Cognitive Adaptation in Latency: The Construction of Social Reality

1976 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Elkind
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Child Behaviour ◽  
Social Adaptation ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Cognitive Adaptation ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
Latency Age

This paper looks briefly at cognitive adaptation as it pertains to the child's construction of social reality, and suggests that what sociologists call “frames” can be a useful concept for specifying what it is the child must conceptualize to deal appropriately with social situations. In addition, the concepts of deference and demeanour, the actions of an individual as actor and audience, are useful in understanding why children learn to behave appropriately in behaviour frames. Much of the paper is devoted to describing frames, suggesting some of the cognitive processes employed in their construction and to some of the behaviours resulting from inappropriate frame behaviour. It is necessary to point out that while the frame approach to social adaptation may be useful it has limitations. It is perhaps excessively situational and does not pay sufficient attention to more abiding motivations and cognitive activities. Frame behaviour thus cannot provide a complete explanation of children's social behaviour, but it does add an important and missing dimension to the usual accounts of social behaviour. To some extent the child's behaviour is determined by the frames in which he is participating. Accordingly, the understanding of frame behaviour should add to the understanding of child behaviour in general and to the behaviour of the latency-age child in particular. For it is in the latter that failures to behave in frames are the most frequent and the most apparent, and are therefore the most likely to be misinterpreted by adults.

scholarly journals Mysteries and Qualitative Research? Review of Mats Alvesson and Dan Kärreman’s Qualitative Research and Theory Development: Mystery as Method

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Strong
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Research Review ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Interpretive Approach ◽  
Empirical Material

In an era of postmodern and social constructionist thought, qualitative researchers have experienced method as a mess. This time of conflict and tension has contributed to concerns and questions about researchers’ interpretive and reflexive contributions to the study of social reality. Into these confusing times, Mats Alvesson and Dan Kärreman, social constructionist researchers, take a novel approach to how qualitative research can inform theory development. They suggest researchers embrace the mysteries when trying to make sense of social situations by taking a reflective and interpretive approach towards their empirical material to create results that can challenge established theory and thus inspire novel lines of theory development.

Social Skills for Children: Training Empirically-derived Target Behaviours

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 174-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Weist ◽  
M. Christopher Borden ◽  
Jack W. Finney ◽  
Thomas H. Ollendick
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Interpersonal Problems ◽  
Child Behaviour ◽  
Multiple Baseline ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Play Partner ◽  
Selection Of

We evaluated the empirical validation model of target selection for two boys with interpersonal problems. Behaviours previously identified as distinguishing popular from rejected boys on a role-play measure of social behaviour were targeted for change in these boys who had histories of peer rejection. We trained three of these empirically-derived behaviours — appropriate body orientation, adequate speech intonation, and providing reasons for denying unreasonable requests — in a multiple-baseline-across-behaviours design. On a role-play measure of social behaviour, improvements in the targeted behaviours occurred upon, but not before, introduction of the intervention, confirming the controlling effects of the intervention. Behavioural improvements generalised to untrained role-play scenes and to a novel role-play partner, and were maintained for two of the three behaviours at 4- and 6-month follow-up assessments. The boys also showed improvements in parent-reported child behaviour from pre- to post-training. The study demonstrates use of an empirical approach to the selection of treatment targets for children.

Weinberger, Ota (1919–2009)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil MacCormick
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Human Social Behaviour

Weinberger is noted as a proponent of ‘institutionalist positivism’ in legal theory. By contrast with earlier forms of so-called ‘institutionalism’ in law, Weinberger advances a theory in which norms are ideal entities linked by logical relations inter se, while being at the same time social realities identifiable in terms of the effect they exercise in guiding human social behaviour. The institutions which make possible this duality of ideal entity and social reality have themselves to be understood as structured by norms. Hence, in contrast with earlier proponents of institutionalism, who denied the foundation of law in norms, Weinberger is normativist in his approach; and for the metaphysical vitalism of precursors, he substitutes a social realism.

Blinking and Thinking

1975 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morris K. Holland ◽  
Gerald Tarlow
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Perceptual System ◽  
Visual Input ◽  
Blink Rate ◽  
Mental Load ◽  
Visual Imagination ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
Blackout Period ◽  
Operational Memory

Blinking is related to certain cognitive processes. For example, individuals “punctuate” their speech by blinking between phrases and at the end of sentences. Daydreaming is associated with low rates of blinking. Blinking occurs between fixations and may be timed so as not to interfere with significant visual input. Apparently, blinking occurs at transitions between internal events and is inhibited at other times. In the experiment reported here, blinking was measured while the activity of operational memory was manipulated with mental load kept constant. The rate of blinking was significantly reduced when the cognitive operation of internal counting was being performed. It is inferred that the blink rate is low when information in memory is being operated on. To suspend blinking during certain cognitive activities would be adaptive if blinking disrupts them. Since the blackout period of the blink produces a rapid change in visual level, blinking disrupts those cognitive processes utilizing display areas accessible to visual input. Operational memory and the visual imagination may share components with the visual perceptual system. To protect these vulnerable processes from interference, blinking may be inhibited when they are active.

