The Sound of Social Cognition: Toddlers’ Understanding of How Sound Influences Others

Understanding others' perceptions is a fundamental aspect of social cognition. Children's construal of visual perception is well investigated, but there is little work on children's understanding of others' auditory perception. The current study assesses toddlers' recognition that producing different sounds can affect others differentially—auditory perspective taking. Two- and 3-year-olds were familiarized with two objects, one loud and one quiet. The adult then introduced a doll, and children were randomly assigned to one of two goals: either to wake the doll or to let her sleep. Children's object choice and the sound intensity they produced significantly varied in the predicted direction as a function of the goal task. These findings reveal young children's understanding of the effects of sound on other people's behavior and psychological states.     

Mothers’ Empathic Understanding of their Toddlers: Associations with Maternal Depression and Sensitivity

Mothers’ empathic understanding of their children’s motives, thoughts, and feelings is thought to guide parenting behaviors and shape the mother-child relationship. However, little is known about the relation between empathic understanding and parenting behaviors during developmental shifts that may be emotionally challenging for mothers, such as the transition from infancy to the toddler years, or how it may relate to maternal depressive symptoms. We assessed relations between maternal empathic understanding, depression, and sensitivity. We developed a coding system, the Empathic Understanding Assessment (EUA), to measure this construct in the mothers of 30-month old children. One hundred twenty eight mother-child pairs participated in a series of lab-based tasks designed to be challenging for the children. Mothers then watched these videotaped interactions and responded to questions regarding their children’s experiences. Interview content was coded using the EUA. Results indicated that mothers higher in empathic understanding and more intensely emotional were rated as more sensitive. Maternal depression was negatively related to empathic understanding. The importance of considering the role of maternal empathic understanding in parenting behavior is discussed, as are potential implications for child outcomes.     

Maternal Behavior Modifications during Pretense and Their Long-Term Effects on Toddlers’ Understanding of Pretense

Recent studies indicate the need to investigate the sources of toddlers’ understanding of another person's pretense. The present study is a cultural and longitudinal extension of the work of Lillard and Witherington (2004 Lillard, A. S. & Witherington, D. C. (2004). Mothers’ behavior modifications during pretense and their possible signal value for toddlers. Developmental Psychology, 40, 95–113. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.1.95[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), who claimed that mothers modify their behaviors during pretense and that the some of these behavior modifications help their toddlers understand maternal pretense. Experiment 1 investigated whether mothers would change their behaviors during pretense with a sample of 31 Japanese mother–infant pairs. Experiment 2, with a subsample of 20 mother–child pairs who had participated in Experiment 1, examined whether the maternal behavior modifications at 18 months predicted their toddlers’ understanding of pretense at 24 months. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that Japanese mothers smiled more frequently, gazed at their toddlers longer, used sound effects more frequently, and engaged in more frequent snack-related actions in a “pretense condition” than in a “real condition.” In addition, some of these behaviors were significantly related to their toddlers’ apparent understanding of pretense. Experiment 2 showed that both the frequency of maternal smiles and the number of sound effects in the pretense condition at 18 months predicted toddlers’ understanding of the pretense enacted by a strange adult at 24 months. This research indicates the impact of maternal behavior modifications during pretense on the development of symbolic thought in the 2nd year of life.     

Are You Really Happy? Children’s Understanding of Real vs. Pretend Emotions

This paper studies children’s capacity to understand that the emotions displayed in pretend play contexts do not necessarily correspond to internal emotions, and that pretend emotions may create false beliefs in an observer. A new approach is taken by asking children about pretend emotions in terms of pretence-reality instead of appearance-reality. A total of 37 four-year-olds and 33 six-year-olds were asked to participate in tasks where they had to pretend an emotion or where they were told stories in which the protagonists pretended an emotion. In each task children were asked: a) if the pretend emotion was real or just pretended and b) if an observer would think that the emotional expression was real or just pretended. Results showed that four-year-olds are capable of understanding that pretend emotions are not necessarily real. Overall, six-year-olds performed better than younger children. Furthermore, both age groups showed difficulty in understanding that pretend emotions might unintentionally mislead an observer. Results are discussed in relation to previous research on children’s ability to understand pretend play and the emotional appearance-reality distinction.     

