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PSYCH FINAL

SOCIAL Social Psychology is the scientific study of the experience and behaviours of individuals in relation to social stimulus situations according to Sherif and Sherif.  Baron & Byrne say its the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situations.   Tajfel is like it’s a discipline that helps with interpretation of social phenomena and aims to explain social life of individuals and groups. Rajele is like its just understanding the functions of a society There is not one, focus is to apply perspectives to help us understand and work towards better racial, cultural, gender, economic, interpersonal relations.  HISTORY -1920s Sociology vs Psychology, Social Psychology combines the two. Mental testing started here (racists used it to justif black people could learn). -30s turned toward research focus.  -40s intergroup conflict -50s focused on oppression. SA had a division (race-sympathizers and non-sympathizers).  INTERGROUP CONFLICT -Gordon Allport’s contact theory, if different groups have contact with one another, prejudice will decrease. Mann 1959 research showed more intense inter-racial contact takes place. Basic contact can still breed prejudice.  RESEARCH GONE WRONG -The nature vs nurture triplet experiment Neubauer -Rae Sherwood would study the African Civil Servant, after studying workers and bosses, they’re rather similar and they hated that bc Afrikaans wanted to feel superior. -Afrikaans and English IQ, English speakers kept doing way better. Afrikaans were viewed as inherently not as smart as English speakers.  -HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council) South African research agency to monitor government policy through knowledge of social sciences and the humanities.  But many controversies, like inclination of black man in white/urban areas to his homeland in ‘76. Showed they have none, which went against policies at the time so it was hidden. -In 1962 Psychological Institute of the Republic of SA broke off from SA Psychological Association bc the latter let black people join. ATTITUDES -evaluations that denote one’s orientation to some object or attitude referent. -Categorizations of stimuli object along an evaluative dimension generated from cognitive information, affective information, and information concerning past behavioral intentions Attitude=Affect+Behavior+Cognition. -Functions through knowledge, utilitarian, value-expressive, ego-defensive. EVALUATIVE ATTITUDE -object is the end in itself -experiential and specific or schematic EXPRESSIVE ATTITUDE -social-expressive -value-expressive -defensive THEORIES OF ATTITUDE

-Cognitive Dissonance Theory is when humans want consistency between their cognitions (beliefs, values, opinions). When two cognitions or thoughts contradict psychologically, it results in anxiety -Dissonance can be reduced when the importance of one or both of the cognitions is reduced or new information outweighs the dissonant belief pr at least one of the dissonant beliefs is changed.  -Self-perception Theory is that our behavior and its interpretations of that forms out attitudes versus the popular view that our attitudes influence how we behave

COGNITIVE ORGANIZATION OF ATTITUDE -Mental representation of an object paired with another = attitude direction -Schema- mental structure of object containing knowledge and examples of referent and processes info pertaining to it -Activation of schemas  ATTRIBUTIONS -How people identify cause.  -Dispositional factors are characteristics of a person that are the cause like “Their homework is late because they’re lazy and don’t care about school” -External factors/Situational factors where the characteristics of a situation are the cause. “Their homework is late because they couldn’t get to campus on time” -Attributions are prone to bias ATTRIBUTION THEORIES -Focuses on different aspects of attributions and are complementary rather than competing -Focus on logic rather than motivations or emotions Common Sense Psychology in Everyday Life -People are motivated to make sense of the world and know what causes things to happen enables us to predict what will happen or how someone may behave and/or make judgments.on how we should act.  -Interested in Causality LEVELS OF RESPONSIBILITY weakest to strongest 1. Responsibility by Association 2. Causal Responsibility  3. Intentional Responsibility  CORRESPONDENT INFERENCE -Focus is trying to explain why people make internal attributions -We make internal attributions when behavior is related to personality -Conditions include choice (we believe they chose this behavior freely) and expectedness of behavior (when they do not act how we think they will).  COVARIATION MODEL -extends on above -Individuals make attributions by assessing distinctiveness (extent to which the individual behaves in the same way in same situations), consistency ( extent to which the individual behaves in similar situations), and consensus (extent to which other people in similar situation behave) -When not enough info we use causal schemas.  ATTRIBUTIONS AND EMOTIONS -People assess how far they have succeeded and/or failed, which leads to negative or positive emotions. -Three bases for making attributions to failures and success are locus (internal or external (perception of the cause is external or internal to the person) stability (does the cause remain the same over time or change) and controllability (what causes does a person have control over) The search for causes influences expectations for the future, and therefore, our emotions.  SOURCES OF ATTRIBUTIONS -Culture. Individualistic cultures where focus is on individual success and goals tend to make dispositional or internal attributions. Collectivist cultures tend to make external or situational attributions.  -Personality- differences in how individual people make attributions regardless of social or cultural context must be caused by personality.  ATTRIBUTION BIASES -Fundamental attribution error occurs when the influence of situational factors is underestimated and dispositional factors are overestimated.  -Actor-observer effect refers to tendency to attribute others actions to dispositional factors and our own actions to situational factors Basically when we explain our own behavior, we are a lot more aware of environmental or external factors.  -Self-serving biases is taking more credit for successes rather than their failures.  -False-Consensus Effect is overestimating the extent to which others agree with some of our opinions -False-Uniqueness Effect: When we present or see ourselves as unique or distinctive -Self-Centered Bias: Taking more than your fair share of responsibility for a jointly produced outcome  ATTRIBUTIONS AND INTERGROUP BEHAVIORS -There are differences in the ways we make attributions about people based on the social group they belong to -They tend to be intergroup attributions rather than individual ones. This happens in all social groups regardless of power or privilege 4 categories of attributions for intergroup -Internal (self as cause) -In-group/self-inclusion (my group is cause) -In-group/self-exclusion (my group not me is cause) -External (something outside my group is the cause) SOCIAL INFLUENCE -No formal definition, it accounts for a range of behaviors. A range of social phenomena in which people attempt to bring about changes in the behavior of others.  SOCIAL INFLUENCE RESEARCH -Sheriff’s experiment investigated norm formation and its embodiment in group behavior. Experiment shows powerful aspects of conformity as they shape group dynamics.  -Norm is an idea that social behavior is profoundly affected by expectations or understandings about what forms of behavior are correct.  -Sheriff revealed that distance estimates are retained for longer than a year after original norm formation -Participants returned to individual experimental setting after group experimental setting but retained the group estimate -Distance norms can be manipulated by getting a “confederate” to make large or small estimates - if Participants are replaced one at a time, distance norm can perpetuate across generations of laboratory groups -Sheriff constructed a complex social phenomenon that is breathtaking in its simplicity. He also created a problem. Did this apply to real social processes and phenomena though? There was no correct answer - A social norm is an evaluative scale, designating acceptable latitude and an objectionable latitude for behaviors and beliefs and any other object of concern to members of a social unit.  -Asch studied this again with a greater focus on generalization and found conformity in 36% of critical trials with 75% of participants conforming at least once despite the answer being obvious. Control groups were nearly 100% accurate. Participants reported anxiety and conformed for either informational reasons (they believed the information was correct) or in order to gain approval or avoid disapproval HISTORICAL CONFORMITY -Bond and Smith did a meta analysis of 133 studies -Conformity varies across cultures with collectivist cultures showing more conformity -There has been a systematic decline in conformity over historical time across cultures MILGRAM STUDY OF OBEDIENCE -Conformity is when people regulate their own behavior to relatively match the behavior of others in accord with group norm -Compliance- A specific acquiescent behavior is requested either implicity or explicitly -Obedience is often classified as a sub-type of compliance. Social influence is exerted directly and bluntly by using threats or hierarchical context to ensure acquiescence -Majority of Milgram subjects continued to obey the scientist until the end despite the “pain” 65% to be exact.  STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT -Our behavior is dramatically affected by roles we adopt in a social situation -Direct normative pressure or authority figure is not necessary to produce conforming behavior -Prisoners passive immediately while guards were active and initiative, gave commands and bullied prisoners.  -Unethical, replications do not necessarily support it and lacks ecological validity MINORITY INFLUENCE -Interested in situations where larger collectives are influenced by smaller collectives -Social influence can be exerted in the same direction denied by traditional approaches in their models -Minorities are few in number, have no normative control over the majority, perceived as weirdos, more likely to be ridiculed than taken seriously, have access to the same informational and normative means of control either explicitly or implicitly as a majority. -Color experiment, one trial had minority consistently get color wrong and another with the minority being inconsistent (24 vs 12 times right) -Consistent group had majority yield 8.4% of the time, had 32% of participants yield at least once -1.3% only in the inconsistent group -Minorities must make their proposition clear at the outset and stick to their original proposition and withstand majority influence in order for minorities to have influence. Consistency amongst time and across individuals and strength of conviction is key. Disrupts established norm (produces doubt and uncertainty in majority) makes itself visible (calls attention to itself) shows an alternate point of view, shows certainty and confidence and does not compromise or move, implies only solution is for the majority to accept the minority view -Minority influence is DEEP, can influence the basis of others judgements despite not having substantial overt acceptance. Challenge beliefs and produce private conversion (indirect, delayed, private effect of social influence) -Majority influence is shallow and can make almost all accept its point of view without affecting the underlying perceptual-cognitive system. Produce public compliance rather than conversion (direct, immediate, temporary effect of social influence) SIT of Intergroup Behavior -Conformity is a fundamental group process and is brought about naturally by identification and categorization of the self as a member of a particular social group -We tend to follow conformity behaviors of our specific groups  -Crowd behavior reflects not a loss of identity and hence rationality and control, but a shift from personal to social identity, and hence to social-identity based self-control.  -These are signals that gain us entrance into a group (we belong) -Where there are scarce resources, conflicting interests develop through competition and turn into overt social conflict -Enhances intra group morale, cohesiveness and cooperation but conflict creates antagonistic intergroup relations and also heightens identification with positive attachment to the “ingroup” -Interpersonal behavior: 2 or more individuals fully determined by their interpersonal relationships and individual characteristics not at all affected by social groups or categories.  -Intergroups behavior is when 2 or more people fully determined by their respective social groups and categories not at all influenced by the interindividual personal relationships between the people involved CONDITIONS FOR ADOPTING SOCIAL BEHAVIOR -How do people adopt these extreme social behaviors or come close to either of the 2? -The more intense the intergroup conflict the more likely it is that the individuals who are members of the opposite groups will behave toward each other as functions of their respective memberships rather than in terms of their individual characteristics or interindividual relationships INTERPERSONAL-INTERGROUP CONTINUUM -refers to individuals’ belief systems about the nature and the structure of the relations between social groups in their society.  -social mobility is the belief system based on the general assumption that the society in which the individuals live as a flexible and permeable one so that if they are not satisfied with the conditions imposed upon their lives by membership in social groups or social categories to which they belong, it is possible for them to move individually into another group that suits them better -Moves/Potential moves sanctioned -social change implies that the nature and structure of the relations between social groups in the society is characterized by marked stratification, making it impossible or very difficult for individuals to divest themselves of an unsatisfactory, underprivileged, or stigmatized group membership.  -The nearer members of a group are to the “social change” extreme and the intergroup extreme, more uniformity they will show in their behavior towards members of the relevant out group Categorization and Intergroup Discrimination ●Real-world ethnocentrism resembled by in-group bias - the tendency to favor the in-group over the out-group in evaluations and behavior. ●Incompatible group interests not always sufficient to generate conflict - good experimental evidence that these conditions are not always necessary for development of competition and discrimination between groups. ●In-group bias, remarkably an omnipotent feature of ingroup relations. ●A lot of researchers including Tajfel show: mere perception of belonging to two distinct groups (social categorization) is sufficient to trigger intergroup discrimination favoring the ingroup.  ●The mere awareness of the presence of an out-group is sufficient to provoke intergroup competitive or discriminatory responses on the part of the in-group. Research on this showed that participants... ...made "decisions," awarding amounts of money to pairs of other subjects (excluding self) in specially designed booklets. The recipients are anonymous, except for their individual code numbers and their group membership (for example, member number 51 of the X group and member number 33 of the Y group). The subjects, who know their own group membership, award the amounts individually and anonymously. The response format of the booklets does not force the subjects to act in terms of group membership ●Fairness also an influential strategy ●Maximum difference more important than maximum ingroup profits - competing with the out-group rather than following a strategy of simple economic gain for members of the in-group. ●Biling (1973) and Brewer and Silver (1978) - Even explicitly arbitrary social categorizations are sufficient for discrimination.●Does the experimenter produce the in-group bias (maybe by reference to group membership)? Social Identity and Social Comparison ●Social Categorization - Cognitive tools that segment, classify and order the social environment, and thus enable the individual to undertake many forms of social action ●They also provide a system of orientation for self-reference: create and define the individual’s place in society. ●Social groups provide their members with an identification of themselves in social terms. ●These identities are mostly relational and comparative defining the individual as similar to or different from, as “better” or “worse”, than members of other groups. ●Tajfel: Pressures to evaluate one’s own group positively through in group/outgroup comparisons lead social groups to attempt to differentiate themselves from each other.  What influences differentiation  1.Individuals must internalize their group membership as an aspect of their self-concept: they must be subjectively identified with the relevant in group 2.The social situation must be such as to allow for intergroup comparisons that enable the selection and evaluation of the relevant rational attributes 3.In-groups do not compare themselves with every cognitively available out-group: the out-group must be perceived as a relevant comparison group. Similarity, proximity and other variables determine out-group comparability Why we differentiate ●To maintain or achieve superiority over an out-group on some dimension, therefore it is competitive. ●Mutual comparison + differentiation on shared value dimension = competition between groups. Turner (1975): Social and “realistic” competition ●Social (instrumental) - Motivated by self evaluation and takes place through social comparison ●“Realistic” - Based on “realistic” self interest and represents embryonic conflict ○Incompatible group goals are necessary, and often sufficient for competition Status and Hierarchies How do we react to a negative or threatened social identity? Individual Mobility  Individuals (mostly closer to the social mobility pole discussed earlier on) may try to leave their former group to achieve upward social mobility or pass from lower to higher status.  Associated with tendencies to dissociate oneself psychologically from fellow members of low-prestige categories. Examples of this? NB feature: Low status of one’s own group not changed - designed to achieve a personal, not a group solution.  Implies disidentification with the erstwhile in-group. 2.  Social Creativity ●Group rather than individual strategy. ●Group may seek positive distinctiveness for the in-group by redefining or altering the elements of the comparative situation ●My focus on: ○New dimension of comparison ○Changing values assigned to the attributes of the group, so comparisons which were previously perceived as negative are now positive e.g black manikins ○Change the out-group with which in-group is compared, avoiding higher status out-group as a comparative frame of reference. SOCIAL REPRESENTATION THEORY -How humans interpret events and understand their social and physical surroundings depends on political context in which they are embedded -Humans are agentic. Actions are not merely behavioral responses but volitional, purposive, and meaningful.  -Humans are inherently social. Their psychological activity is oriented towards others in a systemic way. When people come together, they form social groups. -Rather than simply responding to stimuli, human beings must associate that stimuli to a social representation.  SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS -Social representations are systems of values, ideas, and practices with a two-fold function: To establish an order which enables individuals to orientate themselves in their material and social world and to master it, and to enable communication to take place among members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously by various aspects of their world and their individual and group history. -Constitute the stock of common knowledge and information which people share in the form of common-sense theories about the social world.  WHAT IS REPRESENTATION  -To present or to depict through an image or to stand in for (re-present) -Double meaning: presence + absence -Produces meaning: Reality + Distortion =Assumes a shared conceptual map or knowledge system  SHARED CONCEPTUAL MAP KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM -Classification through code/language. Many things like colors on a stop light do not have any true or fixed meaning, they have been set through social organization and shared conceptual meanings  WHY DO WE REPRESENT -An object or event has no meaning until it has been represented. Many “potential” meanings. -Act of representing is the condition of existence of the object or event -Establishing meaning and enabling communication as the physical world (objects and events) exists independently of us but we have a need to make sense of it through representation -Prescribe and reify certain ‘ways of knowing’, representations are socially constructed and a function of a shared knowledge system. They are conventional and prescriptive can lead to exclusion and discrimination. -Social change because representations change because meaning can never be completely fixed. Social context determines the creation, development and transformation of social representations.  