INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROCH

This approch analyze how individuals manipulates information, monitor it, and create strategies for handling it. Affective information processing involves attention, memory and thinking, one after other in sequential order.

These process may overlap, but always goes in left to right sequence.

Information Processing Approch Applied to development-

According to seigler, three mechanism works together to create changes in children’s cognitive skills-

1.    Encoding-  process by which information gets into memory. Changes in children’s cognitive skills depend on increased skill at encoding relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information.

2.    Automaticity- ability to process information with little or no effort.practice allows children to encode increasing amount of information automatically. Eg- learning to read. This automaticity increases speed as they can encode more at a given time.

3.    Strategy Construction- creation of new procedures for processing information. Ie, a strategy that makes information processing more effective.

Sieglar argues that childrens information processing is charecterized by self modification- ie, Child learns to use what they have learned in previous circumstances to adapt their response to new situation. This happens due to presence of metacognition in child. Ie, cognition about cognition.

Speed of processing information-

          Increases drastically over childhood years. Can be due to biological maturation or due to experience. Speed declines at middle adulthood and slowdown continues as late adulthood progress. But the strategies aew used to compensate slowdown in processing. 

Vygotsky’s socio-cultural Theory

Piaget emphasises biological side of cognitive development.  Social and cultural context emphasised in Vygotsky. Child is active learner as in piaget, but rejects individualistic view of developing the child.

Basic idea- Individuals are endowed with basic perceptual, attention and memory capacities like all animals which grows in first 2 years. Aquisition of language leads to profound change in thinking through participation in social dialogues and masters culturally important tasks. As a result basic mental capacities are transformed into uniquely human higher cognitive processes.

 Private speech- Piagets ego centric speech reflects childs difficulty in taking perspectives of others. Changes as cognitive develpment. Sees others have diff. Openions, so changes it into social speech. But vygotsky objects it, calls it self guidance. Tasks difficult at begining so self talk to keep motivated, decision making etc. Later it goes off coz task easy. Accepted version.

Social Orgin of Cognitive development- learning of new cognitive skills happens in zone of proximal development- tasks too difficult for child to do alone but possible with help of adults or more skilled.  To promote cognitive development, social interaction must have certain features-

(a)  Intersubjectivity- process by which two paricipants who begin a task with different understanding arrived at a shared understanding. Common ground for communication

(b)  Scaffolding- adjusting the support offered during teaching session to fit child’s current level of performance. Also called guided participation

Make believe play-  its important source of development during preschool days.- learns in two ways- (i) create imaginary situation,learn to act acoording any internal ideas, and not just react to external stimuli. (ii) its rule-based nature, also strengthens childs capacity to think before they act.  Make believe play serves as a zone of proximal development, supporting emergence and refinement of many competencies.

Vygotsky and Education-

Emphasises the importance of social context. Vygotskian classroom is similiar to Piagetian in terms of accepting individual differences and promote active participation, yet goes beyond a step by promoting assisted discovery. Teachers intervent in each students zone of proximal development. Two typical Vygotskian educational innovations are-

(a)  Reciprocal Teaching- a  teacher and two to four children take a group and takes turn leading dialogues on content of text passage. Within dialogues, group members apply four coginitive strategies- questioning, summarizing, clarifying and predicting.  (Reading Comprehension)

(b)  Cooperative Learning- among more expert children. Peeers help fellow being to fit less mature child’s zone of proximal development.

Evaluation of Vygotsky’s Theory

Vygostsky’s theory includes cultural variation in cognitive skills unlike Piaget who spoke of universal . Undervalues role of teaching in coginitive development.

 -ves- Over emphasis on language, Overseeing biologivcal contribution to childs cognition.

Pro Social Behaviors- Part III (Final Part)

BASIC MOTIVATION FOR ENGAGING IN PROSOCIAL ACTS

Basic motivation to engage in prosocial acts are explained through three Hypothesis-

1.    Empathy-Altruism

2.    Negative State relief Model

3.    Empathetic Joy

4.    Genetic Determinism

1.Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis-

     Batson and his colleagues (1981) offered empathy altruism hypothesis to explain why people engage in pro social behaviors despite various contrains. They suggest that atleast some pro social acts are solely motivated by the desire to help someone in need. Such motivation can be sufficiently strong that the helper is willing to engage in unpleasant, dangerous and even life threatening activicty.

