What Factors Influence TOM Development Biological factors TOM
• What Factors Influence TOM Development? – Biological factors • TOM as a product of evolution – Adaptive to understand mental states such as beliefs and desires—makes it possible to understand predict others’ behavior – TOM module: Brain mechanism that makes it possible for children to acquire a theory of mind
– Social interaction is likely to contribute to the development of a TOM • Pretend play: Pretending to be someone is not or pretending that an object is something else may foster understanding that beliefs may not always reflect reality • Discussions with adults about mental states such as desires, beliefs, etc. – Mothers who talk more about mental states with young children have children who perform better on false belief tasks
• Late signers and autistic children may show delay in TOM development in part because of restricted access to social interaction (Peterson)
• Evidence that late signing and autistic children do better on TOM tasks involving pictures – Peterson’s study: • Late signers and autistic children performed better on “false drawing” tasks than typical preschool age children • Preschool age children performed better on “false belief” tasks than late signers and autistic children
• Achievement Motivation: The tendency to persist at challenging tasks – In infants and young children, typically referred to as mastery motivation
• Attributions: Common, everyday explanations for the causes of behavior – Ex: failure on a task can be attributed to lack of ability or to insufficient effort
Normative Development • Around age 3, children begin making attributions about their successes and failures • Preschoolers tend to be “learning optimists” – Rate their own ability very high – Underestimate task difficulty – Expect to be successful
• However, by age 3, some children give up easily when faced with a challenge – Ex: completing a difficult puzzle • Individual differences in achievement motivation. . .
In older children, see two motivational styles: • Mastery-oriented – Show an incremental view of ability • Ability can be increased through effort – When they fail, attribute it to factors that can be changed (e. g. , effort)
• Learned Helplessness – Have an entity view of ability • Ability is fixed and cannot be improved by trying hard – When they fail, think they’re not smart
• Older children’s attributions affect their achievement goals – Mastery-oriented attributions are related to learning goals • Increasing ability through effort – Learned helplessness attributions are related to performance goals • Obtaining positive and avoiding negative evaluations of one’s ability
Possible Causes of Individual Differences • Type of praise and criticism provided by adults may affect the development of children’s coping styles (Kamins & Dweck, 1999)
• Different Types of Feedback: – Person- (or Trait-related) Feedback: • Evaluate the child as a whole or the child’s traits – Ex: “Good boy!” , “You’re really good at this”, “I’m very proud of you” (praise) OR – “Bad boy!”, “You’re not very good at this”, “I’m very disappointed in you” (criticism)
– Process Feedback • Evaluate the child’s efforts or strategies • Exs: “You must have tried really hard”, “You found a good way to do it” (praise) OR • “Maybe you could think of ANOTHER way to do it” (criticism)
- Slides: 15