Sexual Attitudes Moderate the Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Women’s Risk Judgments

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Yeater ◽  
Teresa A. Treat ◽  
Richard J. Viken ◽  
Kathryn L. Lenberg
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Sexual Victimization ◽  
Sexual Attitudes ◽  
Alcohol Intoxication ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
Lower Sensitivity ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Alcohol Condition ◽  
Risk Judgments ◽  
Victimization History

This study evaluated the effects of alcohol intoxication, sexual attitudes, and sexual victimization history on the cognitive processes underlying undergraduate women’s risk judgments. Participants were 116 unmarried, undergraduate women between the ages of 21 and 29. The sample was diverse ethnically and composed primarily of heterosexual women. Stimuli were written vignettes describing social situations that varied on dimensions of sexual victimization risk and potential impact on women’s popularity. Participants were assigned randomly to an alcohol or a no-alcohol condition, and completed an explicit classification task in which they rated how risky each situation was in terms of their having an unwanted sexual experience. They then completed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) and the Sociosexuality Scale (SS); SES responses were used to quantify the severity of victimization experiences, and SS responses were used to measure endorsement of positive attitudes toward casual, impersonal sex. Although there was no main effect for condition, higher sociosexuality predicted use of higher thresholds for judging situations as risky. Importantly, sociosexuality interacted with condition such that higher sociosexuality predicted lower sensitivity to risk information in the alcohol condition but not in the no-alcohol condition. More severe victimization history predicted increased use of popularity impactwhen judging risk. This study emphasizes the importance of identifying specific cognitive processes affected by alcohol that may explain why women have difficulty processing contextual cues signaling risk in social situations. It demonstrates also the relevance of examining individual difference factors that may exacerbate the relationship between intoxication and cognitive processing of risk-relevant information.

scholarly journals Self-Focused Cognition in Social Anxiety: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice R. Norton ◽  
Maree J. Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Growing Body

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterised by a marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations. Cognitive models suggest that self-focused cognitive processes play a crucial role in generating and maintaining social anxiety, and that self-focused cognition occurs prior to, during, and following social situations (Clark & Wells, 1995; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997). There is a substantial body of empirical evidence demonstrating that socially anxious individuals engage in self-focused cognition during and following a social or performance situation. A smaller but growing body literature suggests that a similar process occurs prior to such situations, and that these three processes are interdependent. Furthermore, the vast majority of research to date indicates that self-focused cognitive processes are detrimental, and that they generate and maintain social anxiety in a variety of ways. However, there remains considerable scope for research to further explicate the role of these processes in the maintenance of SAD, and to enhance interventions designed to ameliorate their negative effects.

scholarly journals A model of organizing activities for training metacognitive skills for primary education students in Mathematics teaching methodology courses

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-43
Author(s):  
Nga Thi Hoang
Keyword(s):  
Primary Education ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Mathematics Teaching ◽  
Teaching Methodology ◽  
Metacognitive Skills ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Cognitive Activities

Metacognition is defined as a person’s ability to control their own cognitive processes, including knowledge of cognitive processes and the orientating, monitoring, revising, and evaluating of cognitive activities involved as needed. The paper proposes a model of organizing activities for training metacognitive skills for primary education students in Mathematics teaching methodology courses.

scholarly journals Authoring social reality with documents

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isto Huvila
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
Information Work ◽  
Literary Authorship ◽  
The Impact

PurposeIn the context of organisation studies, Shotter and colleagues have used the notion of practical authorship of social situations and identities to explain the work of managers and leaders. This notion and contemporary theories of authorship in literary scholarship can be linked to the authoring of documents in the context of document studies to explain the impact and use of documents as instruments of management and communication. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual discussion is supported by an empirical interview study of the information work ofN=16 archaeologists.FindingsFirst, the making of documents and other artefacts, their use as instruments (e.g. boundary objects (BOs)) of management, and the practical authorship of social situations, collective and individual identities form a continuum of authorship. Second, that because practical authorship seems to bear a closer affinity to the liabilities/responsibilities and privileges of attached to documents rather than to a mere attribution of their makership or ownership, practical authorship literature might benefit of an increased focus on them.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper shows how practical authorship can be used as a framework to link making and use of documents to how they change social reality. Further, it shows how the notion of practical authorship can benefit of being complemented with insights from the literature on documentary and literary authorship, specifically that authorship is not only a question of making but also, even more so, of social attribution of responsibilities and privileges.Originality/valueThis paper shows how the concepts of documentary and practical authorship can be used to complement each other in elaborating our understanding of the making of artefacts (documentary) BOs and the social landscape.

scholarly journals Social Skills: Adolf Meyer’s Revision of Clinical Skill for the New Psychiatry of the Twentieth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Lamb
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Clinical Skill ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Adaptation ◽  
Psychiatric Clinic ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Scientific Medicine

Adolf Meyer (1866–1950) exercised considerable influence over the development of Anglo-American psychiatry during the first half of the twentieth century. The concepts and techniques he implemented at his prominent Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins remain important to psychiatric practice and neuro-scientific research today. In the 1890s, Meyer revised scientific medicine’s traditional notion of clinical skill to serve what he called the ‘New Psychiatry’, a clinical discipline that embodied social and scientific ideals shared with other ‘new’ progressive reform movements in the United States. This revision conformed to his concept ofpsychobiology– his biological theory of mind and mental disorders – and accorded with his definition of scientific medicine as a unity of clinical–pathological methods and therapeutics. Combining insights from evolutionary biology, neuron theory and American pragmatist philosophy, Meyer concluded that subjective experience and social behaviour were functions of human biology. In addition to the time-honoured techniques devised to exploit the material data of the diseased body – observing and recording in the clinic, dissecting in the morgue and conducting histological experiments in the laboratory – he insisted that psychiatrists must also be skilled at wielding social interaction and interpersonal relationships as investigative and therapeutic tools in order to conceptualise, collect, analyse and apply the ephemeral data of ‘social adaptation’. An examination of his clinical practices and teaching at Johns Hopkins between 1913 and 1917 shows how particular historical and intellectual contexts shaped Meyer’s conceptualisation of social behaviour as a biological function and, subsequently, his new vision of clinical skill for twentieth-century psychiatry.

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