know about the new location of the chocolate but know that it is moved, they can judge who would or would not know about the new location (see Birch & Bloom, 2003). - When Maxi's chocolate is eaten or destroyed rather than "moved to a new location", their performance improves. **Consistent results but...** **In an active behavioural helping paradigm :** - The task was for infants to help an adult achieve his goal -- but to determine that goal, infants had to take into account what the adult believed (i.e., whether or not he falsely believed there was a toy inside a box). - By 18 months of age infants successfully took into account the adult's belief in the process of attempting to determine his goal. False-belief (FB) condition: Adult is outside when the toy is relocated - Children inform him about where the toy is and help him open the box ("He doesn't know where the toy is and he is searching for the toy in the wrong place") True-belief (TB) condition: Adult witnesses the relocation - Children help him open the empty box ("He knows where the toy is so he must want to open the empty box") In both conditions: he is trying to open the empty box Implicit ToM & Implicit false belief tasks with 15-month olds Nonverbal "Violation of expectation" paradigm: looking longer at the surprising scene. **True Belief Condition:** - The actor thinks the toy is in the yellow box. - Toy is in the yellow box. - Children were not surprised and did not look at this scene long. **False Belief condition:** - The actor thinks the toy is in the green box. - Toy is in the yellow box. - Children were surprised and looked at the scene longer. **Conclusion: False-belief tasks** - Some paradigms suggested that when children receive enough scaffolding, their performance improves in the false belief tasks. - However, with some exceptions, the performance of 3-year-olds seems quite unstable and the age difference persists (Wellman et al. 2001). - Therefore, there seems to be a significant developmental change, "a conceptual change" between ages 3 to 5. **Beyond false belief-tasks** Being able to attribute a false belief constitutes a very small part of what it means to understand that we think mentalistically. In this natural interactions they perform "better". We see evidence for this in their spontaneous language (e.g., I thought I saw a cat but it was a dog). There are individual differences. - Correlated with executive function, linguistic skills. - Early family conversation about people's desires predict success in false belief tasks in later age (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995). - Pretend play and ToM (Taylor & Carlson, 1997). - The effect of siblings on ToM (Perner et al.1994). **Is ToM a universal ability?** Are false-belief tasks only suitable for children growing up in WEIRD cultures? - Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic In some cultures, it is against social norms to talk about mental states, it is considered witchcraft. Some languages make more fine-tuned distinctions in mental state verbs than others. Although children might master "mental states" reasoning sooner or later depending on the cultural communities (traditional vs. modern cultures) and the language systems in which they are reared, they all seem to go through the same developmental trajectory in acquiring this ability (Wellman et al., 2001) **Is ToM a uniquely-human ability?** Chimps can understand intentions and goals: Call et al (2004) - Unwilling - Unable **Conclusion: Is ToM a uniquely-human ability?** Primates can perceive others as goal-oriented beings. They are able to track what is visually available to others ("what others know"). - Mostly in competitive settings that revolve around food - In cooperative settings, they are not as skilful. They expect others to act on their false beliefs (implicit ToM). However, in behavioural experiments, they do not display false belief understanding (no evidence yet for explicit ToM. **Summary** - The most common measure of ToM is the false belief task. - Children generally do not pass the task until after 4 years of age, although modifications in the task can sometimes improve performance. - With scaffolding, children's performance can be improved. - The most widely accepted explanation for ToM development is the conceptual shift in children's representational ability. - Multiple factors affect children's ability to pass the test. - The developmental trajectory of ToM seems to be universal - Explicit ToM focusing on false belief understanding is a uniquely human skill.

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