Maternal Empathy and Changes in Mothers’ Permissiveness as Predictors of Toddlers’ Early Social Competence with Peers: A Parenting Intervention Study

The goal of the current study was to examine how changes in parenting due to a parenting intervention designed to decrease permissive parenting affected the quality of children’s peer interactions. Forty-nine mothers of toddlers aged 2–3 years participated in a 12-week intervention in which half got hands-on training and practice using positive guidance in a toddler classroom setting, while the other half learned positive guidance solely via a seminar format. To observe children’s peer interactions, toddlers were divided into 8 groups of 5–7 children mixed across condition. Observers coded mothers’ empathy, permissiveness, and positive guidance parenting strategies. Children’s peer interactions were coded for antisocial behaviors, verbal aggression, physical aggression, prosocial behaviors, positive social bids, and empathy. Prior analysis of this intervention indicated that mothers in both conditions showed reductions in permissiveness over the course of the intervention. Results from the present study indicated that reductions in permissiveness predicted decreases in toddlers’ verbal aggression. Maternal empathy was a moderator such that mothers low in empathy who got hands-on training in positive guidance had children who demonstrated the greatest reductions in antisocial behaviors.     

The Role of Basic, Self-Conscious and Self-Conscious Evaluative Emotions in Children’s Memory and Understanding of Emotion

In past research, emotion has been classified as basic, self-conscious or self-conscious evaluative, with each type of emotion being progressively more difficult for children to understand (Lewis, M. (2000a). In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 265–280), New York, NY: The Guilford Press). Although researchers have examined children’s understanding of individual emotions (e.g., guilt), researchers have not assessed children’s understanding and memory for emotions based on this classification. In the present research, 6-, 8- and 10-year-old children’s memory and understanding of basic, self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions were examined. Although a memory advantage was found for emotions, this effect was less so for the younger children and less so for non-basic emotions. In fact, 6-year-old children and, to a lesser extent 8-year-old children, were more likely than older children to recall self-conscious and self-conscious evaluative emotions with basic emotion labels, and were more likely to explain them using basic emotion labels. Overall, negative emotions (e.g., mad, guilt) were better recalled than positive emotions (e.g., happy, pride), regardless of type of emotion. Gender differences were found as girls were more likely to remember emotion than boys, especially when the emotion action was specifically labeled and a female character experienced it. Proportions of this research were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (2005), Atlanta, Georgia and the meeting of the Cognitive Development Society (2005), San Diego, CA.     

Gender’s Role in Misperceptions of Peers’ Sexual Motives

The sexual double standard influences men’s and women’s sexual attitudes and behavior, leading men and women to consider distinct sexual motives, or reasons whether or not to engage in sexual intercourse. The goal of the present paper was to document how the sexual double standard shapes perceptions of peers’ sexual motives. We build on past research by using open-ended questions and measuring perceptions of both same-gender and other-gender peers. The sample included 154 heterosexual college students (50 % female, 49 % European American, 25 % Latino American, 26 % African American) recruited via probability sampling. When we compared perceptions of men’s and women’s sexual motives, we found that participants seemed to rely on the sexual double standard. Participants were more likely to attribute a female-stereotyped motive (e.g., romantic relationship characteristics, feeling “ready”, emotional investment) and less likely to attribute a male-stereotyped motive (“easy”, arousal, physical appearance) to female peers than to male peers. However, when we compared participants’ own motives to perceptions of their peers’ motives, participants overestimated male-stereotyped motives and underestimated female-stereotyped motives in peers, regardless of peer gender, possibly in congruence with stereotypes of hookup culture. These findings demonstrate that, although individuals sometimes rely on the sexual double standard to attribute sexual motives to others, misperceptions of peers’ sexual motives may also be influenced by stereotypes of hookup culture. These misperceptions contribute to pluralistic ignorance that may influence college students’ sexual behaviors.     