HOW DO WE REPRESENT -Capacity to represent objects/events (social categorization) is a cognitive structure -The particular content of representations are learnt through social organization (representational system) -Hegemonic representations are social representations that are shared by all members of a highly-structured group -Emancipated Representations are social representations that are characteristic of subgroups who create their own version of reality -Polemical Representations are social representations marked by controversy Two forms of knowledge that exist in Contemporary Societies -Scientific knowledge is the dominant form of knowledge in modern societies  -Common sense knowledge is science made common transferred through the media or by the act of individuals -Social Representations are produced through anchoring and objectification -Anchoring and objectification transform science into common sense -Anchoring refers to a process of classification by which the new and unfamiliar is placed within a familiar frame of reference. -Objectification is a process of externalization by which the meaning of an object or event is projected in the world through images or propositions.  SOCIAL REPRESENTATION AND INTERGROUP RELATIONS EXAMPLES IN RESEARCH (methods are qualitative using interviews, focus groups, media analysis, and participatory research) -Madness to protect community identities against the threat of madness and otherness. Psychiatric hospitals is an example, using mechanisms to establish distance between “us” (sane) and “them” (insane). A representation of DANGER since they’re locked up and people are scared of them and put distance, DIRT or CONTAGION because contact between their things and bodies are kept separate.  -Health enables a community to sustain and defend its cultural identity. Serves to strengthen possibilities for multicultural communities. Examples include finding hybrid representations that combine understandings and knowledge, like in Chinese traditional medicine and western biomedical knowledge.  -Community to portray people from the area as criminal, deviant, and threatening. Serves to maintain social exclusion across communities. Examples include representations of black learners as trouble-makers or as underachievers (Race) and representations of institutional constraints and resistance.  -Development portrays people as victims of poverty, miseducated, incapable of hard work, corrupt, promiscuous, and serves to maintain difference and control of Africa through discourses of pity and the uncivilized. To be developed one must have a western education, speak english or study in europe. “Poverty is ignorance, laziness, and lack of education”. Blaming victims for their own oppression like blaming women for them having to sell their bodies or using pregnancy for money, neglecting their children, and do not want to work,  PREJUDICE -Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience -Allport says it is an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole or toward an individual because they are a member of that group --Samson says its an unjustified usually negative attitude towards others because of their social category or group membership. -Brown says prejudice will be regarded as any attitude, emotion, or behavior towards members of a group, which directly or indirectly imply some negativity or antipathy towards the group. Problems with this definition include the implication that It can manifest directly or indirectly, is synonymous with all other forms of oppression and it expresses itself in behavior -Prejudice primarily originates from in group processes. Orientation towards whole categories of people rather than isolated individual and its often a socially shared orientation.  RACISM -An institutionalized system whereby certain racialized groups are systematically dominated or marginalized by another racialized group or other groups. -Racial discrimination is the verbal or non-verbal or paraverbal social acts that result in negative or unfavorable consequences for the dominated racial-ethnic groups. Actionable, unlike prejudice which is feelings and beliefs, racial discrimination is the enactment of racial prejudice (but not always) -Forms of racial discrimination include direct unequal treatment based on racial or related criteria or indirectly discriminating by ignoring unequal conditions under the guise of equal treatment.  -Subtle discrimination is not obvious and intentions are hard to prove. Like Paternalism and Condescension or behavior that is superficially polite and nice but paternalistic in that members of the target group are treated as inferior or lacking in something. Or supportive discouragement because of uncertainty about one’s abilities intelligence or accomplishments RACISM AND PERSONALITY -Adorno and authoritarian personality type where prejudice and racism develop from -Authoritarian Personality does not necessarily lead to prejudice and racism, as thats traced to a person’s childhood experience RACISM as a consequence of COMPETITION -Competition between racial groups over scarce resources leads to hostility and conflict and that superordinate goals or cooperative activities between these groups induce social harmony -Racial conflict and racism would diminish if there is cooperative intergroup activity in attainment of superordinate goals.  RACE-CATEGORIZATION, IDENTITY, COMPARISON -Social constructionism refers to identities being harnessed by, flowing from, or developed in opposition to, the phenomenon of racism are not fixed or static but shifting or in flux and socially constituted through language.  -SIT shows social catgorization forms the fundamental cognitive process -Every person has a need to be regarded positively. PRIVILEGE -Prejudice + Power (power is access to social, cultural, and economic resources) WHITENESS -A discursive strategy that maintains whiteness as normal and ‘others’ as different.  -Location of structural advantage/race privilege -Standpoint, a place from which white people look at themselves, at others, at society. -Whiteness refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed. This makes it invisible -Whiteness studies aim to make whiteness visible and problematize it.  WHITENESS STUDIES -Originated as a critique of white feminist racism by black feminists -Standpoint theory discusses the link of where one stands in society and what one perceives. The oppressed can see with the most clarity not just their own position but that of the oppressor/privileged and the shape of the social system as a whole. SOUTH AFRICA -Wealthy white South Africans tend to defend white privilege, resist power redistribution, and champion individualism -Ideological discourses of privilege are systems of meanings that dominant or powerful groups attempt to fix as ‘truth’ in order to constitute and maintain their dominance.  -Legitimization is the strategy of presenting relations of dominance as legitimate. This is a strategy for justifying unequal power distribution. They appeal to traditionally established, rational, or charismatic grounds, dominant groups use this strategy to argue their dominance is justified, it’s “just the way things are and should be” -Dissiumulation is the strategy of concealing or denying relations of dominance and presenting them as something other than what they are If relations of dominance are hidden or invisible they cannot be challenged.  -Reification is the strategy od denying history and presenting the state of affairs as if it was permanent, natural,, and existed outside of time. This strategy functions to ideologically separate the current state of affairs from this history that informs them.  DEFENDING WHITE PRIVILEGE -exhibits the discourse of denial, a discursive strategy to deny the ways which white South Africans were implicated in the apartheid system and to deny the effects of this system that continue to structure the present.  -exhibits the discourse of a just world, a discursive strategy to present the world as a place where people get what they deserve.  -separation between new South Africa and the history of apartheid and glosses over current unequal relations to power and legitimizes class privilege using work ethic and racist discourse RESISTING POWER DISTRIBUTION -Discourse of undeserving ANC,  a discursive strategy to construct post-apartheid South Africa as a ‘fiasco’ of decay, corruption, greed, and incompetence -Discourse of business over politics, a discursive strategy to subvert black power by valuing the economic realm controlled by whites and devaluing the political realm controlled by blacks. INDIVIDUALISM -Discourse of the good white Samaritan, a discursive strategy that locates solutions to poverty and racism within individuals. Maintains white privilege by resisting structural transformation.  -Discourse of reverse racism or non-racialism, a discursive strategy to challenge equal distribution to power. Like saying white South Africans are the victims of affirmative action programs.  -Individualist discourses conceal the structural relations of domination between wealthy white and poor black -Whites are constructed as saviors of black poor -Discourse of non-racialism removes white South Africans from the history of apartheid RISKS OF WHITENESS STUDIES -Fantasy of transcendence by problematizing whiteness, do whites transcend race? -Narcissism because academic disciplines are already about whiteness.  MODELS OF DISABILITY -Medical model views disability as a personal tragedy. Morality position views it as pathology and evidence of sin needing divine intervention. Essentially located in the individual. Attempts are to fix people rather than the context -Social Model is a distinction between impairment and disability. An impairment is a physiological limitation. Disability is the disabling social and material conditions experienced by disabled people.  -Minority-group model does the same, inspired by civil rights movement and queer politics. People-first language is stressed recognizing the person before the disability.  -Both of these criticize context rather than individual.  -Cultural Model is the work of disability as a cultural construct aimed at regulating normalcy. Biology and culture are not mutually exclusive. -Nordic Relational Model focuses on how disability is created through the relational process of the mis/match of the person/environment, the context, and the disability as a relative constructive. -Biopsychosocial Model devised by WHO to bridge the divide between medical and social models. Acknowledges that disability is a complex phenomenon and centers around functional limitations of the body, participation, and activities. ICFDH intended to provide comparable data and was used to measure disability prevalence for 2011 and globally vulnerable groups like women the poor and older people had higher rates of disability prevalence  -Data on gendered disability is sparse -Studies treat people with disabilities as a monolithic and ahistorical group, type of disability, its onset, severity, and visibility determine the degree of gendered expectation. 50.6% of boys with disabilities have completed primary school and 41.7% of girls.  20.1% of disabled women in lower income countries are employed and 58.6% of men.  -Women with disabilities are infantilized and imagined as helpless victims. Despite great risk of sexual violence they are treated as asexual and expected to forego motherhood as they are perceived to transmit faulty genes that are incapable of raising children. They are 3 times more likely to experience sexual, emotional, and physical abuse compared to non-disabled women. higher maternal morbidity and mortality rates due to lack of reproductive and sexual health and education - less health care because they are perceived as asexual LAND QUESTION -Disposession of land is experienced by black SA’s historically. Laws displaced 80% of population from over 80% of the land.  -Subjected them to rural poverty and social exclusion. 50% of South Africans are now considered poor and 70% live in rural areas. Qualitatively, the full extent of social exclusions of rural residency is technically not shown but impoverishment and exclusion often follows land ownership and access patterns CONTEXT OF LAND DISPOSESSION -Native Land Act of 1913 allocated 13% of land for ‘natives reserves’ and the balance of 87% to whites (could either be bought or rented by blacks) -Laid down the foundation for racial segregation through the creation of homelands. Africans had to embrace communal agriculture.  Land in the present Bernstein- Different patterns of historically constituted countryside generate very different social and political dynamics Neves- Homelands assumed their role as a dumping ground for the estimated 3.5 million surplus people forcibly removed from 1960 to 1983. Former homelands continue to bear the imprint of their apartheid construction, marked by spatial exclusion from markets, services, and opportunities.  Inter-group relations and commercial farmland 900,000 black South Africans work and live on farms owned by 55,000 overwhelmingly white commercial farmers LAND REFORM -Land restitution would be a return of land or its equivalence to people who lost it after the historic watershed of 1913 as a result of a racial motivated legislation. 63500 claims received by the ‘98 cut off date have been settled.  -Land Redistribution is the transfer of land to previously disadvantaged people who need it. Has been relatively slow. -Tenure Upgrade is improving and legalizing the status of people with land residency. More complex and contended. Requires grappling with overlapping and contradictory system.  MEANING OF LAND -A sum of its instrumental and property values -Connections between ancestors, parents, and passed to children.  -Land defines a group, its origins, asserts memberships, belonging and validates citizenship. Discourse of space, shaping subjectivity -Identity - Boer and Zulu identities and the concentration -It mediates identity and community and rupture of this social fabric causes psychological stress. Land theft/13 and 87% land partition and local accounts of displacement all contribute to this.  LAND AND SOCIAL CLASS -19th century agrarian accumulation and social differentiation affected both blacks and whites (emergence of poor whiteism) -Resolved by the ‘ethnicization’ of poverty, still seen today -Walker says if agriculture was completely deracialized overnight, and 55K white farmers were replaced with black farmers, less than 10% of rural households that need land would receive it and everyone else would still be poor . -Poverty and social exclusion compounded by traditional patriarchal forms of land tenure. ‘It is in control of land that patriarchal power ultimately resides’.  CONTACT THEORY - The role contact plays within the whole repertoire of relations between groups in a changing South Africa, exploring its effects on attitudes towards ongoing processes of restitution and quality, and more standard measure on prejudice. -Concrete behavioral and spatial patterns of intergroup contact. Main focus ‘micro-ecology’ contact: spatiotemporal unfolding of interaction and isolation at relative levels of analysis and across a variety of everyday life settings.  

Self-Test report of Contact Theory Survey -1,119 grade 10 and 11 students from 19 Cape Town schools -strong, statistical relations between self-reported contact and prejudice measures -2010 Another 3277 students from 4 SA varsities reported moderately strong relations between reported contact and various measures of racial prejudice for black and white SAs. Students concerned about outgroup evaluation of ingroup have higher levels of prejudice toward the outgroup, outgroup blame.  -2010 and 2011 surveys on white and colored high school students found cross-group relationships is a strong predictor of positive out-group attitudes and a negative predictor of negative action tendencies mediated by intergroup anxiety affective empathy.  -Results are consistent showing that there is unambiguous evidence of the inverse relationship between self-reported contact and self reported prejudice in post-Apartheid SAn youth. However they do not provide an answer to questions about the impact of contact on relationships in SA.  RACIAL ECOLOGY OF CONTACT -Contact theory and the utopian approach in historically divided societies -Accounting for racial and ethnic contact and also transformation challenges -Seating patterns of students helps to explore use of shared spaces. Observation and “mapping techniques” used in capturing the spatial arrangement of social relations. -Two UCT dining rooms studied (App 60% blacks and 40% whites) High levels of segregation in results, 92% of tables were highly segregated per observational period on average. -UKZN self-segregation studied the distribution of seating in first year classes over the first two weeks. They began uneven and only became uneven as the end of semester approached. Friendship patterns determined seating arrangements rather than race. Monoracial groups could predate enrollment.  -Fixed meal times of dining halls likely reintroduced social rituals, rendering seating patterns more determinate than they may really be OVERALL FINDINGS, UKZN Findings:Very few students entering residence for the first time knew any of their fellow students at the time of entry. The seating preferences of first-time students were strongly racialized from the very first few days they spent in residence.Eating preferences remained consistent for the duration of the year Rate of cross-race friendship was low, even though opportunities for making cross-race friends were good. OVERALL FINDINGS UCT DINING Self-segregation shown - black and white students typically occupy the same territorially distinct areas on a daily basis Long term replication of this normative racialization despite replacement through grad and new enrollment White students - chose to sit in open spaces that were closer to in-group neighbors than out-group neighbors EXPERIMENTAL CONTACT THEORY Explored Consequences of intruding in racially homogeneous spaces. Three types of intrusions mounted:First 2, confederates were placed at a residence dining table usually occupied by students of the same, or different, racial group membership as confederate.In the 3rd, a racially mixed group of confederates was placed at dining room tables that were racially homogeneous. Results- Confederates fetched meals from the kitchen, and then occupied an end portion of the predesignated table, usually before other students occupied the table, and remained seated for an hour. Records made of any person who joined, “the intruder” tables. Few intrusions were mounted to allow definitive conclusions to be drawn Racialization of table spaces remained intact: disruptions did not promote or produce any breakdown of racial boundaries in the space. Avoiding contact - Black and White response contrast 53% Black students (opposed to 13% Whites) agreed that mixing with White students amounted to dissociating with their own group 72% Black students (only 52% White students) concurred that class differences made interracial mixing difficult 47% Black students did not want to mix with White students because white students did not have an understanding of their culture (vs 27% White Students). 49% White students thought Black students did not want to mix because they were preoccupied with race issues (vs 36% Black students) Conditions that must be met to ↓ prejudice; if not met, ↑ tension equal status – similar backgrounds, qualities, and characteristics working together on common goals (superordinate goals) rather than competing institutional support / support of authorities, laws and customs should be present intergroup cooperation – intimate rather than casual contact, personal interaction all of these conditions are not always necessary / possible; more that are met the greater the potential is for prejudice reduction. MODELS OF SOCIAL CHANGE Improving intergroup relations = Reducing stereotyping and prejudice Social change = strengthening social justice and reducing inequality Strategies to reduce prejudice tend to have + effects for the advantaged group, weakens motivation of disadvantaged groups to take collective action PREJUDICE REDUCTION VS. COLLECTIVE ACTION Theories of social change – mostly focus on prejudice reduction (e.g. contact theory) Limits of prejudice reduction for meaningful social change:Unitary focus on + attitudes and intergroup liking has obscured considerations of critical features of intergroup inequality, e.g. structural inequalities & differences in power and privilege Wright and Baray (2012) suggest successful social change emerges out of a balance of conflict and harmony, segregation and contact, antagonism and positive regard School of thought: Psychology of collective action Question why members will act on behalf of their group, in an effort to improve ingroup’s (their group’s) status and treatment Social change can be facilitated by direct confrontation by the disadvantaged group.  