1. Self and Social Understanding Chapter 11

2. Overview Part 1: Thinking about the Self Part 2: Theory of Mind
Part 3: Self-esteem
Part 4: Identity Formation 2

3. Self and Social Understanding
Social Cognition – how children come to understand their multifaceted social world.
Self-Recognition – Identification of the self as a physically unique being.
Scale Errors – attempting to do things that their body size makes impossible 3

4. Social-cognitive development
Proceeds from concrete (appearance) to abstract (intentions)
Becomes better organized with age (integrated observations of behavior to extrapolate personality).
Understand causes of behavior - Changes from simple, one-sided explanations to complex, interacting relationships
Moves toward metacognitive understanding (reflecting on social thoughts)

5. Part 1: The Self Implicit Self- awareness Explicit Self-awareness
The self moving through time (past, present and future)
How self-image is shaped by culture through story telling

6. Implicit Sense of Self-World Differentiation
Birth: stronger rooting reflex for adult touch compared to own hand
3 months: leg view (fig)
4 months: look and smile more at video images of others compared to self
Discrimination of one’s own limbs and facial movements from others

7. Explicit Self-Awareness
Rouge Task
<20 months, plays with baby in mirror
>20 months – tries to wipe off own nose

8. Explicit Self-Awareness
Mirror self-recognition
Rouge task
Personal pronouns “me” and “mine”
Predicts emergence of pretend play
2 year olds can point to themselves in videos
3 year olds recognize their shadow

9. Explicit Self-Awareness
Explicit body self-awareness
Realize their own body can serve as an obstacle (18-21 month-olds)

10. Explicit Self-Awareness
Scale errors start to decline around 2-2.5

11. Explicit Self-Awareness
How do toddlers acquire explicit self-awareness?
Securely attached infants
Frequently engage in joint attention

12. Cultural Influences on Self-Awareness
Greece/Germany
Independent culture
Good mirror recognition
Poor compliance
Nsa (Cameroon)
Collectivist culture
Poor mirror recognition
Excellent compliance

13. Social Development Pass mirror task  Sustained mutual peer imitation
Pass mirror task  Sense of ownership

14. The Selves
Categorical Self: months, Perceptual traits (tall, girl, toddler), Self-judgments (good girl), Competencies (Can’t, Did it!) Remembered Self: 2-3 years, Storytelling, Narratives, View of self as unique Enduring Self: 3-5 years, Start being able to imagine what the future might hold

15. Cultural Influences (page 451)
Individualistic versus collective cultures
Miller, Fung, & Mintz, 1996; 1997
12 middle SES families
6 Irish American families in Chicago
6 Chinese families in Taiwan
Extensive videotapes of adult conversations with 2.5 year olds.

16. Part 2: Theory of Mind Early Understanding of Mental States
Desire Theory of Mind
Belief-Desire Theory of Mind
Social consequences
Contributing factors

17. Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind – coherent understanding of their own and other’s rich mental lives. Inner Self – private thoughts and imaginings Perspective Taking – the capacity to imagine what others may be thinking and feeling and to distinguish those viewpoints from one’s own

18. Theory of Mind
Desire Theory of Mind – the belief that people always act in ways consistent with their desires, (before 3) Desire-Belief Theory of Mind – The belief that people act according to either desires or beliefs (3-4) False Belief Task (Figure 11.3) – show a child a box of bandaids… (4 years) Second Order False Belief Task (Figure 11.4) – Jason hides a letter under his pillow… (7 years) Recursive Thought – The ability to view a situation from at least two perspectives.

19. Social Consequences of Belief-Desire Theory of Mind
Quality of Sociodramatic play
Early ability to read, comprehend narratives
More accurate eyewitness memory
Get along better with peers
Conflicts arise due to different views, can solve this
Better able to predict people’s behaviour
Getting better at deciding what to share or not share with others: will it hurt another person? Offend them?

20. Factors that Contribute to TOM
Language and verbal reasoning
Executive Function
Success on the task requires suppression of an irrelevant response (the tendency to assume that other’s knowledge and beliefs are the same as one’s own)
Secure attachment, mindfulness comments
Make-Believe Play
Social Interaction (siblings)

21. Part 3: Self-Esteem What is self-esteem? How does it change with age?
What can we do as parents and educators?

22. Introduction to Self Esteem
Teen Girl’s Self-Esteem
Cameron Russell: Looks aren’t everything
Men’s Self-Esteem

23. What is Self-Esteem?
Self-Concept – the set of attributes, abilities, attitudes and values that an individual believes defines who he/she is.
Social Comparisons – judgements of their own appearance, abilities, and behavior in relation to those of others.
Generalized Other – a blend of what we imagine important people in our lives think of us.
Self-Esteem - The judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments.

24. Emerging Hierarchical Structure

25. Changes in Levels of Self-Esteem
Preschoolers, “I can do anything”
Dip upon elementary school entry
Start getting feedback on competence
Start being able to compare to similar aged children
Rising from 4th grade and up
Dip upon middle/high school entry

26. Rearing Practices and Self-Esteem
Authoritative Parenting (Warm + Boundaries)
Set reasonable limits, encourage problem solving
Good self esteem
Authoritarian Parenting (Controlling)
Too often help or make decisions for the child
Poor self esteem
Permissive (Indulgent)
Narcissistic (unrealistically high self-esteem)

27. Attributes
“The best way to foster a positive secure self image is to encourage children to strive for worthwhile goals”. (p 464) Attributes – common everyday explanations for the causes of behavior – “Why did I do that?” Achievement Motivation – the tendency to persist at challenging tasks.