The Understanding and Experience of Mixed Emotions in 3–5-Year-Old Children

The term mixed emotions refers to the presence of two opposite-valence emotions toward a single target. Identifying when children begin to report experiencing and understanding mixed emotions is critical in identifying how skills such as adaptive functioning, coping strategies, environmental understanding, and socioemotional competence emerge. Prior research has shown that children as young as 5 years old can understand and experience mixed emotion, but perhaps appropriately sensitive methodologies can reveal these abilities in younger children. The present study evaluated 57 children between 3 and 5 years old for mixed emotion experience and understanding using an animated video clip in which a character experiences a mixed emotional episode. Ordinal logistic regression was utilized to examine the relation of gender, attention, and understanding of content to experience and understanding of mixed emotion. While only 12% of children reported experiencing mixed emotion while watching the clip, 49% of children—some as young as 3 years old—were able to recognize the mixed emotional experience of the character. Thus, mixed emotion understanding emerges earlier than previously identified and the expression of understanding may develop independently of the ability to report mixed emotion experience. These findings are discussed in relation to cognitive and developmental considerations.     

Parents’ Understanding of Genetics and Heritability

Parents have the opportunity to educate their children to facilitate behaviours and lifestyle habits that may prevent or delay genetic disease, or mitigate predispositions within the family. We sought to determine parents’ understanding of genetic knowledge and heritability. Using a quantitative survey methodology 108 volunteer participants were surveyed from a convenience sample of all parents/caregivers within the waiting room of a general children’s outpatient clinic. Results indicated that average genetic knowledge levels were fairly high, with the majority of participants scoring 70–80 % correct on knowledge-based questions. Further, scores were found to be positively correlated with education, but inversely correlated with self-perceived knowledge. This finding suggests that participants with less experience tended to overestimate their knowledge. We suggest that gaps in knowledge of genetics and heritability could be improved by using educational interventions such as media campaigns, provision of informational brochures, or changes to current high school curriculum which would increase exposure to genetics and heritability for both parents and children.     

Understanding Frege’s notion of presupposition

Why did Frege offer only proper names as examples of presupposition triggers? Some scholars claim that Frege simply did not care about the full range of presuppositional phenomena. This paper argues, in contrast, that he had good reasons for employing an extremely narrow notion of ‘Voraussetzung’. On Frege’s view, many devices that are now construed as presupposition triggers either express several thoughts at once or merely ‘illuminate’ a thought in a particular way. Fregean presuppositions, in contrast, are essentially tied to names.

     

Toddlers’ social evaluations of agents who act on false beliefs

Mature social evaluations privilege agents’ intentions over the outcomes of their actions, but young children often privilege outcomes over intentions in verbal tasks probing their social evaluations. In three experiments (N = 118), we probed the development of intention-based social evaluation and mental state reasoning using nonverbal methods with 15-month-old toddlers. Toddlers viewed scenarios depicting a protagonist who sought to obtain one of two toys, each inside a different box, as two other agents observed. Then, the boxes’ contents were switched in the absence of the protagonist and either in the presence or the absence of the other agents. When the protagonist returned, one agent opened the box containing the protagonist's desired toy (a positive outcome), and the other opened the other box (a neutral outcome). When both agents had observed the toys move to their current locations, the toddlers preferred the agent who opened the box containing the desired toy. In contrast, when the agents had not seen the toys move and therefore should have expected the desired toy's location to be unchanged, the toddlers preferred the agent who opened the box that no longer contained the desired toy. Thus, the toddlers preferred the agent who intended to make the protagonist's desired toy accessible, even when its action, guided by a false belief concerning that toy's location, did not produce a positive outcome. Well before children connect beliefs to social behavior in verbal tasks, toddlers engage in intention-based evaluations of social agents with false beliefs.     

On the Expression of Emotions in Rembrandt’s Art

Rembrandt has been characterized as "the master of the passions of the soul". His painting production has always elicited the viewers' strong emotional responses. Τhese responses raise the question regarding why Rembrandt's work has been singled out as the quintessential example of the expression of emotions both during the 17th century, as well as in recent times. I will try to approach the issue through two different yet interconnected routes. First, I will explore the tools and terms through which the question of the expression of emotions in Rembrandt's oeuvre can be approached. Ancient rhetorical topoi, as well as ideas stemming from Dutch theater writers, drama and art theorists, scholars and art connoisseurs on the rendition of the emotions provide useful points of view. Secondly, I will approach the question by addressing certain stylistic and compositional solutions that Rembrandt suggested, which can be tied to current notions about lifelikeness and the beholder's empathy. Foremost among Rembrandt's aesthetic choices was his handling of light and of paint which accounts for a great deal of unfavorable criticism to his work during the 17th century. I would like to suggest that this handling of light and paint serves as Rembrandt's most important emotive vehicle and furthermore that it introduces us to the idea of wonder and the concept of the sublime in terms of which his depiction of emotions may be understood. Accordingly, I will try to establish an intellectual network in the 17th-century Netherlands for the sublime.     