Goal of prejudice reduction = promoting intergroup harmony and social cohesion Conflict is seen as bad that needs to be prevented, avoided/stopped quickly when it occurs Collective action views dichotomies of harmony/good, conflict/bad as problematic. Goal of collective action = promoting equality across groups and social justice Suggests that conflict is essential because it helps to expose, challenge and reduce inequalities and injustices (e.g. Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall) Prejudice Reduction focuses on the advantaged while collective action focuses on disadvantaged (advantaged might have reactionary CA) Prejudice reductionCollective actionLow salience and identification with one’s ingroupHigh salience and identification with one’s ingroupFocus on similarities across groups; identify with a larger superordinate category blurring lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’ – common ingroup identity; work towards superordinate goals, collective learningCross-cut categorisation: some members of outgroup = ingroup, previous ingroup members = outgroupKeenly aware of membership; membership meaningful part of social identityLow salience of group-based inequalityHigh salience of group-based inequalityEqual status interactions; structuring contact situations to temporarily erase group status differencesDisadvantaged group compare their collective condition to that of the outgroup (advantaged group)Perceive group boundaries permeablePerceive group boundaries impermeableEmphasis similarities and the blurring of group boundariesOne cannot simply move from one’s disadvantaged group to a more enviable, advantaged groupHigher group identification, feelings of injusticePositive characterisation of the outgroupNegative characterisation of the outgroupProduce improved evaluations, liking, and respect for the outgroupOutgroup = villain responsible for the group’s position COLLECTIVE ACTION CRITIQUES Collective actionAgency for change in the hands of disadvantaged groups, seen as key catalysts to alter the status quoChange depends on disadvantaged group’s motivation, determination, appropriateness of the tactics it uses AND resistance from the advantaged group (i.e. conflict is essential)Disadvantaged group has a direct, decisive role in improving status PREJUDICE REDUCTION CRITIQUES Models of prejudice reduction shifted problem to group that benefitted, making the situation and treatment of disadvantaged hard to ignore or legitimiseShifted the blame for group-based inequality from the disadvantagedDisadvantaged group relieved of responsibility for inequalitybut it does not shift the agency of the solution to disadvantaged (does not empower the disadvantaged) 🡪 remain passive targets of the advantaged groups actions, who will now move from discriminatory to egalitarian position as prejudice is removed Considering that mass protests can result in:repression that intensify inequality and leave the disadvantaged group in a worse situation unanticipated conditions – one repressive regime being replaced by another so is collective actionreally best DEVELOPMENTAL -Development is systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death -Goals of studying human development are for description/prediction/explanation/optimisation -Central issues are nature vs nurture (is development determined by biological factors like heredity or enviornmental factors or both?)/Continuity and discontinuity (Are the changes we go through gradual and quantitative or abrupt and qualitative and stage-like or both? do we all follow same developmental path or develop in unique ways),/ Universal and context-specific development.  PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE -Children move through a series of stages in which they experience conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. Freud’s Psychosexual stages: Five stages associated with a sequencing of sensual pleasurable zones. Stage 1 Oral (Birth to 18 months maybe 12) - Sucking and oral satisfaction are not only vital to life, but also extremely pleasurable in their own rights. Late in this stage, the infant begins to realize that the mother/parent is something separate from self. Disruption in the physical or emotional availability of the parent could affect an infant's development. Stage 2 Anal (maybe 12 or 18 months until 36 months) - The focus of pleasure changes to the anal zone. Children become increasingly aware of the pleasurable sensations of this body region with interest in the products of their effort. Coping with demands or control.  Stage 3 Phallic maybe Oedipal (3 to 6 years) - It is during this stage that the genital organs become the focus of pleasure. This is the time of exploration and imagination as the child fantasizes about the parent of the opposite sex as his or her first love interest, known as the Oedipus or Electra complex. Coping with incest feelings.  Stage 4 Latency (6 to 12 or puberty) - This is a stage in which Freud believed that sexual urges, from the earlier oedipal stage, are repressed and channeled into productive activities that are socially acceptable.  Stage 5 Genital (Puberty onwards) - Final stage. This is a time of turbulence when earlier sexual urges reawaken and are directed to an individual outside the family circle. Unresolved prior confilicts surface during adolescence. Once the individual resolves conflicts, he or she is then capable of having a mature adult sexual relationship. ERIKSON’S 8 STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT Theory that describes the development of identity of the self and the ego through successive stages that unfold throughout the life span. Trust vs Mistrust- (Birth to 1 year or maybe 18 months) Establishment of a basic sense of trust is essential for the development of a healthy personality. Autonomy versus Sense of Shame and Doubt-(1 to 3 years) A growing child is more accomplished in some basic self-care activities, including walking, feeding, and toileting. Is the result of maturation and imitation. The toddler develops his or her autonomy by making choices. Initiative versus Guilt-(3 to 5 years) Children like to pretend and try out new roles. Fantasy and imagination allow children to further explore their environment. At this time children are developing their superego, or conscience. Conflicts often occur between the child's desire to explore and the limits placed on his or her behavior. These conflicts sometimes lead to feelings of frustration and guilt. Industry versus Inferiority - (5 to 13 years) School age children are eager to apply themselves to learning socially productive skills and tools. they learn to work and play with their peers. Thrive on their accomplishments and praise. Sensation of inadequacy and achievement without proper support. Identity vs Role Confusion - (13-21 years) Dramatic physiological changes associated with sexual maturation mark this stage. There is a marked preoccupation with appearance and body image. "Who am I?" Intimacy vs Isolation - (21-39) Young adults, having developed a sense of identity, deepen their capacity to love others and care for them. They search for meaningful friendships and an intimate relationship with another.  Generativity vs Stagnation - (40-65) Following the development of an intimate relationship, the adult focuses on supporting future generations. The ability to expand one's personal and social involvement is critical to this stage of development. Achieve success in this stage by contributing to future generations through parenthood, teaching and community involvement. Integrity vs Despair - (65 to death) As the aging process creates physical and social losses, some adults also suffer loss of status and function, such as through retirement or illness. Learning Theory -Developmental change is mainly caused by the environment  Behaviourism - Behaviorism is a worldview that assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli. The learner starts off as a clean slate (i.e. tabula rasa) and behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement[2]. Both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement increase the probability that the antecedent behavior will happen again. In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the antecedent behavior will happen again. Positive indicates the application of a stimulus; Negative indicates the withholding of a stimulus. Learning is therefore defined as a change in behavior in the learner. Classical conditioning (John Watson )Operant conditioning (B.F. Skinner) In classical conditioning, the stimuli that precede a behavior will vary to alter that behavior. In operant conditioning, the consequences which come after a behavior will vary, to alter that behavior Social Learning Theory (Bandura) Pioneered the idea that to understand behavior it was also necessary to understand how people think. Current model emphasizes interaction among behavior, environment, and personal/cognitive factors. He views learning as active and occurring withing a social context. Incorporates the personal factors of self-understanding, self-confidence, and self-efficacy in development. Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning. Child is more likely to imitate one similar to them. Is most likely going to continue if they are given PROPER reinforcement. And then they observe other people’s consequences. The cognitive-developmental perspective Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development Includes four periods that are related to age and demonstrate specific categories of knowing and understanding. Period l: Sensorimotor (Birth to 2 Years) During a time of unparalleled changes, the infant develops the schema or action pattern for dealing with the environment. Including hitting, looking, grasping or kicking. Period ll: Preoperational (2 to 7 Years) this is a time when children learn to think with the use of symbols and mental images. Children see objects and persons from only one point of view, their own. Period lll: Concrete Operations (7 to 12 Years) Children now achieve the ability to perform mental operations. The children are now able to describe a process without actually performing it. Period lV: Formal Operations (12 Years to Adulthood) During this stage the individual's thinking moves to abstract and theoretical subjects. Cognitive processes: Assimilation: trying to understand new information in terms of our existing schemes Accommodation: changing our existing schemes or developing new schemes in response to new information.Enable us to move from a state of disequilibrium to equilibrium. Information processing theory Likens the human mind to a computer with hardware and software with input being processed into sensory image, if not forgotten into working memory, and if still not forgotten then is stored.  Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory Focuses on the impact of social and cultural experiences on cognitive development The ecological and systems perspective provide more complex explanations of how biological and environmental influences – including culture – constantly interact with one another to influence development Bronfenbrenner ecological systems theory Microsystem: Refers to the institutions and groups that most immediately and directly impact the child's development including: family, school, religious institutions, neighborhood, and peers. Mesosystem: Interconnections between the microsystems, Interactions between the family and teachers, Relationship between the child’s peers and the family Exosystem: Involves links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual's immediate context. For example, a parent's or child's experience at home may be influenced by the other parent's experiences at work. The parent might receive a promotion that requires more travel, which might increase conflict with the other parent and change patterns of interaction with the child. Macrosystem: Describes the culture in which individuals live. Cultural contexts include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity. A child, his or her parent, his or her school, and his or her parent's workplace are all part of a large cultural context. Members of a cultural group share a common identity, heritage, and values. The macrosystem evolves over time, because each successive generation may change the macrosystem, leading to their development in a unique macrosystem.[1] Chronosystem: The patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course, as well as sociohistorical circumstances. For example, divorces are one transition. Researchers have found that the negative effects of divorce on children often peak in the first year after the divorce. By two years after the divorce, family interaction is less chaotic and more stable. An example of sociohistorical circumstances is the increase in opportunities for women to pursue a career during the last thirty years TYPES OF RESEARCH DESIGN for DESCRIPTION purposes 1. Cross-sectional design Compares the performances of people of different age groups at a single time. Advantage:Provides information about age differences Disadvantage:Cohort effects 2. Longitudinal design One age group (cohort) is assessed repeatedly over time. Advantages:Longitudinal designs can tell us:Whether most people change in the same direction or whether the characteristics measured remain consistent over time Whether experiences early in life predict traits and behaviours later in life Disadvantages:Time of measurement effects Costly and time-consuming Participants drop out 3. Sequential design Groups of people of 2 or more different ages are studied repeatedly over a period of time for PREDICTING or OPTIMIZING purposes 1. Experimental studies Investigator manipulates some aspect of environment to see what effect this has on people’s behaviour. Basic logic:Select a random sample. Randomly assign the participants to an experimental or control group Manipulate the independent variable Keep all other factors constant Measure the dependent variable Use statistics to see whether any differences between the two groups are more than you would expect by chance Advantage:Can establish cause and effect Disadvantages:Artificiality. Cannot address many questions for ethical or practical reasons 2. Correlational studies Involve determining whether two or more naturally-occurring variables are related in some systematic way Disadvantage:Cannot establish cause-and-effect Advantages:Allow us to predict behaviour Can suggest a causal relationship in situations where experiments would be unethical or impossible. Have a “real world” quality 3. Qualitative studies Involve gaining an in-depth understanding of human behaviour Advantage:Can provide a rich and detailed picture of development Disadvantage:Conclusions may not hold true for other people or in other settings PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT germinal(fertilisation to 2weeks) embryonic(3 to 8 weeks) foetal(9 weeks to birth) FOETUS MOVEMENT MovementsGestational age (weeks)Just discernible movement7Startle8Hiccup9Breathing movements10Hand-face contact10Yawn11Sucking and swallowing12Eye movements16 Sensory abilities 8 weeks: responds to touch around lips and cheeks 15-16 weeks: responds to flavour of amniotic fluid 22-24 weeks: responds to sound Foetal learning Newborns prefer to listen to their mother’s voice, and to music and stories they heard prenatally. The foetus also learns about tastes and smells. The importance of foetal behaviour Practice makes perfect Forming joints and muscles Getting ready for the breast Attachment Language Boosting brain cells Environmental influences on prenatal development Teratogens-Any disease, drug, or other environmental agent that can harm a developing foetus The mother’s state: -Age The safest time to bear a child is from about age 20 to 35. -Emotional condition Babies of highly stressed mothers tend to be small, premature and irritable, and are at increased risk of behaviour problems in childhood.Possible explanations include:Stress hormones Poor diet and unhealthy lifestyle Ongoing stressors after birth Genetic transmission -Nutritional condition Maternal malnutrition associated with:Low birth weight, Intellectual and social deficits Effects of environmental hazards depend on:Timing Severity and duration Genetic makeup of child and mother Postnatal environment BIRTH PROCESS -This stage begins when the cervix starts to dilate and to open. First stage is complete when the cervix has opened to around 10 centimetres. Contractions. -Stage 2 is when the baby’s head appears and it passes through the vagina -Stage 3 is the placenta being pushed out APGAR test used to provide a quick assessment of the newborn’s heart rate, respiration, colour,muscle tone and reflexes Postnatal depression Affects about 13% of new mothers. Risks increased for those with:Histories of depression. Other life stresses Lack of social support Depressed mothers may:perceive their babies as more difficult interact less positively with their infants have trouble responding to their babies’signals and establishing reciprocal, give-and-take relationships with them NEONATES AT RISK Premature infants born before the 37th week after the woman’s last menstrual period Low birthweight babies weigh less than 2 500g at birth(due to prematurity, foetal growth retardation, or both) Potential problems with:respiration maintaining body temperature immune system digestion parent-infant relations.  Developmental consequences Low birthweight infants are at risk for academic and behavioural problemsBut long-term consequences are not inevitable, and depend on:biological condition and quality of postnatal environment KANGAROO CARE 4 components: Kangaroo position (Skin-to-skin contact) Kangaroo nutrition(Breastfeeding) Kangaroo support Kangaroo discharge Benefits include: Improves survival Infants calmer, less distressed Infants show improved cognitive performance Mothers feel more positive Improves quality of parent-child and family interactions Reduces hospital costs. Culture and thought both what people know and how they think are shaped by the mental tools (mediators) the culture values and makes available. Social interaction and thought Cognitive development occurs as children interact with more skilled partners on tasks that are within their zone of proximal development. Language and thought As social speech is transformed into private speech and then inner speech, the culture’s preferred tools of problem solving work their way from the language of competent guides into the thinking of the individual. Evaluating Vygotsky’s theory Contribution:Increased awareness of social and cultural contexts of cognition.Limitation:Does not provide a detailed description of how children’s thinking changes with age. WHAT IS LANGUAGE? a form of communication based on a system of symbols consists of the words used by a community and the rules for varying and combining them Language’s rule systems Phonology Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound in a language Cat = /k/ /a/ /t/ Phonology: rules regarding how sounds are perceived as different and which sound sequences may occur Morphology rules that govern the makeup of words Morpheme: the smallest unit of sound that conveys a specific meaning helper = help + er walks = walk + s Syntax rules that govern the ways words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences. The farmer chased the cat that killed the mouse. √The mouse the cat killed ate the cheese. √The mouse the cat the farmer chased killed ate the cheese. χ Semantics rules that govern the meaning of words and sentences Pragmatics rules that govern the appropriate use of language in context LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT Infancy Recognising language sounds Newborns are sensitive to the sounds, rhythm and intonation of language and can recognise the language their caregivers speak. 6-12 months: Change from universal linguistto language specific listener 8 months: Begin to detect word boundaries 8-12 months: Comprehension of words appears PRODUCING LANGUAGE Before the first words Birth:Crying,other prelinguistic sounds 2 months: Cooing ± 5-6 months:Babbling 8-12 months: Gestures The first words10-15 months: First word spoken (holophrases) 18 months: vocabulary spurt starts Overextension: the tendency to apply a word too broadly Underextension: the tendency to apply a word too narrowly Telegraphic speech at 18-24 months: two-word statements appear Early CHildhood Transition from telegraphic speech to complex sentences.Increased understanding of language’s rule systems. Overregularization of morphological rules (e.g. “foots”) shows that preschoolers understand the rules of grammar and are applying them. As for semantics, Speaking vocabulary increases by 5-8 words per day, to ± 8000-14000 words by age 6. 6-year-olds learn 22 new words every day. Fast mapping is a possible explanation Pragmatics “Daddy, did your hair slip?”(3-year-old son, to his bald but long bearded father) “I wish someone we knew would die so we could leave them flowers.”(6-year-old girl, upon seeing flowers in a cemetery)“ How will that help?”(preschool student, when the class was told to hold up two fingers if any of them had to go to the bathroom) Middle Childhood Further advances in vocabulary and grammar Realise that the surface content of speech (what is said) and what is meant are not necessarily the same Adolescence Increasingly sophisticated understanding of metaphor, satire, and complex literary works. Often adopt a dialect when speaking with peers

HOW IS LANGUAGE ACQUIRED? Language acquisitiondepends on learning through imitation and operant conditioning (reinforcement).

