Chapter 12 Development of the Self and Social Cognition

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Chapter 12Development of the Self and Social
Cognition

• Dr. Martha Pelaez

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Development Of The Self-Concept

• Most developmentalists believe that infants are
  born without a self-concept and gradually come to
  distinguish themselves form the external
  environment over the first 2 to 6 months, as they
  gain a sense of personal agency and learn to
  discriminate their faces from those of other
  people

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Development Of The Self-Concept Cont

• Who are you really? Are you the person that you
  are because of your unique personality, physical
  and mental abilities etc. Or do you get
  information about who you are from outside
  influences?
• The concept of self implies that people are a
  combination of physical and psychological
  attributes that are unique to that individual.

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Development Of The Self-Concept Cont

• The looking-glass self is the idea that a childs
  self concept is largely determined by the ways
  other people respond to him or her.
• Social cognition - thinking people display about
  the thoughts, feelings, motives and behaviors of
  themselves and other people.
• Self concept - ones perceptions of ones unique
  attributes or traits.

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The Emerging Self Differentiation and Self
Recognition

• Spatial awareness is something that can be noted
  at very early stages in human development. It is
  suggested that this ability to sense ones
  location is a result of
• Proprioceptive feedback - sensory information
  from the muscles, tendons, and joints that help
  one to locate the position of ones body (or body
  parts) in space.
• Infants rely very heavily on this feedback.

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The Emerging Self Differentiation and Self
Recognition cont

• As infants interact and gain more experience in
  their environments they begin to become aware of
• Personal agency - recognition that one can be the
  cause of an effect.
• Infants as young as 2 months newborns have this
  recognition.

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Self Recognition

• Self recognition - the ability to recognize
  oneself in a mirror or photograph.
• Present self - early self-representation where 2
  and 3-year-olds recognize current representations
  of self but are unaware that the past self -
  representations or self-relevant events have
  implications for the present.
• Extended self - more mature self-representation,
  emerging between ages 3 1/2 and 5 years, in which
  children are able to integrate past, current and
  unknown future self.

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Self Recognition cont

• One social and emotional consequence of self
  recognition is
• The categorical self - a persons classification
  of the self along socially significant dimensions
  such as age and sex.
• This usually occurs once toddlers display
  self-recognition

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Who am I?

• Who am I? Responses of Preschool Children- Until
  recently, developmentalists believed that the
  self-concepts of preschool children were
  concrete, physicalistic, and nearly devoid of any
  psychological self awareness.

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Childrens Theory of Mind and Emergence of the
Private Self

• When adults think about the self, they know that
  it consists of a public self (or me) that others
  can see an a private self (or I) that has an
  inner reflective (thinking) character not
  available to others.
• Theory of mind - an understanding that people
  are cognitive beings with the mental states
  (beliefs, motives, feelings, and intentions) that
  are not always accessible to others and that
  often guide their behavior.

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Early Understanding of Mental States

• Desire Theory an early theory of the mind where
  a persons actions are thought to be a reflection
  of her desires rather than other mental states
  such as beliefs.
• Belief-desire theory of the mind develops
  between age 3 and 4 child now realizes that both
  beliefs and desires may determine behavior and
  that people will act on their beliefs even if
  they are inaccurate.
• False Belief problem method of assessing ones
  understanding that people can hold inaccurate
  beliefs that can influence their conduct even if
  the beliefs are wrong.

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Conceptions of Self in Middle Childhood and
Adolescence

• Once children develop a theory of mind and
  clearly differentiate their public and private
  selves, their self-descriptions gradually evolve.
• As children grow and acquire all of the
  components of self awareness they begin to make
  decisions as to whether or not they accept their
  true selves. Often times when if an
  adolescent/teen is not self confident they will
  engage in
• False self-behavior- acting in ways that do not
  reflect ones true self.

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Self-Esteem The Evaluative Component Of Self

• As children develop, they not only understand
  more and more about themselves and construct more
  intricate self-portraits, but they also begin to
  evaluate the qualities that they perceive
  themselves as having. This evaluative aspect of
  self is called self-esteem.

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Self Esteem cont...