Children’s Developing Understanding of the Conventionality of Rules

Much research has investigated how children relate to norms taught to them by adult authorities. Very few studies have investigated norms that arise out of children’s own peer interactions. In two studies, we investigated how 5- and 7-year-old children teach, enforce, and understand rules that they either created themselves or were taught by an adult. Children (N = 240) were asked to either invent game rules on their own or were taught these exact same rules by an adult (yoked design). Children of both ages enforced and transmitted the rules in a normative way, regardless of whether they had invented them or were taught the rules by an adult, suggesting that they viewed even their own self-made rules as normatively binding. However, creating the rules led 5-year-old children to understand them as much more changeable as compared with adult-taught rules. Seven-year-olds, in contrast, regarded both kinds of rules as equally changeable, indeed allowing fewer changes to their self-created rules than 5-year-olds. While the process of creating rules seemed to enlighten preschoolers’ understanding of the conventionality of the rules, school-aged children regarded both self-created rules and adult-taught rules in a similar manner, suggesting a deeper understanding of rule normativity as arising from social agreement and commitment.     

Influence of Peers’ Types of Trust on Trust Repair: The Role of Apologies

This study aims to answer the question how previous trust experiences contextualize trust repair efforts. The concepts of calculus-based and relational trust are utilized to show the influence of the kind of trust on trust repair tactics, specifically apologies. We focus on a neglected referent of trust, that is trust between peers, and elucidate apology and its complements that might be effective between peers. We propose that the effectiveness of apologies and its specific complements depend not only on trust breach but also on the type of trust prior to a breach. Specifically, we claim that when apology is complemented with compensation or external attributions, these tactics repair trust more effectively in calculus-based trust. But, when apology is complemented with empathy, acknowledgment of violated norms, and extensive involvement, these tactics can effectively repair trust in relational trust. The paper aims to contribute to our understanding of apologies and the effectiveness of it under different conditions.     

Pacifiers Disrupt Adults’ Responses to Infants’ Emotions

Research shows that pacifiers disrupt infants' mimicry of facial expressions. This experiment examines whether pacifiers interfere with caretakers' ability to mimic infants' emotions. Adults saw photographs of infants with or without a pacifier. When infants had pacifiers, perceivers showed reduced EMG activity to infants' smiles. Smiles of infants using a pacifier were also rated as less happy than smiles depicted without a pacifier. The same pattern was observed for expressions of distress: adults rated infants presented with pacifiers as less sad than infants without pacifiers. We discuss deleterious effects of pacifier use for the perceiver's resonance with a child's emotions.     

Toddlers’ cognition of adding and subtracting objects in action and in perception

A first experiment tested infants’ perceptual discrimination between correct and incorrect adding and subtracting objects with a standardized violation-of-expectation procedure. Eleven-, 16- and 21-month-olds did not look longer at incorrect (one object) than at correct (two objects) results of adding one object to another, nor at incorrect (two objects) than at correct (one object) results of subtracting one object from two. A second experiment tested 21-month-olds’ sensorimotor production of addition and subtraction results using a search-for-objects procedure. They already searched correctly for two objects when one object is added to another and for one object when one is subtracted from two objects. These findings support the constructivist hypothesis that infants’ active sensorimotor production may develop before their reactive perceptual discrimination of adding and subtracting objects.     

Peers,Social Control,or Guilt? Self-Conscious Emotions as Explanation for Antisocial Behavior

Criminologists rarely include self-conscious emotions like guilt or shame to explain delinquency. Instead, factors external to the individual are often used, such as social institutions, the family, or peers. This study uses a longitudinal sample of 526 youth from two waves of survey data to assess the effects of peer influences, social control, and the self-conscious emotion of guilt on youth problem behaviors. Problem behavior is measured using teacher assessments at Time2. All other variables are baseline youth self-report measures that were collected at Time1. The results show that guilt statistically predicted teacher-assessed problem behaviors. Further work is needed to develop this measure in criminology.