The Nativist Explanation

Chomsky: children are biologically “prewired” with a language acquisition device that enables them to detect the features and rules of language. Broca’s Area produces speech and Wernicke’s Area develops language The Interactionist View Children are biologically prepared to learn language, but in order to do so they must actively participate in human interaction.

What is important in the environment to promote language development?

Live language exposure Interaction Focused on the child’s interest How can caregivers enhance language development?Talking to children Book sharing (dialogic reading)Associated with improvements in vocabulary, comprehension, sustained attention, sociability, andempathy (Murray et al., 2016) Infant-directed speechExpandingLabelling Self-awareness: Knowledge of the self as a separate, permanent entity. I-self (sense of self as an agent) emerges during the first year Me-self (sense of self as an object of knowledge and evaluation) develops during the second year. From about 18 months, toddlers show self-recognition. Self-awareness leads to:Self-conscious emotionsPerspective-takingEmpathy Compliance: obedience Self-control: the capacity to resist an impulse to engage in socially disapproved behaviour Requirements:Self-awarenessAbility to remember commandsAbility to shift attention Compliance begins to appear between 12 and 18 months.Self-control first appears around 18 months. Influences on self-controlTemperament (effortful control)ability to sustain attention, control one’s behaviour, and regulate one’s emotionsCulture (Lamm et al., 2017)Environmental reliability (Kidd et al., 2013) Self-concept:Perception of self; your understanding of what you are like. Developmental changes in self-concept Early childhood: From about 18 months, toddlers begin to classify themselves and others into social categories.Preschoolers define themselves in concrete, physical terms. Middle childhood: Children develop a more complex self-concept incorporating:Internal, psychological characteristicsSocial aspects (e.g. social groups)Social comparison Adolescence:Self-concepts become more:Self-consciousAbstractFluctuatingIntegratedAnd adolescents increasingly start to think about possible selves. Cultural influences on self-conceptIn individualistic cultures, self-descriptions focus on unique personal characteristics and emphasise positive qualities.In collectivist cultures, people are more likely to describe themselves in terms of their social roles, and are more modest and self-critical. SOCIAL COGNITIONThe ability to understand other people’s perceptions, thoughts, emotions and behaviour Theory of mind: the understanding that people have mental states such as desires, beliefs, and intentions and that these mental states guide their behaviour. During the first 5 years, children gradually come to understand: 1.PerceptionsFrom about 9 months, infants engage in joint attention. 2) IntentionsIn the first months of life, infants understand that others have intentions – that actions are directed toward particular goals. 3) Pretence/make-believeAge 1-2: Pretend play emergesAge 3: Children know the difference between real and imagined objects 4) Emotions3-months: can distinguish between emotions posed by adults in photos.7-10 months: infants use social referencing to guide their own behaviour.Age 2: talk about emotions and have some understanding of what will comfort and hurt others.Age 4 to 5: can correctly infer whether a person is happy, sad, angry, scared or surprised from his or her facial expression, and can identify situations that are likely to cause these emotions. 5) DesiresAge 2: children have a “desire theory of mind”: they understand that people have desires, and that these desires guide their behaviour. 6) BeliefsAge 3 - 4: Children have a “belief-desire theory of mind”. False belief task: assesses the understanding that people can hold incorrect beliefs and be influenced by these beliefs, even if they are wrong. Deception:By about age 4, most children understand that, by telling something that is false, they change the beliefs that another person has about a situation. How do we explain the development of a theory of mind? Neurological maturationAdvances in languageAdvances in cognitionSocial experiencessiblingspretend playmaternal mind-mindednessCulture What is morality?The ability to:distinguish “right” from “wrong”, and act on this distinction Kohlberg’s Theory Level 1: Preconventional moralityPersonal consequences of action determine whether it is judged good or bad.Stage 1: Punishment-and-obedience orientationobeys rules in order to avoid punishment.Stage 2: Instrumental hedonismobeys rules in order to gain rewards or satisfy personal needs. Level 2: Conventional moralityMoral reasoning is guided by doing what family, society, or people in power expect.Stage 3: “Good boy”/ “good girl” moralityWhat is right is that which pleases, helps or is approved of by others.Stage 4: Authority and social-order-maintaining moralityWhat is right is what upholds “law and order.” Level 3: Postconventional moralityIndividual defines what is right in terms of broad principles of justiceStage 5: Morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted lawperson is still guided by the general consensus about right and wrong, but believes that society must also fulfil its part in the bargain.Stage 6: Morality of individual principles of conscienceperson follows a self-chosen ethical code based on principles of justice. Critiques of Kohlberg’s theory Stage model is too rigidCultural biasOverlooks nonlegalistic forms of moral reasoning(Prosocial moral reasoning (Eisenberg): deciding whether to share with, help or take care of other people when doing so involves a cost to oneself).Fails to explain relationship between moral reasoning and behaviour Aggression: committing an act intended to hurt another Instrumental aggression: directed at getting something (a means to an end). Hostile aggression: specifically aimed at hurting another person (an end in itself). Individual factors:Genes:Influence aggression indirectly through their effects on children’s temperaments and physiologically based characteristics What causes individual differences in aggressive behaviour? Social information-processing (Dodge):The individual’s reactions to frustration, anger or provocation depend on the ways in which the person processes and interprets the social cues present in the situation.Highly aggressive individuals tend to show faulty or biased information processing (e.g. quickly attributing hostile intentions to other people), or to respond impulsively “without thinking”.

