Development of Personal Relationships
500190-B-6
Lecture 1 - The beginning of social relationships
Are infants truly social?
Classical theories:
- Infants are not capable of true social interaction
- Later relationships are derived from relationships with primary caregivers
- Peers start to matter late in development
If this is true, infants shouldn’t have any preference over certain people and this isn’t what you
found in practise: as seen in video where there is one helpful bunny and one unhelpful
Modern theories
- Children are biologically wired to pay attention to others besides primary care-givers
- The entire social system influences a child
- Early peer relations can be important for development as well
Scrambled faces paradigm: 3 minutes after the baby is born
- Held a board over the baby’s head, one with face on it, one empty one, one a little bit
scrambled and one a lot scrambled and then see if they followed it with their heads and
with their eyes
- Baby’s were much more interested and would follow the board if there was a face onit
than if it was a blank board
Contingency
Dyadic peer relationships
- Contingency: contingent responses: responses that build on what the other person did
- Starts already at 6 months
- Example: dyadic differences in touching
Prosocial exchanges
Response to distress
- Attempt to intervene on behalf of a victim, to change the situation or lessen the distress
- We think that empathy develops around the age of 2 when symbolic thinking and
language develops but before that we already see the basics begins because babies
show distress to others: an example: airplane if one starts crying others will start crying
too
, - If we look at children of 8 months old: we already see more response to others regarding
distress
- They took babies in strollers and put them in a triangle and wired till a baby cried
for at least 3 seconds and then see what the other children do
- Either gazing, affect (smiling, frowning), physical responses (waiving, reaching
out) or self-distress (also strat crying)
- Gazing was most frequent and so on.
- Around 2 years old: individual differences start concerning distress
- Problem-solving, aggression, amusement
Video about robot: joint attention test
- Autism: don’t really think about other people, seem very isolated in that sense
- It takes other babies not very long to see someone is hurt
- People with down syndrome respond readily with people with pain: they’ll kick away the
robot for example
- But for autism: it’s like emotions are something they can’t interpret, they can’t explain or
express them so that other people can understand (although they have the same raised
heart rate for example)
- Reacting to other people’s fear is a basic survival instinct
Sharing
- Around 12 months old sharing starts: affiliative sharing is where kids share something in
order to do something with it together
- Focus of non-sharing: some non-sharing is self focused but others just refuse
- Around 18 months old: sharing becomes much more co moon
- Share when asked vs. shared when not asked
- Big relationship with understanding of ownership: this is a coat and this is
mommy’s coat (0.70 for sharing which is very high and about -0.45 for
non-sharing)
- If you understand what ownership is you understand the joy that comes with
owning something that you like
, - Around 24 months old
- CHildren share spontaneously
- Children start to reciprocate sharing
- Sharing is predicted by sensitivity to distress
- But: non-sharing is very frequent as well
- At 48 months old, sharing increases even further and is related to theory of mind (look
up this concept)
Cooperating
- 1 year old can already cooperate (taking turns or making one sound after the other)
- After 2 years of age, cooperation becomes more complex
- For example a puppet that can walk 2 ways and children are instructed to pull the
lever: 18-23-17 months cooperation increased, look at each other to see when
the other will pull the lever
- Verbal instructions also increase for example: 1,2,3 go!
- Cooperation vs. competition
- For example only one red ball, have it for myself or share it with another person?
This becomes a lot more clear at this stage
Conflict
Development of conflict
- Conflict is functional
- Conflict over toys starts around 1year old
- 1 year: resolves conflict by physical force
- 2 year old: also use verbal means (caplan et al. 1991)
- Observed kids in groups of 3, one day there are many toys and one day there are
limited toys and what they saw was that all the negative interactions children has
was about toys
, - The biggest difference between 1 yo and 2 yo was that when 2 yo the resolution
was to give the other child to give what they ask for and use verbal means (now
you and me later)
- Kids avoid conflict, especially hard hits (Hay et al., 2011)
- Retaliation in conflict occurs (Hay & Ross, 1982)
- If kid loses toy they will be more likely to start the next conflict, conflict has the
function to promote reciprocity
- Gender differences start around age 3
- Bodily force decreases after girls get 3 years old but not really for boys, also
differences in aggression starts in groups but also later in dyadic
- Also has an effect of norms: acceptable if a boy fights but not a girl
- Subject of conflict changes
Triadic relations
- Infancy: by non verbal exchanges
- Exchanging between 3 people or more
- Around 6 months: shared meaning
- 3 stroller triangle situation, we also saw that shared meaning starts to develop
- Example: children start touching toes and all copy each other, triadic exchange
because first you see a dyadic exchange and then you see that they keep looking
at each other and checking “are we doing this together” suggest that they have
shared meaning
- Around 6 months: shared meaning
- Around age 2: many triadic relations
Status & dominance
- Clear status structures in 11-15 month olds
- Related to tenure, development and gender
- Peer groups study
- Went to daycare centers and asked supervisor to rank status in dominance of the
children in the group
- Selected 3 children from each group and let them play together
- Top ranked child (alpha dog) you see how they behave with first one, second one
and third most dominant child
- Looked at directing behaviour (making sure we do what I want to do)
- Onlooking behaviour: you are watching what they either people are doing but
aren’t involved yourself (submissive behaviour)
- Top ranked behaviour children react differently to different children
- Most dominant child reacts very much to least dominant child in the group
- New situation(second graph): second-rank child you see how they react to the
dominant alpha dog and to the other children
- Directing behaviour only happen to the 2 subordinate partners
500190-B-6
Lecture 1 - The beginning of social relationships
Are infants truly social?
