Self Concept
Understanding emotion in others
1. What is social referencing? How do researchers illustrate that children do it?
2. What evidence do we have that infants and toddlers understand other people's behavior as
motivated by goals and intentions?
3. What do two year olds understand about desires in general?
4. What is the subjectivity of desires? How does it relate to Piaget's concept of egocentrism?
5. What did Repacholi & Gopnick's study (broccoli and goldfish) demonstrate about 18 month olds'
knowledge of the subjectivity of desires? What does this say about their mental states?
6. Explain Repacholi & Gopnick's study, how 14 vs. 18 month olds responded, and what their
response says about their knowledge of other peoples' desires.
7. What is a theory of mind? More specifically, what is a representative theory of mind?
8. What is a false belief? What is the logic behind using false belief tasks for testing children's
theory of mind?
9. What is the unexpected contents task? How do 3 yr olds respond? How do 5 yr olds respond?
10. What is the change of location (Sally-Anne) task? How do 3 yr olds respond? How do 5 yr olds
respond?
11. When do children start passing false belief tasks? What does this say about their theory of
mind?
12. What age consistently fails false belief tasks? What does this say about their theory of mind?
13. Why couldn't the younger kids in the movie trick "mean monkey"? Why was the older kid able
to do so?
14. What is some early evidence that infants recognize other people? (list some things we have
talked about throughout the term)
15. What is some evidence that infants see themselves as distinct from mom around 8 months of
age?
16. How do researchers assess self awareness in infancy?
17. Describe the rouge task
18. When do infants recognize themselves in the mirror (at what age)?
19. At what age do infants recognize themselves in photographs at better than chance? When do
they recognize themselves 99% of the time?
20. At what age do infants have self conscious emotions? What are some examples of self conscious
emotions?
21. What is self assertion? When do we see it intensify? (at what age)
22. What does 2 yr olds’ language tell us about their self awareness
23. How is language related to an autobiographical sense of self? How do parents help children
develop an autobiographical sense of self?
24. At what age does an autobiographical sense of self develop?
25. How do preschoolers describe themselves?
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What is an “ideal self” and a “real self” and how do preschoolers think of each?
How do self descriptions change throughout grade school?
What are 3 characteristics of adolescent self descriptions?
How does the awareness of a “variety of selves” change throughout adolescence?
What is a personal fable?
What is an imaginary audience?
How do preschoolers describe themselves?
How do self descriptions change in elementary school?
How do self descriptions change once kids enter adolescence?
How does awareness of the fact that we have a variety of "selves" in different contexts change
throughout adolescence?
36. What is a personal fable and an imaginary audience?
37. How did Marcia add on to Erikson’s theory? What are the four categories that he described? Be
sure to provide an example of what an adolescent would say in each of these categories.