scholarly journals False positives using social cognitive mapping to identify children’s peer groups

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Neal ◽  
Jennifer Watling Neal ◽  
Rachel Domagalski
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
False Positives ◽  
Random Data ◽  
Promising Alternative ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Peer Report

Children and adolescents interact in peer groups, which are known to influence a range of psychological and behavioral outcomes. In developmental psychology and related disciplines, social cognitive mapping (SCM), as implemented with the SCM 4.0 software, is the most commonly used method for identifying peer groups from peer report data. However, in a series of four studies, we demonstrate that SCM has an unacceptably high risk of false positives. Specifically, we show that SCM will identify peer groups even when applied to random data. We introduce backbone extraction and community detection as one promising alternative to SCM, and offer several recommendations for researchers seeking to identify peer groups from peer report data.

scholarly journals False Positives Using Social Cognitive Mapping to Identify Children’s Peer Groups

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Neal ◽  
Jennifer Watling Neal ◽  
Rachel Domagalski
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
False Positives ◽  
Random Data ◽  
Promising Alternative ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Peer Report

Children and adolescents interact in peer groups, which are known to influence a range of psychological and behavioral outcomes. In developmental psychology and related disciplines, social cognitive mapping (SCM), as implemented with the SCM 4.0 software, is the most commonly used method for identifying peer groups from peer report data. However, in a series of four studies, we demonstrate that SCM has an unacceptably high risk of false positives. Specifically, we show that SCM will identify peer groups even when applied to random data. We introduce backbone extraction and community detection as one promising alternative to SCM, and offer several recommendations for researchers seeking to identify peer groups from peer report data.

The Multiple Meanings of Peer Groups in Social Cognitive Mapping

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Watling Neal ◽  
Zachary P. Neal
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Multiple Meanings

A Review of Sex Differences in Sexual Jealousy, Including Self-Report Data, Psychophysiological Responses, Interpersonal Violence, and Morbid Jealousy

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine R. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Sexual Infidelity ◽  
Sexual Jealousy ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Self Report Data ◽  
Psychophysiological Data

The specific innate modular theory of jealousy hypothesizes that natural selection shaped sexual jealousy as a mechanism to prevent cuckoldry, and emotional jealousy as a mechanism to prevent resource loss. Therefore, men should be primarily jealous over a mate's sexual infidelity and women over a mate's emotional infidelity. Five lines of evidence have been offered as support: self report responses, psychophysiological data, domestic violence (including spousal abuse and homicide), and morbid jealousy cases. This article reviews each line of evidence and finds only one hypothetical measure consistent with the hypothesis. This, however, is contradicted by a variety of other measures (including reported reactions to real infidelity). A meta-analysis of jealousy-inspired homicides, taking into account base rates for murder, found no evidence that jealousy disproportionately motivates men to kill. The findings are discussed from a social-cognitive theoretical perspective.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 266-276
Author(s):  
David F. Bjorklund
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Developmental Timing ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
Development And Evolution

The final chapter summarizes the major themes of this book, loosely following the content of Chapters 1 through 7. The first section highlights the principles and assumptions of evolutionary developmental psychology, emphasizing that adaptations occurred at all life stages, not just in adults. The second section emphasizes the role of plasticity in both development and evolution, noting that plasticity is greatest early in life. This is followed by a section focusing on the role of timing in evolution, especially genetic-based differences in developmental timing, or heterochrony, with neoteny being especially important for human evolution. The fourth section examines the claim that humans are a neotenous species, as seen in aspects of its physical, behavioral, and cognitive development/evolution. The fifth section examines human hypersociality as being due to modification of great ape ontogeny into unique human social-cognitive abilities, followed by a look at evolutionary mismatches particular to specific stages of life.