To test this hypothesis Batson and colleagues devised an experminet procedure where participants were shown a video in which a person (who is reserch assistant) gets a mild shock while doing the experiments, and he reports that he had traumatic experiences with electricity. The participants are divided into two groups. One group is told facts that arouses empathy of them by describing the victim as being very similiar to him and other group is given dissimiliarity and hence not envoking an empathy feeling. The reserch assistant gives a chance for altruistic behavior, people with empathy were the one to react.

              Because empathy is strongly motivating, people prefer not to recieve information that will arouse empathy.(Shaw, Batson $ Todd, 1994). When helping was costly, participants preffered to avoid detailed information about the victim. Feeling empathy also become complicating when multiple victims are present. Generally we tend to show Selective altruism- when a large group of individual is in need, and only one individual is helped. In appeals for charities there is frequently a picture and information about one child, designed to arouse empathy towards him and the result is selective altruism.

2. Negetive State Relief: Helping makes you feel less bad-

 

     The proposal that prosocial behavior is motivaated by the bystanders desire to reduce his or her own uncomfortable negetive emotions. (Cialdini, Baumann & Kenrick, 1981). This negetive feel can be due to distress of victim or due to other causes too.

3.Empathetic Joy: Helping as an accomplishment-

     The proposal that prosocial behavor is motivated by positive emotion a helper anticipates experiencing as a result of having a beneficial impact on life of someone in need. The person who helps feels the act as an accomplishment. Hence the person has to know that his actions had a positive impact on the victim.

     A study was conducted to test Empathetic Joy hypothesis by Smith, Keating, and Stotland. Empathy (similarity & Dissimilarity) was tested against Empathatetic joy, thats knowing the effect of end result of their pro social behavior. Results indicated that empathy is not enough but, knowledge of it after effect is also needed.

4.Genetic Determinism- Helping as an adaptive response.

          The proposal that behavior is driven by genetic atributes that evolved because they enhanced the probablity of transmitting one’s genes to subsequent generations. Those charecteristics that is relevant to reproductive succes is been passed on to next generation through evolutionary process.

          Inclusive fitness- the concept that natural selection not only applies to individuals but also involves behaviors that benefit other individuals with whom we share genes. Also called kin selection. Ie, we save  a person who is similiar to us. Hence when we save a person like us, we are saving genes that are common to us.

PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIORS- Part 2

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL INFLUENCES ON HELPING BEHAVIOR

EXTERNAL FACTORS-

1.    1.Helping those you like-

Very likely to help family members oe friends. More likely to help person from race you prefer. Also, attractive victims recieves more help than unattractive one. Men are more liklely to help women in distress,. Holding similiar values also results in a victims recieving help.

2.    2.Helping those who mimic us-

Mimicry is the automatic tendency to imitate the behavior of those with whom we interact. Its both automatic and unconcious. Mimicry increases liking, empathy, and rapport.  It plays an important role in survival and reproductive success- as it enhances cohesion and safety among animals in groups. Mimicing gives an non-verbal message- we are similiar.

3.  3.  Helping those who are not responsible for their problem-

We might not help a drunkard laying in bustop, but if we see a welldressed person falling ill, we might. We areless likely to act if we believe the victim is to be blamed for his predicament.

4.   4. Exposure to prosocial models increases prosocial behavior-

Pro social behavior can be modelled. If we seen one person doing it, we might follow the lead and do the same. Helpful models in the media also contribute to the creation of social norm that encourages pro social behavior. In an ivestigation of power of TV, Sprafkin,Liebert and Poulous (1975) were able to improve pro social behavior on six year olds.

INTERNAL FACTORS-

1.Emotions-

Positive emotion- person is more willing to help a stranger, when their mood is elevated. Emotions are influenced by smell too. Other way round, positive mood can decrease the probablity of responding in a prosocial way and person might label it as non emergency.

Negetive emotions- person who is focussing on his or her problem is less likely to engage in pro social behavior. At the same time, if act of helping involves behavior that makes you feel better, the person in negetive mood may participate.

2.Empathy and other personality dispositions-

          We saw that being in same emotional mood, does not produce identical response. This individual differences are based on personality dispositions- the charecteristic behavioral tendencies of the individual which are relatevely stable. It can change as per genetic compositions, learning experiences, or combination of two.

        Empathy is the most important personality dimension. Empathy consists of affective and cognitive responses to another person’s emotional state and include sympathy, a desire to solve problem, and taking perspective of another person. Empathetic person feels what another person is feeling and understands why that person feels as he or she does. Includes an affective and effective component. Appears after we  progress beyond infancy.

