Psychology 2040A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: 18 Months, Eye Contact, Prefrontal Cortex
12 Nov 2018
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Chapter 9 – Social Cognition
Pages 331-337 – Understanding Psychological States
Intro
• General knowledge extends beyond the understanding of physical objects, classes, numbers and space
• In includes an increasingly sophisticated awareness of how our minds and the minds of others work
• How do children come to understand and reflect upon these things?
• Also, the understanding of social experiences shape development
Perspective Taking: Taking the Views of Others
• Perspective taking is the ability to put oneself in another person’s place, to consider that person’s thoughts, feelings,
or knowledge
• Basic element – the understanding of what others see
• Mountain & doll test
o 4-6 year olds are extremely ego centric – can only focus on their own perspective
o By 6-9 children begin to realize the perspective of others
o 9-10 year olds can determine others perspectives
o Note: this situation is quite complex, in simpler versions younger children can perceive others perceptions
• Visual perspective taking develops in two phases
o 1) Level one perspective taking
▪ Children come to realize that their own perspectives and those of others are not identical
▪ Late infancy → 3
o 2) Level two perspective taking
▪ Can determine specific limitations of another’s view
▪ Appear ~3-4 years old and continue refinement with age
The Childs Theory of Mind
• Childs understanding of their social world extends well beyond the visual perspective
• Begin to appreciate the kinds of mental qualities that contribute to behaviour
o Ex. intentions
• Many of our social behaviors are guided by the judgments and inferences we make about the desires, feeling states,
beliefs, and thoughts of other people
o Concerned with these states of others in daily interactions
• When and how do children develop these concepts?
o How do children develop a theory of the mind – awareness of the concept of mental states, both one’s own
and those of others
o Piaget believed children were unable to distinguish between mental and physical entities until the school
years
o Realism – the ability to distinguish between mental and physical entities
Understanding Mental States
• Developmental researches have uncovered considerable evidence to oppose that of Piaget
• By age 3 children can distinguish between mental and physical entities
• A timeline
o 18 months – first signs of awareness are evident
o Preschoolers – begin to understand desire → belief → false belief
o 6-10 – begin to understand the mind as an active and discrete entity from the self
o 10 – understand some mental states are harder to control than others
False Beliefs
• “False belief” task – testing children’s knowledge about what a naive observer does or does not know about a visual
scene that has been transformed