On the Uniqueness of Human Normative Attitudes

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco F. H. Schmidt ◽  
Hannes Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
The Core ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Group Life ◽  
Human Ontogeny ◽  
Human Phylogeny

Humans are normative beings through and through. This capacity for normativity lies at the core of uniquely human forms of understanding and regulating socio-cultural group life. Plausibly, therefore, the hominin lineage evolved specialized social-cognitive, motivational, and affective abilities that helped create, transmit, preserve, and amend shared social practices. In turn, these shared normative attitudes and practices shaped subsequent human phylogeny, constituted new forms of group life, and hence structured human ontogeny, too. An essential aspect of human ontogeny is therefore its reciprocal nature regarding normativity. This chapter reviews recent evidence from developmental psychology suggesting that, from early on, human children take a normative attitude toward others’ conduct in social interactions, and thus a collectivistic and impersonal perspective on norms. The chapter discusses to what extent humans’ closest living primate relatives lack normative attitudes and therefore live in a non-normative socio-causal world structured by individual preferences, power relationships, and regularities.

Individual differences in ideological attitudes and prejudice: Evidence from peer-report data.

2012 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Cohrs ◽  
Nicole Kämpfe-Hargrave ◽  
Rainer Riemann
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Peer Report ◽  
Ideological Attitudes

Imitation

2013 ◽  
pp. 650-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew N. Meltzoff ◽  
Rebecca A. Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Modeling ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Action Coupling ◽  
Informal Settings

Human beings are the most imitative creatures in the animal kingdom. Imitation has both cognitive and social aspects and is a powerful mechanism for learning about and from people. Imitation raises theoretical questions about perception–action coupling, memory, representation, social cognition, and social affinities toward others “like me.” Childhood imitation is attracting attention both within and outside of developmental psychology. Modern studies of imitative development are bringing to bear the techniques of cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, education, and cognitive-developmental science. By using neuroscience tools and cognitive modeling, scientists are uncovering the mechanisms that underlie imitation. Evolutionary biologists are using imitation to investigate social learning in other species and to compare this to the abilities of human infants. Engineers are designing robots that can learn like babies—imitating the skilled actions of experts in an unsupervised manner. Educational psychologists are increasingly attending to how children learn through observation, role-modeling, and apprenticeship in informal settings and using this to revise pedagogical practices in formal educational settings. This chapter provides an analysis of the development of children’s imitative ability, the mechanisms that underlie it, and the functions it serves in social, cognitive, and cultural learning from infancy to early childhood.

Developmental Psychology

2013 ◽  
pp. 2-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip David Zelazo
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Synthetic Approach ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Biological Maturity

This Handbook surveys what is now known about psychological development from birth to biological maturity, and it reflects the emergence of a new synthetic approach to developmental science that is based on several theoretical and methodological commitments. According to this new view: (1) psychological phenomena are usefully studied at multiple levels of analysis; (2) psychological development depends on neural plasticity, which extends across the lifespan; (3) the effect of any particular influence on psychological development will depend on the context in which it occurs; (4) psychological phenomena, and developmental changes in psychological phenomena, typically reflect multiple, simultaneous causal influences; and (5) these causal influences are often reciprocal. Research based on this synthetic approach provides new insights into the way in which processes operating at many levels of analysis (cultural, social, cognitive, neural, and molecular) work together to yield human behavior and changes in human behavior.

Affiliation with depressive peer groups and social and school adjustment in Chinese adolescents

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 1087-1095
Author(s):  
Lingjun Chen ◽  
Xinyin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Peer Group ◽  
School Adjustment ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Chinese Adolescents ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Adjustment Problems ◽  
Group Context ◽  
One Year ◽  
Peer Nominations

AbstractThe purpose of the present study was to examine the role of depressive peer group context in individual social and school adjustment in a sample of 1,430 Chinese adolescents (672 boys, mean age = 15.43 years) from middle (n = 430) and high (n = 1000) schools. Peer groups were identified using the Social Cognitive Map technique. One-year longitudinal data on depression and social and school adjustment were obtained from self-reports, peer nominations, teacher ratings, and school records. Multilevel analyses showed that group-level depression positively predicted later individual depression. Moreover, group-level depression negatively predicted later social competence, peer preference, school competence, and academic achievement, and it positively predicted later peer victimization and learning problems. The results suggest that affiliation with more depressive peer groups contributes to more psychological, social, and school adjustment problems in a cascading manner among Chinese adolescents.

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