1. Social Cognition & Social Behavior
PSYC 524

2. Behaviors and mental states
Behavior is not simply a matter of events from the outside world but the product of outside events being processed through people’s minds. Actions are rooted in internal mental states.

3. Social Cognitive Development
Social cognition
An understanding of the social world
Cognitive models of social behavior
Social origins of cognition
How children think about people, and of developmental changes in such thinking

4. Inferences
Want
Like
Think 4

5. Theory of Mind Folk psyhcology approach to day-to-day interaction
Why we do what we do.
Process we make sense out of the world around us. 5

6. Cognitive Theories of Social Behavior: Theory of Mind (ToM)
“ability to represent other people’s mental states such as thoughts, beliefs, and desires”
there is a single reality and people may have different representations of that reality
A set of explicit and interconnected concepts for representing representational states

7. ToM Measures Unexpected Contents Task Show Smarties box:
“What’s inside this box?”
(control question)
Following the answer, open the box, show there is a pencil in it.
Put the pencil back inside the box, close it. 7

8. Unexpected Contents Task
“X has not seen inside this box.
Now I’m going to invite her into the room and show her the box all closed up like this, in the same way I showed you. Then, I’ll ask what’s inside the box.
What will X think is in the box?” (Think Question) 8

9. 9 9

10. 10

11. Theory of Mind There is a single reality.
People may have different representations.
Some representations can be false.
False representations can be induced
deception 11

12. Cognitive Theories of Social Behavior: ToM
People may have different representations of reality
False belief: how someone comes to have a mistaken belief about something
Deception: requires representing deceived person’s false belief
Appearance-reality
Pretense

13. Confusing Appearance and Reality
Young children may often confuse appearance and reality

14. Appearance-reality tasks
Flavell’s
Sponge-Rock task:
showed a sponge which looked like a rock

15. Appearance-reality tasks
Flavell’s Sponge-Rock task: showed a sponge which looked like a rock
Once children discover that the rock is really a sponge by touching it, they insist that it not only feels like a sponge but also looks like a sponge.
The ability to understand that appearance and reality might be different: causing 2 different mental representations

16. Growth of the ability to understand
a sponge is not a rock, though it looks like one
Age (years)
Task demands: When measures include familiar and meaningful tasks for young children, they are more likely to show what they know

17. Theory of Mind (ToM) Theory of Mind Understanding appearence-reality
Understanding false belief
Understanding deception
Age 2: child is able to distinguish between own and other’s desires.
E.g., chocolate cake (self) vs. orange cake (story character)
Age 4: child has a mature understanding of the mind 17

18. Theory of Mind (ToM) Carlson & Moses (2001):
4-year-olds tend to outperform 3-year-olds on ToM tasks.
There was a significant age difference for each of the ToM tasks (false belief: p < .001, appearance-reality: p < .05.)
Theory of Mind Tasks
3-Year-Olds
(n=62)
4-Year-Olds
(n=45)
Overall Average
(n= 107)
Age Differences
(Pearson chi- square)
False Belief
10%
49%
26%
20.8***
Appearance-Reality
47%
69%
56%
5.2*
Table. Percentage of Children Who Passed Theory-of-Mind Items as a Function of Age.

19. Theory of Mind Associated with crucial gains
Child can negotiate social interactions by
taking the perspective of others
anticipating others’ intentions
understanding their needs.
Delays or deficits are related to impairments in the initiation and maintenance of social relations.
Research on children with autism

20. Universality of ToM and Language
Avis and Harris (1991): 2-6-years-old Baka children, who lived in the rain forests of southeast Cameroon.
Similar to findings reported for Western children, false belief understanding of Baka children displayed a significant development between 3 and 5 years of age.
This was the first study carried out with children growing up in a preliterate society with a hunter-gatherer life-style and with no school experience. Thus, it provided a strong support for the universality claim about ToM development. 20

21. Universality of ToM and Language
Vinden (1996): cultures without explicit mentalistic vocabulary
Junin Quechua children had an earlier understanding of appearance-reality distinction than of false belief.
Performance on different tasks varies: While the understanding of the appearance-reality distinction improved with age, even children over 6 years of age performed poorly in tasks of false belief.
In Western children, understanding false belief and appearance-reality distinctions tends to display parallelism in development and both abilities increase significantly from 3 to 5 years of age.
suggested that abilities requiring the ability to represent may develop differently across cultures and this may be related to linguistic properties.

22. Universality of ToM and Language
Development of ToM and language
English-speaking children use desire words more than cognitive words
5000 emotion words in English
5 words in a tribe of Malaysia
Language and ToM are two interconnected abilities

23. Language and ToM
There may be some variations in rates of ToM development and degree of conceptual elaboration across cultures due to language, but children acquire an understanding of representation independent of cultural differences.
Language that contains words about mind and mental processes
Socialization has a role:
Engaging in conversation about mental processes facilitates ToM development

24. Language Syntactic marking of Turkish: past-tense morphemes:
Does it facilitate grasping the relation between perception and belief?
Person has had direct experience with the event
Person has information about the event as reported by another person
Variations in rate of development

25. Language and ToM
Autism : is a "spectrum disorder." The spectrum includes several distinct diagnoses, as well as a whole range of different symptoms.
Most cases of autism are diagnosed in children ages 2 to 4. It's during these early years that typical children develop critical social and language skills -- often delayed in children with autism.
Child with autism is a late talker, prefers solo play, or tends to play in the same way over and over again.
One person with autism may be very verbal, bright and engaged, while another is non-verbal, intellectually challenged and almost entirely self-absorbed.

26. Self-recognition
Classic test: dab some rouge on the nose and expose to mirror
Lack awareness of others’ perception of them
Less likely to combine smiling and looking
Sensory/perceptual difficulties: seem stuck on stg.
Executive dysfunction

27. Pragmatic Development
problems with pragmatics
They don't understand the small nuances that go on in a conversation, the socially acceptable things to do during a conversation.
Referential communication
being able to package the info in a way that takes into account the perceptual and informational status of the listener
related to children´s developing theory of mind 27

28. Neurobiological Abnormalities
Connections between brain regions that are important for language and social skills grow much more slowly in children with autism.
“social brain”: temporal lobe-limbic system, frontal lobes, and cerebellum

29. Language, ToM, Universality
There may be some variations in rates of ToM development and degree of conceptual elaboration across cultures due to language, but children acquire an understanding of representation independent of cultural differences.
Language that contains words about mind and mental processes
Socialization has a role:
Engaging in conversation about mental processes facilitates ToM development

30. Theory of Mind TED Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other's minds 30

31. ToM and Social Development
Socially competent behavior
Problematic behavior (aggression, withdrawal)
Jenkins & Astington: peer play involving cooperation. Remained significant controlling for language.
Social maturity (communication skills), peer popularity, coordinated play 31

32. Reciprocal link Villanueva Badenes et al.: ToM and peer popularity
Link is stronger for 6 year-olds compared to younger ones
Implications