• Origins and Development of Self-Esteem-
  Children's evaluation of themselves and their
  competencies is a most important aspect of self
  that can influence all aspects of their conduct
  and their psychological well-being. The theory
  predicts that securely attached children, who
  presumably construct a positive working model of
  self and others, should soon begin to evaluate
  themselves more favorably than insecurely
  attached children, whose working models are not
  so positive.

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Self-Esteem cont...

• Components of Self-Esteem- By early adolescence
  one's perceptions of self-worth become
  increasingly centered on interpersonal
  relationships. Susan Harter and her associates
  coined the term relational self-worth to describe
  their finding that adolescents often begin to
  perceive their self-worth somewhat differently in
  different relational contexts.
• Changes in Self-Esteem- Young adolescents who
  experience the many physical, cognitive, and
  social changes associated with puberty often
  become confused and show at least some decline in
  self-esteem as they leave childhood behind and
  begin to search for a stable adult identity.

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Self-Esteem cont...

• Social Contributors to Self-Esteem
• Parenting Styles- Parents can play a crucial role
  in shaping a child's self-esteem. The sensitivity
  of parenting early in childhood clearly
  influences whether infants and toddlers construct
  positive or negative working models of self
• Peer Influences- As early as age 4 or 5 children
  are beginning to recognize differences among
  themselves and their classmates as they use
  social comparison information to tell them
  whether they perform better or worse in various
  domains than their peers.

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Development of Achievement Motivation and
Academic Self-Concepts

• Achievement motivation - a willingness to strive
  to succeed at challenging tasks and to meet high
  standards of accomplishment.
• Phase 1 Joy of Mastery
• Phase 2 Approval Seeking
• Phase 3 Use of Standards

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Achievement Motivation during Middle Childhood
and Adolescence

• Home Influences on Mastery Motivation and
  Achievement- Researchers have identified three
  especially potent home influences on children's
  mastery and achievement motivation and actual
  achievement behavior, they are
• Quality of Attachment
• The Home Environment
• Child Rearing and Achievement

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Achievement Motivation cont...

• Peer Group Influences- Peers are also an
  important source of influence on grade-school
  children and adolescents who may sometimes
  support and at other times undermine parents'
  efforts to encourage academic achievement.

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Beyond Achievement of Motivation

• Development of Achievement Attributions
• Types of Achievement Attributions
• Ability
• Effort
• Task Difficulty
• Luck

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Beyond Achievement cont...

• Age differences in achievement-related
  attributions- Young children do seem to have an
  incremental view of ability They believe that
  ability is changeable, not stable, and that they
  can get smarter or become more capable through
  increased effort and lots of practice.
• Dweck's Learned-Helplessness Theory
• How does learned helplessness develop?
• On helping the helpless to achieve.

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Methods used to Help the Helpless to Achieve

• Attribution retraining
• Person praise
• Performance goal
• Process-oriented praise
• Learning goals

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Who Am I To Be? Forging An Identity

• Identity - a mature self-definition a sense of
  who one is, where one is going in life and how
  one fits into society.
• Identity crisis - Ericksons term for the
  uncertainty and discomfort that adolescents
  experience when they become confused about their
  present and future roles in life.

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Who Am I To Be? cont

• James Marcia has developed a structured interview
  that allow researchers to classify adolescents
  into one of four identity statuses
• 1. Identity diffusion
• 2. Foreclosure
• 3. Moratorium
• 4. Identity achievement

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Age Trends In Person Perception

• Behavioral comparisons phase - the tendency to
  form impressions of others by comparing and
  contrasting their overt behaviors.
• Increases between ages 6 and 8 and declines
  rapidly after age 9.
• Psychological constructs phase - tendency to base
  ones impressions of others on the stable traits
  these individuals are presumed to have.
• Psychological comparisons phase - tendency to
  form impressions of others by comparing and
  contrasting these individuals on abstract
  psychological dimension

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Theories of Social-Cognitive Development

• Cognitive-Developmental Theory
• Selmans Role-Taking Theory
• Role Taking and Thinking about Relationships

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Social Influences on Social-Cognitive Development

• Social Experience as a Contributor to
  Role-Taking- It seems that equal-status contacts
  among friends may be especially important for the
  growth of role-taking skills and interpersonal
  understanding.
• Social Experience as a Direct Contributor to
  Person Perception- It seems that both social
  experience and cognitive competence contribute in
  their own ways to the development of childrens
  understanding of other people.