28. Attribution Theory
Attribution: Common, everyday explanations for the causes of behaviour
E.g. Why did I just do that?
Internal: Psychological Causes
Ability: E.g. “I’m smart”
Effort: E.g. “I worked hard”
External
Environmental causes: E.g. Easy test

29. Mastery Oriented
Mastery Oriented - Crediting success to ability, Failure do to lack of effort or environment (things that can be controlled). Goal is to learn Incremental View of Ability - Can improve by trying Learned Helplessness – credit failures to lack of ability, credit successes to external factors Entity View of Ability – Ability cannot be improved by trying harder. Goal is good performance

30. Mastery-Oriented and Learned-Helpless Attributions (p 466)

31. Caregiver Feedback Matters
Parents with an incremental view of intelligence (if you work harder, you will get smarter)  Mastery oriented children
E.g., “That didn’t work the first time did it? We’ll try again.”
“You’re a hard worker”
Parents with an entity view of intelligence (innate, fixed)  Learned helplessness
E.g., “Its ok to quit, you just can’t do that can you?”
“You’re so smart”

32. Teacher Feedback Matters
Good teachers attribute failure to a lack of effort
Good teachers caring and helpful
Emphasize Learning as the goal
Use task-relevant statements (not attribute statements)
As a result, students work harder, learn more, participate more in class

33. Gender & Culture Matter
Girls especially likely to receive messages from parents and teachers that their ability is at fault when they do not do well
Low SES ethnic minority children receive less favourable feedback
Cultural values affect likelihood of MO or LH (Figure 11.7)

34. Learned Helplessness Interventions
Attribution Retraining:
Believe that they can overcome failure, if they exert more effort
Focus less on grades, more on individual mastery (grades will come, don’t compare with others)
Instruction in effective strategies and self-regulation
“Applying what we know” on page 468

35. Part 4: Identity Formation
Erikson’s identity formation
Suicide prevention
How do we relate to other people?
Reducing racial prejudice

36. Erikson’s Theory: Identity vs. Identity Confusion
Defining who you are, what you value, and direction in life
Commitments to vocation, personal relationships, sexual orientation, ethnic group, ideals
Resolution of “identity crisis” or exploration
Identity Confusion
Lack of direction and definition of self
Restricted exploration in adolescence
Earlier psychosocial conflicts not resolved
Society restricts choices
Unprepared for adulthood

37. Identity Statuses (Table 11.1)
Level of Exploration
Level of Commitment
High
Low
Identity Achievement
Identity Moratorium
Identity Foreclosure
Identity Diffusion

38. The Four Identity Statuses
Directions: Based on the information provided, indicate which identity status is being described (IA = identity achievement, ID = identity diffusion, IF = identity foreclosure, and IM = identity moratorium).
Jacob’s father, grandfather, and two of his uncles are all accountants. Since he was in junior high, Jacob has indicated that he plans to be an accountant just like the rest of his family. During his first semester of college, Jacob declared a major in accounting.
Janessa spent her junior and senior years of high school exploring career options within the field of education. She attended career fairs and shadowed a social worker, school principal, special education teacher, and speech and language pathologist. After her first semester in college, Janessa declared her major in special education.
Yuri is about to finish high school. Although she plans to attend college, Yuri has not decided what she wants to do with her life. She has considered medicine, law, and business. Yuri has volunteered at a nursing home and currently works part-time as a secretary for a small law firm. Yuri plans to spend her first year or two of college exploring her options before settling on a major.
Ashton is a junior in high school and seems uninterested in college or trade school. He has worked several part-time jobs but usually quits within a few weeks. When asked what he wants to do with his life, Ashton usually says, “It really doesn’t matter to me what I do. I’m not in any hurry to go to college or start a career. There’s plenty of time for that later.”
Answers: IF, IA, IM, ID

39. Influences on Identity Development
Personality (Flexible, open-minded)
Family (Attached, positive problem solving
Peers (Support, assistance, models)
School, Community, Culture (see p 474)

40. Ethnic Identity
Ethnic Identity - Sense of ethnic group membership and attitudes and feelings associated with that membership. Acculturative stress – psychological distress resulting from conflict between the minority and the host culture. Bicultural identity – exploring and adopting values from both the adolescent’s subculture and the dominant culture

41. Person Perception
Person Perception – the way we evaluate the qualities of people we know. “Children do not form stereotypes unless an authority figure validates a status hierarchy.” p 477

42. In-Group Out-Group
In-Group Favouratism Out-Group Prejudice Out-Group Favouritism

43. Social Problem Solving (Figure 11.10)
Social Problem Solving – generating and applying strategies that prevent or resolve disagreement, resulting in outcomes that are both acceptable to others and beneficial to self.
Notice and interpret social cues
Formulate social goals
Generate and evaluate strategies
Act
Peer evaluation and response

44. Reducing Prejudice Intergroup contact and School diversity
Equal status
Common goals
Personally acquainted
Authorities expect cooperation
Long-term contact and collaboration
Seeing others’ traits as changeable
Teach to respect and value, directly address discrimination, emphasize fairness encourage perspective taking.