Interpersonal factors: Social learning perspective:people learn to behave aggressively through reinforcement and modelling. Patterson’s coercive family environments:Family members are locked in power struggles, each trying to control the others through coercive tactics like threatening, shouting and hitting, and parents gradually lose control of children’s behaviour. Broader contextual factorsPoverty, inequalityand social stressCommunity violencePeer influencesCultural context Violence prevention:Should start in infancy or toddlerhood with an emphasis on positive parenting, followed by programs to improve the social skills and impulse control of young children at risk. Bullying:Repeated, systematic acts of physical, verbal and/or relational aggression that are directed towards particular peers.Bullies:act aggressively (without provocation) to achieve domination over other children.have quite a good understanding of social interaction, but use this knowledge in an antisocial way. Victims:tend to be anxious, insecure, lacking in self-esteem and socially isolated. Effects of bullying:Victims are at increased risk of depression and low self-esteem. Bullies are at increased risk of becoming involved in criminal behaviour What can we do about it?: Whole school approach (Olweus):Target entire schoolIntervene earlyEvaluate programs The Development of Prosocial BehaviourProsocial behaviour (behaviour that is intended to benefit others)appears by 18 monthsincreases with age Perspective takingEmpathyMoral reasoningSkills underlying prosocial behaviour Influences on prosocial behaviourGenestemperamentSocial learning (modelling)Opportunities to behave prosociallyDisciplineMoral training: DisciplineDiscipline refers to methods of teaching children self-control, moral values and appropriate behaviour. What are effective ways of disciplining children?InductionPunishmentTime outPositive disciplineNote: parents will need to adjust their discipline strategies according to the child’s age and temperament. GENDER DIFFERENCES Physical differences23rd pair of chromosomesMale XYFemale XXDifferent balances of hormones (androgens and oestrogens)Genitals differ Only females can bear childrenGirls mature physically faster than boys do Masculinity: Instrumental or agentic traitsFemininity: Expressive or communal traits Development of gender roles (the patterns of behaviour and traits that define how to act the part of a male or a female in a society) involves acquiring:Gender identityGender (labellingGender stabilityGender consistency)Gender stereotypesGender-typed behaviour patterns Middle childhood: extend gender-stereotyped beliefs, but also acknowledge that people can cross gender lines. Early adolescence: Possible gender intensification. Theories of gender role development Biosocial Theory (Money & Ehrhardt)Gender role preferences determined by a series of critical events:Prenatal: exposure to hormonesPostnatal: Parents and others label and react towards a child on the basis of his or her genitals. Social learning theory (Bandura)Children learn gender roles through:Differential reinforcementObservational learning Cognitive approachesCognitive-developmental theory (Kohlberg)Children try to behave in a way that is consistent with their identity as boys or girls. Gender schema theory (Martin & Halverson)As soon as children can label their own gender, they form a gender schema and process information on the basis of this schema. Functions of the family (Levine, 1974)Survival goalEconomic goalCultural goalFamily systems theoryThe family consists of interrelated parts, each of which affects and is affected by every other part, and each of which contributes to the functioning of the whole. PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS Parenting styles High emotions/control=authoritative High emotions/low control=permissive Low emotions/low control=uninvolved Low emotions/high control= Autoritarian Outcomes:Children of authoritative parents: cheerful, self-controlled, cooperative, socially and academically competentChildren of authoritarian parents: unhappy, irritable and/or dependentChildren of permissive parents: impulsive, rebellious and poor achieversChildren of uninvolved parents: aggressive and antisocial Criticisms:Cultural biasCertain parenting styles are more popular and more effective in some cultures than in others.“Competent” parenting is not necessarily middle-class western patterns of child rearing, but rather the style of parenting that encourages the particular abilities that children will need for success within their particular (sub)culture. Direction of influenceChild effects on parents:Children’s personality characteristics influence the parenting they receive.Transactional influences in the family:Parents and their children influence one another reciprocally as they interact over time. Parent-adolescent closenessAdolescents who are securely attached to their parents tend to be better adjusted and more socially competent.Parent-adolescent conflictIn most cultures, conflict with parents increases in early adolescence.However, conflict is more common in cultures that value autonomy than in those that value interdependence. Fathers are just as capable of sensitive and responsive caregiving as mothersBUTFathers in many culturesSpend less time interacting with infantsSpend more time in rough-and-tumble play Effects of father involvementChildren of single mothers are more likely to have psychological problems than children from two-parent families.However, this is probably not due to the absence of a parent per se.Having a father is not essential for a child’s psychological development.However, positive father involvement (e.g., economic support, authoritative parenting) is linked with desirable outcomes among children. Sibling rivalry – a spirit of competition, jealousy or resentment between siblingsMinimised if:Parents continue to provide first-born with love and attention (without being over-indulgent)Parents help the older child to see the infant as a person, and involve them in caring for the infantAmbivalence in sibling relationshipsSibling relationships involve both closeness and conflict.From adolescence, sibling relationships become less intense and more equal, but ambivalence remains.Sibling relationships are more positive when:Children have “easy” temperamentsParents have a good relationshipParents treat siblings fairlyHOW DO SIBLINGS CONTRIBUTE TO DEVELOPMENT?Direct contributionsPositive effects:Emotional supportCaretaking servicesTeachingNegative effects:Younger siblings growing up with aggressive older siblings are more likely to develop adjustment problemsIndirect contributionsChildrearing:Parents’ (and teachers’) experiences with older siblings influence their expectations of subsequent children and the child-rearing/teaching strategies that they consider effective.Differential treatment:is associated with poor emotional and behavioural functioning if:the child has a poor individual relationship with his/her parentsthe child perceives this differential treatment to be unfair/unjustified What effects does divorce have?On average, children from divorced families have more psychological, school and peer problems.How long do these effects last?Most problems disappear within a few years, although some may persist for longer.Why do these effects occur?Loss of a parentReduced economic resourcesMore life stressPoor parental adjustmentDeterioration of parenting – N.B.Exposure to interparental conflict What factors help children adjust to divorce?Positive family relationships includingAuthoritative parentingCooperation and low conflict between parentsAdequate financesSocial supportMinimal additional stressors Remarriage and reconstituted familiesThe more marital transitions primary school children have experienced, the poorer their adjustment is likely to be.But long-term outcomes are influenced by:AgeGenderParentingBROADER CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON THE FAMILY: THE EXAMPLE OF POVERTYChildren raised in poverty are more likely to:perform poorly at schoolbecome involved in delinquent behaviourhave unwanted pregnanciesdevelop emotional problemsWhy does this occur?Direct effects:Children in poverty often have less adequateprenatal and postnatal environmentse.g., exposure to environmental toxins and infectious diseaseshousing, nutrition and medical careschool and play environmentsIndirect effects:Poverty has negative effects on the emotional well-being of caretakers, and in turn on family life and the quality of child care. A characteristic of a group of people that is associated with an increased probability of negative outcomesResilience: Capacity of a system to adapt successfully to challenges that threaten its life, function, or development (Masten, 2017)What differentiates resilient children from those who develop psychological problems?Number of risk factorsProtective factorsLater experiencesNumber of risk factorsThe accumulation of multiple risk factors tends to have far more negative effects than any one risk factor aloneProtective factorsCharacteristics of children or their environment that enhance good outcomes under conditions of risk or adversityPersonal characteristics such as good problem-solving skills,Family characteristics such as competent parenting, andBroader environmental characteristics such as social support and good schools.Later experiencesLinks do exist between childhood and adulthood, but adverse early experiences do not inevitably cause irreversible damageNegative childhood experiences often trigger a chain of events that may result in psychological problems in adulthoodBut if the child’s circumstances improve, the course of his/her life may also change for the betterConclusionsThe effects of particular experiences on children depend not just on the experience itself, but on the context in which it occurs.How can developmental psychology make a contribution?Policy developmentEducation: what works well?DemocratisationUnderstanding resilienceHIV/AIDS preventionViolence prevention

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ABA Therapy

Over the past few decades, thousands of refugees have fled East Africa and have landed in Minnesota in hopes of achieving the American Dream. I have watched my community persevere through the difficulties of adjusting to an unfamiliar land while attempting to turn this dream into a reality. However, this desire for success has led many to overlook problems within our community that do not fit with their mental image of what the American Dream looks like. One of these issues is the prevalence of autism. As someone who didn’t get diagnosed with level 1 autism until college, I felt the effects of this. This initially sparked my interest in ABA therapy. It emphasizes early and intensive intervention, targeting the development of basic skills that my parents chose to punish me for not grasping soon enough, like communication and adaptive living skills. Many East African children are currently in the situation that I was in, because of a combination of misinformed parents and a mistrust for the medical system. Treatments such as ABA therapy are ideal for children of this community, as it aims to increase socially significant behaviors by a meaningful degree through practicing and retaining skills while setting goals, rather than using medications. While our elders have worked endlessly to provide for us materially, other aspects of our well being have been neglected and solutions such as ABA therapy not only provide reliable treatment for autism, while building trust between refugee and medical communities for the future.

http://www.actionbehavior.com/about-aba-therapy/

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