Social cognition

Social cognition: how people make sense of themselves, others, and the social word (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Includes person perception, self concept & self-esteem, understanding mental states, theory of mind, understanding intentions, and social-moral reasoning.

It enables individuals to take advantage of being part of a social group, including parent-infant bonding, vital for infant survival. Helps us to understand social signals that enable us to learn about the world. For example, facial expression (e.g fear, disgust) warn us of danger. Eye gaze direction can indicate where interesting or dangerous things can be found.

The self is a concept of oneself: of other people we interact with and of relationships. Fundamental social concept children develop quite early. It enables perspective taking, serves as a source of reference, and helps structure social experience and behaviour. Infants begin to construct a sense of self through social interactions. Infants pass the mirror test at around 15-24 months.

At 24 months+, infants learn words that reflect self-awareness (e.g names, personal pronouns). They understand property relations (e.g thats mine). Differentiation of "me" from everything else.

Sticker task: a sticker is covertly placed on the child's head while they're being videoed. After brief delay, children are shown the video. Those who reach up to obtain the sticker after delay are said to understand the link between the "past self" and the "present self".

At preschool age, children learn about external and internal properties of self. They make descriptions based upon social comparison, and have increasing awareness of standards of behaviour.

At school age, people have highly differentiated self-concepts: can use a broad array of concepts and terms to describe self. They use psychological characteristics to describe self and others, rather than concrete descriptors. They engage in complex social comparisons and understand and demonstrate self-presentation.

Pre-school age children refer to external phenomena (e.g person's physical appearance), but from 7-8 years, there is an increase in reference to internal psychological properties

Barenboim (1981): 6-11 year old children - asked to talk about 3 people they knew well. Categorised answers as behavioural comparisons, psychological constructs, and psychological comparisons. There was a switch from behavioural terms to the use of psychological descriptors in middle childhood.

Concrete to abstract shift (Ruble et al, 1979): 4 year old and adult participants watched an actor select an item (chocolate) from an array. Why did he choose/like that one? Young participants focused on external properties of chosen item ("the chocolate was nice"), and older participants focused on the internal psychological state of the actor ("he likes chocolate").

Erwin (1993): younger children (under 8 years old) described friendships using concrete factors (common activities, physical proximity) and 'here-and-now'. 8-12 year olds placed increasing emphasis upon reciprocity and the obligations of friendship. For adolescents, psychological/personality characteristics were dominant. Friendships described as interpersonal dependencies and exchange of confidences.

Understanding others' mental processes involves understanding that each person: has their own perspective and role in the world (Selman, 1976) with their own feelings, thoughts and intentions (theory of mind). Theory of mind is the ability to make inferences about others' representational states and to predict their behaviour accordingly (Lewis & Mitchell, 1994).

False-belief tasks assess if a child understands that someone else may not know the truth when the child themselves knows the truth. To pass, children must understand that other people have minds of their own, and they have their own thoughts which may be wrong. Commonly used to assess this is the Sally-Anne task.

Theory of mind impairments in autism (Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985): 80% of children with a diagnosis of autism failed false belief task, compared with 85% pass rate of typically developing preschoolers. Autistic children also have difficulties in other socio-cognitive areas.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD): hostility, defiance, disobedience.

Conduct disorder: repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour that violates basic rights of others or major age appropriate societal norms (e.g stealing and aggression)

Socio-emotional competence (SEC): aware of other people's feelings, noticing affect of behaviour on others, picking up on body language.

Mandy et al (2013): Sample of 6218 UK children at age 7 and 10 years. Hypothesised high SEC = self-regulating behaviours, less escalation of behaviour. Low SEC = less self-regulation, more escalation of behaviour. ODD traits in childhood are a risk factor for the subsequent development of CD symptoms. Social cognitive capacity may buffer the risk.