Do infants know who they are?

self-awareness - begins around 12 mos. - Michael Lewis' Rouge Test - 18-24 mos understand their appearance is stable over time

preschoolers are coming to the realization (through maturation of the brain and experience) that people are separate and operate under their own power.

You'll notice that all this stuff below can only happen AFTER object permanence has developed.

The symbolic reasoning that emerges in the 18-24 month period foreshadows the full understanding of the distinction between an object and its mental representation.

There are different levels or aspects to the development of the theory of mind:

Issue 1: Knowledge that the mind exists

infants probably assume humans have "something" that non-human agents do not

infants and toddlers learn they can predict other's behavior and even affect the psychological-emotional states of others by comforting, hurting, or teasing

but, there is a transition stage of understanding - we call this stage the "terrible twos" - toddler KNOWS other people can do things, but they don't understand other people have their own intentions and control their own actions - the toddler "wants" something and "expects" someone else to make it happen

Issue 2: The mind has connections to the physical world

Children at 2 or 3 know that people can be cognitively connected to objects and events in the real world in various ways - see them, hear them, like them, want them, fear them, etc.

e.g., "Where's the bottle?",  "Is that your truck?"

They also appreciate the relative independence of these connections - you can see something but not hear it, or hear something and not see it.

They have some understanding that their connections are inner, subjective experiences that are independent of those of others  - they can have a dream that someone else does not

By age 3 children are more aware of the influence of perception on knowledge. "You know what I saw at preschool today?"

But, they overestimate what they can determine with one sense

Toddlers spontaneously talk about wanting before they talk about thinking or knowing - desire develops before belief. They know they want before they know this is a thought.

3 year olds tend to infer mental states from behavior or other outcomes. So, if someone acts sad, the person must be sad inside.

They think mistakes when repeating a tongue-twister are unintentional. That's why it is so funny to a 3-year-old when you repeat a verbal mistake over and over.

By age 4 or 5 children can differentiate the internal emotional states of desire and belief causes by an external event

Issue 3: The mind is separate from and differs from the physical world.

3 year olds know that if one boy is eating a cookie and another boy is thinking about a cookie - which of the cookies can be seen by others.

They know a person can be thinking about an object even though at the moment they are not seeing the object.

They know other people cannot directly know your thoughts.

"Your mind is for moving things and looking at things when there's not a movie or TV around"

3 year olds know they can fantasize things that do not exist - monsters.

Does this mean they do not fear them? NO - they can imagine it and fear it and still know it is not real - THEY PRETEND or they are not in total control of their minds.

The monsters can be real and not real at the same time.

Issue 4:  The mind can represent objects and events accurately or inaccurately.

Kids understand that a mental state can be a representation - and that there may not be a single, accurate representation.

Can represent a thing different ways, some of which may be false

3 year olds do not understand that a person acts on the basis on what he or she believes to be true, rather than what they themselves know to be true in reality - egocentric

4 and 5 year olds usually understand false beliefs - it is only one of many possibe representations

They know that one's belief - rather than reality - guides behavior

When 3 year olds know there was a blue cup behind a barrier, even when a confederate SAID she thought there was a white cup behind the barrier, the 3 year olds said that she thought there was a blue cup there.

4 year olds laughed and changed their beliefs about what was inside a candy box when they found that there were pencils inside the box - they then predicted other 4 year olds would think there was candy inside the box - 3 year olds said the other 3 year olds would think there were pencils

Four acquisitions implied by Issue 4:

1.  perceptual perspective-taking - people can have different visual perceptions about the world

 2.  discrepancy between 2 emotions - feel sad but act happy - pretend for some reason

3.  the notion that an experience can be ambiguous implies that two conflicting representations can be imagine - turtle inside a shell - if the child has seen brown and green turtles, the turtle inside the shell could be brown or green

4.  appearance-reality distinction - knowing that an apple can look real but is not, and also knowing that a person can falsely believe it is a real apple

3 year olds tend to perform poorly on appearance-reality tasks

Most say that what they see is reality, even when they have been told differently

Attempts to teach 3 year olds the appearance-reality distinction have been unsuccessful

3 year olds have an absence of the appearance-reality distinction

A fragile understanding of the appearance-reality distinction emerges during ages 4 - 6 when children understand the nature of representation

Issue 5:  The mind actively mediates the interpretation of reality and the emotion experienced

Preschoolers do not understand that the information a person acquires through perception is influenced by what she already knows

Even an 8 year old thinks that a newborn can understand a verbal message - even when they know babies cannot talk and do not understand the meaning of the words in the message

They are focusing on one aspect of the event - the most obvious one - when someone talks, the other listens

Egocentrism - young child's assumption that others think, feel, perceive, and know the same as she does

2 through 6 year olds watch video with sound - then they watch the video with mom without sound - only the 6 year olds know that mom does not know certain information from the video

Toward age 6 they start to understand that only they know what they know

6 year olds do not know that prior experiences cause you to have present emotions - only in elementary school does this develop

Conclusions and issues - what causes these changes?

Brain maturation and experiences - others point out discrepancies in the world

Pretend play - pretend that dolls have desires, thoughts, emotions - is one important context in which children practice and develop these cognitive abilities

Development of Self-Concept

early childhood - not very accurate - overestimate their skills and knowledge - they don't necessarily know when they don't know something or don't know how to do something - because this is the age they are TRYING to do so many things for the first time

cultural differences - e.g., Asian vs American

in late childhood, shift to seeing themselves as defined by internal traits - caused by growth of the mind but also socialization (labeling of the skills that are internal)

change due to cognitive development and social pressures (expectations)

take others' viewpoints into account when defining self

self-concept increasingly organized, coherent, but also know situations bring out different traits (differentiated self-concept)

identity vs identity confusion - Erik Erikson - searching for identity is NECESSARY for one's true identity to be discovered

heavily influenced by feedback we receive from others - especially peers

EE saw great benefit in a moratorium

achievement

foreclosure

diffusion

moratorium

negative - I'm going to be just the OPPOSITE

egocentrism - different than infant/child egocentrism - this is more of a self-conscious self-absorption

imaginary audience

personal fables

Self-Esteem (SE) - arises from comparisons of self with others, and how one is taught to feel about him/herself

typical rise during late childhood, but brief dip in early adolescence (puberty, body image, more common in girls and especially caucasian girls)

differentiated self-esteem during adolescence - high SE in one area but lower SE in another area - depends on one's skills

SE also associated with SES and, differently, with Race in the context of society

Self-Efficacy: Expecting to be capable - this is part of SE

Social comparison - to bolster our SE we make downward social comparisons - to strive toward a goal we haven't yet reached we make upward social comparisons

Extremes of self-dissatisfaction: Depression and Suicide in Adolescence

Depression - 25-40% of teens - only 3% with clinical depression - not much evidence that hormones affect depression

Suicide - rate has tripled in the last 30 years - 3rd leading cause of death between 15-24, after accidents and homicide

rate is higher for boys, attempt is higher for girls