Chapter 10: Social Cognition

I.                   Social leaning – cognition about social relationships and phenomena; acquiring information from others

A.   Social brain hypothesis:  humans evolved the ability to learn from others, which improved survival and acquisition/transmission of culture

B.   Forms of social learning

1.                 Stimulus (Local) enhancement – notice activity, move closer, finds something to do in the vicinity

2.                 Mimicry – duplication of behavior without understanding its goal

3.                 Emulation (goal emulation) – understand goal and produce action to meet it; may not reproduce actions of model

4.                 Imitative learning – take perspective of model, understand goal, repeat important portions of model’s behavior

5.                 Instructed learning

a.     Requires child learns about the adult’s understanding of a task and how that compares to child’s understanding; child reproduces a behavior in an appropriate context to regulate behavior

b.     Must understand intent of instructor, internalize the instruction, use self-regulation in pursuit of goal

c.      Self-regulation is the hallmark of instructed learning; first seen about age 4

C.   Age differences in social learning

1.                 Neonatal imitation - Meltzoff & Moore challenged Piaget’s timetable for development of imitation, finding that infants could imitate facial gestures

a.     peaks around two months, then declines

b.     possible symbolic explanations

1.                 unlikely due to learning

2.                 Meltzoff & Moore propose active intermodal mapping

3.                 innate releasing mechanism (fixed action pattern) that disappears as more purposeful behaviors are acquired, making it an ontogenetic adaptation, a behavior that has survival value early in development, then disappears when it is no longer needed

c.      may play a role in early social development, promoting social interaction, or serve as a form of communication

2.                 Social learning in infancy beyond the neonatal period

a.     Reciprocal imitation

b.     Piaget suggested imitation of new behavior (true social learning) took place 8-12 months

c.      Deferred imitation

3.                 Young children as imitators and emulators –

a.     Preschool children copy actions of a model, even when some of those actions do not relate to the goal;  appear to be motivated to maintain social interaction

b.     However, children as young as 14 months seem to understand that people have intentions and may be worth copying

c.      Toddlers capable of both imitative learning (emphasize means as well as ends) and emulation (focus on ends only) depending on context

d.     Preschoolers can learn from peers as well as adults

II.                Social cognitive theory – Bandura proposed bi-directional effects between children and their social environment (reciprocal determinism)

A.   Factors involved in observational learning

1.                 Capabilities that contribute to social learning

a.     symbolization – think of social environment in terms of words or other symbols

b.     forethought – ability to anticipate consequences of actions

c.      self-regulation – adhering to acceptable standards of behavior

d.     self-reflection – analyze our own thoughts, actions

e.      vicarious learning – observational learning; cornerstone of Bandura’s theory

2.                 Subprocesses of observational learning (information processing components):  attention, retention, production, motivation

B.   The development of self-efficacy – perceived personal effectiveness in specific domain or for a specific task

III.             Social information processing

A.   Information processing of social content

B.   Dodge suggests five sequential steps of processing:  encoding, interpretation, response search, response evaluation, enactment

C.   Skipping a step produces maladaptive behavior

D.   Dodge demonstrated that children in grades K – 2 who were better processors of social information were better able to execute group entry

E.    Social information processing theory often applied to aggressive behavior

IV.            The development of a concept of self

A.   Self-concept:  definition of self, self awareness; facilitates understanding of others

B.   Early indication - differentiating self from other people, objects

C.   Using preference for novelty paradigm, infants as young as 3 months demonstrate self-recognition

D.   Two types self-concept that develop in first 2 years

1.                 I-self:   distinction between self and others, recognition of ability to cause things to happen

2.                 Me-self:  explicit self awareness

a.     Demonstrated by putting mark on baby’s face and letting baby look in a mirror, self-recognition causes baby to touch mark on self rather than on the “baby in the mirror” (around 15 months)

b.     When using stickers on head and video instead of mirror, younger preschool children don’t reach for sticker

c.      Also demonstrated by embarrassment and use of personal pronouns

E.    Children describe themselves in physical terms, adolescents in psychological, abstract terms

V.               Cognitive bases of gender identity – incorporation of roles and values of one’s gender

A.   Gender constancy

1.                 Development

a.     Kohlberg:  gender constancy is key cognitive accomplishment in understanding gender

b.     Slaby and Frey identified three components to development of gender constancy

c.      gender identify – identify gender of self and others (~2.5 years)

d.     gender stability – gender remains stable over time  (~4-5)

e.      gender consistency – gender remains the same despite changes in appearance (~6-7)

f.       understanding develops first to self, later generalizes to others

2.                 Consequences of gender identify for gender identification

a.     More likely to attend to same-sex model

b.     Avoid gender “inappropriate” toys

B.   Gender schemas – mental structure representing gender-relevant information; influences how gender is processed and used to organize information about sex

1.                 Gender stereotypes

a.     develop in three phases (Age 3-4 years – learn gender-related characteristics; Age 5-7 years – view gender-specific activities are viewed as inflexible; Age 7-adolescence – gender roles become more flexible, then more rigid again during adolescence)

b.     Can be used metaphorically, with some some objects/activities/concepts seen as “male” (e.g. dog, heavy equipment) or “female” (e.g. pink, ships)

c.      Gender script – temporally organized event sequence related to gender; 3.5 year olds were successful at ordering steps in masculine or feminine activity; accuracy increased with age

2.                 Sex typing may be more pronounced in boys than in girls

C.   Gender knowledge and sex-typed behavior:  Possible predispositions

1.                 Early sex-stereotyped toy preference may arise from biological gender differences rather than experience

2.                 Likely an indirect effect, with gender-linked differences in temperament, activity level, etc. predisposing child to certain types of activities

VI.            How “special” is social cognition?