Empathy includes perspective taking- ability to put yourself in someone’s else shoes. There are different types of perspective taking-

a.    Imagine how the other person percieves an event.

b.    Imagine how you would feel if you were in that situation.

c.    Feeling empathy towards a fictional charecters.

How does empathy develop?

a.    Genetic Factors- (Davis,Luce,Kraus; 1994) twin study-

b.    Specific experiences(Janet Strayer)- everyone born with biological capacity for empathy but specific experiences determine its expression.

c.    Parents

d.    Peers- influence of parents is been replaced sometimes

e.    Gender- Women are more empathetic.

Empathy is rare in those who are aggressive. People who exibit interpersonal trust, engage more in pro-social behavior. Machiavellianistic people are unlikely to engage in pro social acts

Person who have all or most these above mentioned features are said to be having altruistic pesonality. They are generally high on five dimensions-

a.    Empathy.

b.    Belief in just world.

c.    Social Responsiblity

d.    Internal locus of control

e.    Low egocentrism.

LONG TERM COMMITMENT TO PROSOCIAL ACTION

VOLUNTEERING-

          Its engaging in work for a worthy cause, often over a long period of time. The steps mentioned in pro social behavior is applicable  in volunteering too. What motivates the person to give up a portion of their life when most have more than enough to do as it is? There seems to be many reasons  and patterns. For ex, diferent class of Americans lend assistance to different causes.

 Volunteering due to motivation-  

          Clary and Snyder (1999) studied group of AIDS volunteers. Generally AIDS people are most stigmatized.  Still they accept to volunteer because of 6 motives-

a.    Personal Values- they believe its important to help others

b.    Understanding- more about the world, disease and develop skills.

c.    Enhancement- develop one self- make oneself better.

d.    Career- To gain career related experience

e.    Social- To strengthen social relationship- people I know does this.

f.     Protective- escape from one’s own problem.

Benefit of identifying motivational differences- while recruiting (maximum motives works best).

Volunteering because of Mandates, Altruism or Generativity-

Mandate- Many organisations and schools mandate its members to participate in specific hours of volunteering activicty. Negetive- The person looses in volunteering activicty in future due to forced labour.

Altruism- <The same personal dispositions as mentioned in prosocial behavior>

Generativity- adults intrest in and commitment to the well being of future generations. They engage in teaching young people, and on acts that have effect after our lifetime.

SELF INTREST, MORAL INTEGRITY, AND MORAL HYPOCRACY-

          Most often even after being morally sound, we tend to make an excuse to save ourself from the event of pro social behavior. Thats when a conflict between our moral integrity and self intrest happens.

          Batson and Thompson(2001) suggests that 3 major motives are relevant when a person is faced with moral dilemma sucah as whether to help someone or not. These are-

Self Intrest-  the motivation to engage in whatever behavior provides the greatest satisfaction for oneself. They simple do whats best for themselves.

Moral Integrity- motivation to be moral and actually to engage in moral behaviors.Theay care about fairness and godness. Moral integrity and self intrest conflict is resolved by selecting the moral choice.

Moral Hypocrisy- The motivation to appear moral while doing one’s best to avoid the cost of involved in actually being moral.

 

HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING HELPED-

         

Being helped can be unpleasant-  usually when giving the help reminds the person of his disabilities. This happen because, when help is been recieved, self esteem can suffer. Hence person giving help should be aware of such reactions.  Helper is liked the best when person recieving the help  believes that help was offered because of positive feelings towards the individual in need. Such helping evokes reciprocity norms- the person who recieved help gets motivated to provide such kinda help in future to others.

          When help is Unpleasant, it can motivate self help- the positive of being unhappy while recieving help is that he is motivated to engage in self help. 

PROSOCIAL BEHAVIORS Part-I

Pro social behaviors are any act that benefits others, but do not provide any direct benefit to the person who performs the act,and may even involve some degree of risk. The possible satisfaction of being able to help someone is the only reward. It can vary from something simple to very dangerous. Sometimes word altruism is another term which is used instead of pro social behavior. But its just an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. We will discuss 4 major areas in Pro-social behavior.

1.    Bystander helping and steps involved

2.    External and internal Factors affecting pro social behavior

3.    Long term pro social behaviors

4.    Explanation of  Pro-Social Behaviors.

 

1.BY STANDER HELPING AND STEPS INVOLVED-

The bystander can react to the emergency situation in either of the three ways-

Heroism- action that involves corageous risk taking to obtain a socially valued goal. Both aspects must be involved. Eg. Life saving attempts, donating kydney.

