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We assume you were able to learn how infants and young kids develop an understanding of the physical world to this point. Now we will explore how children comprehend the social world.
We can understand the development of social cognition if we first break down and comprehend what the term social cognition means. Our daily lives include processing information from external and internal means to predict situations and behaviours. Social interaction is one of the most important elements we depend on as humans, where we respond after interpreting others’ behaviours.
Social cognition refers to when we put ourselves in the place of others, processing information from our environment and memory to predict our actions and of others.
Perspective-taking, flaticon.com
The development of social cognition will be explained in several ways, through the levels of perspective-taking by Selman, the role of mirror neurons in social cognition, the theory of mind (a follow-up article) and the Sally-Anne test.
According to Selman (1976, 1980), looking at things from other people’s perspectives is crucial for most social activities such as teamwork, convincing others, etc. Selman (1976, 1980) designed an experiment to analyse this ability in children by doing the following:
Contemplation, flaticon.com
Let’s take a look at an example scenario:
Emily was riding a bike in the park one day. While crossing a narrow bridge, she accidentally bumped a mother with a pushchair. Emily’s mother told her not to cross the narrow bridge again as it might be harmful.
The next day, Emily was playing with her friend James on their bikes. Some children came, bullied James and snatched James’ bike while running across the narrow bridge. Emily could still catch those kids riding on her bike; however, she remembered her mother’s advice.
Open-ended questions for children
The scenario includes the point-of-view of different people like Emily, James (her friend), Emily’s mother, the lady with the pushchair and the children who took away James's bike. Selman collected the children’s responses and classified the responses into five different stages. Children gradually move from the first stage (egocentric) to the last stage (societal perspective-taking).
Stage | 0. Egocentric perspective-taking |
Age | 3–6 |
Characteristics | Children realise others have different thoughts than them. However, they may get confused between both. |
Example response | In your opinion, will Emily’s mother tell her off? No, she will express happiness about James receiving his bike back. |
Stage | 1. Social, informational perspective-taking |
Age | 5-9 |
Characteristics | Kids realise that people can have different opinions. People base their point-of-views on the amount of information they have about the situation. |
Example response | In your opinion, will Emily’s mother tell her off? Yes, as Emily’s mother doesn’t know what made Emily go on the footbridge. |
Stage | 2. Self-reflexive Perspective-taking |
Age | 7-12 |
Characteristics | The children can see the situation from the perspective of another person. They recognise that others can do the same. |
Example response | Will Emily think her mother will punish her if she chases the children? No, Emily would think she would understand if she told her mother why she went through the footbridge. |
Stage | 3. Third-party perspective-taking |
Age | 10-15 |
Characteristics | They can now understand the point-of-view of two different people in a situation from a third-person perspective. |
Example response | Will Emily think her mother will punish her if she chases the children? No, Emily was supposed to help her friend. Her mother would punish Emily if she thought she had gone to the footbridge to play. |
Stage | 4. Societal perspective-taking |
Age | 14+ |
Characteristics | Adults understand society influences our opinions, such as religious and social values. |
Example response | Will Emily think her mother will punish her if she chases the children? No, it is our responsibility to support someone who needs it (most importantly, younger people). |
Let us now explore the strengths and weaknesses of Selman’s perspective-taking.
The perspective-taking method by Selman is flexible and reliable, and many researchers used it for further research. Researchers can tailor this method according to the age of the children (e.g., using different scenarios or as an interview). Hoffman (1975) suggested the development of Selman’s perspective-taking to be related to parenting styles like victim-centred discipline (encouraging children to think about the feelings of someone they hurt).
Many scholars have provided supportive evidence for Selman’s work. Fitzgerald and White (2003) conducted a study with 93 school-age children and found a significant correlation between parenting style (victim-centred discipline) and Selman’s perspective-taking. Weaknesses
According to Kurdek (1977), perspective-taking is a complex phenomenon that can be better understood through longitudinal studies. It is a complicated cognitive skill that cannot be limited to certain stages and needs longitudinal observations to be fully understood.
The understanding of perspective-taking is more complex, and Selman’s method is becoming outdated with the changing forms of communication. The new forms of communication (online) are changing the experience of social interactions, which is not traditionally personal anymore.
Jarvela and Hakkinen (2003) explain that the development of social cognition (inclusive of perspective-taking) might change in humans due to the rapid transformation toward web-based communications.
Neurons are the nerve cells that communicate information to and from the brain through electrical impulses. Mirror neurons are the nerve cells activated when someone performs an action or observes someone else performing the same action.
The research was conducted on monkeys in the University of Parma by infusing thin electrodes in their brains to monitor the activity of individual neurons. The researchers analysed that a neuron called F5 would become activated when a monkey reached for a peanut to eat.
F5 was also activated when the monkey (physically inactive) observed another monkey reach for a peanut to eat or heard another monkey cracking or munching peanuts. Researchers observed the following key factors while making the monkeys perform different tasks:
The researchers found that specific neurons fire when monkeys perform goal-directed hand movements such as grasping, holding and tearing. The same neurons also fired when the monkeys watched the experimenters perform the same actions, such as grabbing a piece of food from a table and taking food from another experimenter’s hand.