Classical theories:
- Infants are not capable of true social interaction
- Later relationships are derived from relationships with primary caregivers
- Peers start to matter late in development
If this is true, infants shouldn’t have any preference over certain people and this isn’t what you
found in practise: as seen in video where there is one helpful bunny and one unhelpful
Modern theories
- Children are biologically wired to pay attention to others besides primary care-givers
- The entire social system influences a child
- Early peer relations can be important for development as well
Scrambled faces paradigm: 3 minutes after the baby is born
- Held a board over the baby’s head, one with face on it, one empty one, one a little bit
scrambled and one a lot scrambled and then see if they followed it with their heads and
with their eyes
- Baby’s were much more interested and would follow the board if there was a face onit
than if it was a blank board
Contingency
Dyadic peer relationships
- Contingency: contingent responses: responses that build on what the other person did
- Starts already at 6 months
- Example: dyadic differences in touching
Prosocial exchanges
Response to distress
- Attempt to intervene on behalf of a victim, to change the situation or lessen the distress
- We think that empathy develops around the age of 2 when symbolic thinking and
language develops but before that we already see the basics begins because babies
show distress to others: an example: airplane if one starts crying others will start crying
too
, - If we look at children of 8 months old: we already see more response to others regarding
distress
- They took babies in strollers and put them in a triangle and wired till a baby cried
for at least 3 seconds and then see what the other children do
- Either gazing, affect (smiling, frowning), physical responses (waiving, reaching
out) or self-distress (also strat crying)
- Gazing was most frequent and so on.
- Around 2 years old: individual differences start concerning distress
- Problem-solving, aggression, amusement
Video about robot: joint attention test
- Autism: don’t really think about other people, seem very isolated in that sense
- It takes other babies not very long to see someone is hurt
- People with down syndrome respond readily with people with pain: they’ll kick away the
robot for example
- But for autism: it’s like emotions are something they can’t interpret, they can’t explain or
express them so that other people can understand (although they have the same raised
heart rate for example)
- Reacting to other people’s fear is a basic survival instinct
Sharing
- Around 12 months old sharing starts: affiliative sharing is where kids share something in
order to do something with it together
- Focus of non-sharing: some non-sharing is self focused but others just refuse
- Around 18 months old: sharing becomes much more co moon
- Share when asked vs. shared when not asked
- Big relationship with understanding of ownership: this is a coat and this is
mommy’s coat (0.70 for sharing which is very high and about -0.45 for
non-sharing)
- If you understand what ownership is you understand the joy that comes with
owning something that you like
, - Around 24 months old
- CHildren share spontaneously
- Children start to reciprocate sharing
- Sharing is predicted by sensitivity to distress
- But: non-sharing is very frequent as well
- At 48 months old, sharing increases even further and is related to theory of mind (look
up this concept)
Cooperating
- 1 year old can already cooperate (taking turns or making one sound after the other)
- After 2 years of age, cooperation becomes more complex
- For example a puppet that can walk 2 ways and children are instructed to pull the
lever: 18-23-17 months cooperation increased, look at each other to see when
the other will pull the lever
- Verbal instructions also increase for example: 1,2,3 go!
- Cooperation vs. competition
- For example only one red ball, have it for myself or share it with another person?
This becomes a lot more clear at this stage
Conflict
Development of conflict
- Conflict is functional
- Conflict over toys starts around 1year old
- 1 year: resolves conflict by physical force
- 2 year old: also use verbal means (caplan et al. 1991)
- Observed kids in groups of 3, one day there are many toys and one day there are
limited toys and what they saw was that all the negative interactions children has
was about toys
, - The biggest difference between 1 yo and 2 yo was that when 2 yo the resolution
was to give the other child to give what they ask for and use verbal means (now
you and me later)
- Kids avoid conflict, especially hard hits (Hay et al., 2011)
- Retaliation in conflict occurs (Hay & Ross, 1982)
- If kid loses toy they will be more likely to start the next conflict, conflict has the
function to promote reciprocity
- Gender differences start around age 3
- Bodily force decreases after girls get 3 years old but not really for boys, also
differences in aggression starts in groups but also later in dyadic
- Also has an effect of norms: acceptable if a boy fights but not a girl
- Subject of conflict changes
Triadic relations
- Infancy: by non verbal exchanges
- Exchanging between 3 people or more
- Around 6 months: shared meaning
- 3 stroller triangle situation, we also saw that shared meaning starts to develop
- Example: children start touching toes and all copy each other, triadic exchange
because first you see a dyadic exchange and then you see that they keep looking
at each other and checking “are we doing this together” suggest that they have
shared meaning
- Around 6 months: shared meaning
- Around age 2: many triadic relations
Status & dominance
- Clear status structures in 11-15 month olds
- Related to tenure, development and gender
- Peer groups study
- Went to daycare centers and asked supervisor to rank status in dominance of the
children in the group
- Selected 3 children from each group and let them play together
- Top ranked child (alpha dog) you see how they behave with first one, second one
and third most dominant child
- Looked at directing behaviour (making sure we do what I want to do)
- Onlooking behaviour: you are watching what they either people are doing but
aren’t involved yourself (submissive behaviour)
- Top ranked behaviour children react differently to different children
- Most dominant child reacts very much to least dominant child in the group
- New situation(second graph): second-rank child you see how they react to the
dominant alpha dog and to the other children
- Directing behaviour only happen to the 2 subordinate partners