When we see someone else perform an action, such as reaching out for cookies, it activates the same neurons (mirror neurons) as if we performed that task (picking up cookies). This helps us understand our own goals and intentions if we performed that task.
‘I would be craving something sweet if I picked up those cookies.’ Similarly, ‘Ella picked up those cookies because she was craving something sweet too.’
Similarly, mirror neurons that are activated when we are in pain also get activated when observing someone else in pain, as per brain scanning studies such as Rizzolatti and Craighero (2006). This process is called empathy, to feel the pain of others and understand others' situations.
People with low empathy scores may have less activity in the brain areas with mirror neurons (Gazzola et al., 2006), which may translate to why autistic people struggle with understanding others' emotions and social impairment. Autistic people also had less cortical matter in the brain area responsible for mirror neurons, according to Hadjikhani et al. (2006).
An effectively functioning mirror neuron system can help us easily imitate any movement observed. Imitation of simple tasks or movements would take us twice as much effort if the mirror neuron system had defects.
Autistic people have a less functioning mirror neuron system (Iacoboni, 2006), explaining their struggle with social communication. However, according to Dinstein et al. (2010), an fMRI showed autistic people could mirror movements like thumbs up or high five gestures without difficulty.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the role of mirror neurons? Research into the mirror neuron explanation shows how it may play an essential role in autistic people’s development, explaining their social cognition and emotional struggles.
The mirror neuron system in monkeys is not as complicated as in humans hence it cannot be comparable. Monkeys have a limited social cognition in areas like deception compared to humans, who have developed beyond the understanding of mirror neurons in monkeys.
The mirror neuron explanation is reductionist because it narrows down the explanation of social cognition and complex human behaviours, such as imitation, to just the functioning of mirror neurons. There can be overlapping explanations for social cognitions, such as parenting styles, family cultures etc.
In 1985, Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith designed a study to assess the theory of mind ability (the ability to understand others by attributing mental states to them) among autistic children called the Sally-Anne test. The Sally-Anne test makes use of verbal instructions and enacted scenarios.
It can only be used when the participants have well-formed language skills to attempt the test, fully understanding the instructions. The test involves a scenario with Sally and Anne dolls. Here is an illustration of the Sally-Anne test:
The Sally-Anne Test, StudySmarter Original
The researchers compared three groups of children (autistic children, children with Down syndrome, children with no psychological problems) for the theory of mind ability. All children varied in age but possessed a similar verbal age (matched for the same level of language understanding and development):
20 autistic children with verbal age of five and a half years and actual age between 6–16.
14 Down syndrome children with verbal age of 3 years and actual age between 6–16.
27 children with no psychological impairment with verbal and actual age at four and a half years.
After the researchers acted out the scenario, every child had to answer one ‘reality’ question, one ‘memory’ question and one ‘belief’ question as follows:
Reality: Actually, where is the ball?
Memory: Where was the ball initially?
Belief: Where will Sally search for her ball?
Children must answer the ‘belief’ question correctly to pass the test. The answer to the belief question was correct, if the children responded that Sally would look for a ball in the basket. As this shows, the children were thinking from Sally’s perspective, who was absent while Anne moved the ball to her box.
Only 20% of the autistic children answered the belief question correctly compared to 86% of children with Down syndrome and 85% of children with no psychological impairment. The results showed autistic children find it difficult to think from other people’s perspectives, hence lacking the theory of mind.
Finally, here are the pros and cons of the Sally-Anne test. Many researchers used this method for reference in understanding the connection between the theory of mind and autism after its publication. Roth (2008) outlined that autistic children show great difficulty in understanding and using concepts like ‘irony’ and ‘metaphorical language’ using this method.
It is difficult to establish that a lack of theory of mind ability universally causes autism. Considering the Baron-Cohen et al. study, 20% of autistic children could still answer the belief question correctly, which wouldn’t have been possible if autism was precisely a result of a faulty theory of mind ability.
Chevallier (2012) elaborated that other psychological diseases than just autism also show a lack of ability of the theory of mind, such as depression and schizophrenia. This finding showed that lack of theory of mind ability is not just only related to autism but also other psychological diseases.
The Sally Anne test is designed to assess the theory of mind ability, which refers to understanding others by attributing mental states to them.
Suppose you hear of a sudden accident and the death of a friend’s parents. You empathise and help them with the funeral (since they are in shock) while putting yourself in the friend’s shoes.
Social cognition is important as it helps us become a part of society by observing others and predicting their behaviour while also showing the correct response.
Social cognition is when we process information from our environment and memory to predict our actions and that of others.
Some explanations of social cognition development are Selman's levels of perspective-taking, mirror neurons, theory of mind.
The Sally-Anne test is designed to assess the theory of mind ability, which refers to understanding others by attributing mental states to them.
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