Altruistic behavior- behavior that is motivated by unselfish concern for the welfare of others

Apathy: A lack of intrest, enthusiasm or concern towards a person who seeks help

Catherine (Kitty)Genovese Case-

          Psychological interest in pro social behavior was sparked by an incident where bystanders failed to help a stranger in distress. Coming home from work as bar manager, kitty was crossing the street when a man with knife approched her. Genovese ran screaming, but was chased by the man until her was close enough to stab her.hearing her scream, lights went on in many nearby apartments but they overlooked the scene. Many residents looked out, trying to figure out whats happening. At this point, attacker started to leave, but seeing no one is coming to help her, attacker returned and finished murdering her. The 45 minute attack was witnessed by 38 residents, but none of them ventured out to help her or call police.

John Darley and Bibb Latane (1968) proposed the reason as Diffusion of responsiblity, ie, More bystanders are present, the less responsiblity any one of them feels. They designed an experiment through which concept of bystander effect was drawn.

They proposed that the likelihood of a person engaging in prosocial act is determined by a series of descisions that must be made quickly by those who witness emergency.they are:

Step 1:Noticing something unsual is happening-

 Generally we dont anticipate the emergency, and stick to our preoccupation. Hence most time fail to notice the emegency. Many in kitty case would not have even noticed something unsual is happening outside.

Darley and Batson(1973), conducted a filed study to test importance of the first step. Condected research with students in training for clergy.They were instructed to walk nearby campus to give a talk, but preoccupied with 3 different condition. Some were told they have plenty of extra time to reach building, some told they are right in schedule, adn others told they are late. Along the route to building, an emergency was staged. A stranger slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning. Results showed- 63% of the participate who had time to spare, 45% of participants on time, and 10% of participants who were late responded to stranger.

          Person who is busy, hence might not notice the emergency .

Step 2: Correctly interpreting event as emergency-

Most often we only have a limited and incomplete information as to what exactly is happening. Hence when potential helpers are not completely sure about what is going on, they tend to hold back and wait for further information. Would have happen with kitty case, as bystanders would have thought to be drunk people having fun or husband-wife fight.

          When only ambigious information is available, most people are inclined to accept comforting interpretation that does not need to take action. Also it explains how diffusion of responsiblity works- people hold back as its embarrassing to mis interpret a situation in public.

          Also, when with fellow observers, we rely on social comparisons to test our interpretations. If other people show no alarm about the event, we believe its safe to follow their lead. The tendency bystanders in an emergency to rely on what other bystanders do and say, even though none of them is sure about what is happening is known as pluralistic ignorance.

          Latane & Darly (1968) conducted a study on students, where, the investigators placed placed students in a room alone or with two other students, and asked them to fill up questionaire. After few minutes, experimenters pumped smoke into reserch room through a vent. When alone (75%), left the room and reported the problem. When 3 people were in room, only 38% reacted to smoke.

Inhibiting effect is less if room contain freinds, as they are more likely to communicate. True with small town people Alchahol reduces the fear of doing wrong thing, hence more helpful.

Step 3: Deciding that its your responsiblity-

          If responsiblity is not clear, people assume that anyone in leadership role must take responsiblity. If one bystander, he takes charge. If its his responsiblity, then also he attends.

Step 4: Deciding that you have necessary knowledge or skills to act-

          Pro-social response cannot occur unless person knows how to be helpful. Some are simple, everyone can help, others are complesx, where only expert can help.

Step 5: Making final decision to provide help-

          Even if one has necessary skills, helping can be interffered by fear about potential negetive consequences.

Dissociative Disorders

               

Some people when overwhelmed by a traumatic experience, experience an altered state of consciousness which is detached from reality of what is happening. Dissociation can be seen as a coping mechanism to reduce anxiety and stress to overcome the trauma, but it interferes with active, realistic coping.

         

Dissociation often involves feelings of unreality, estrangement( being alone from group),and depersonalisation, and some times loss of or shift of self identity.Less dramatic dissociation happens to everyone when a catastrophe hits us.  We too feel everything is strange, unnatural,and different.

All dissociative disorders have large memory gap and changes in social roles. Change may happen drastically or gradually. May last only for few period or be chronic. The alteration of consciousness serves to blot out painful experiences.  Types of Dissociative Disorders are-

1.Dissociative Amnesia-

          

It extensive but selective memory loss in the absence of indications of organic change.  The memory loss occurring is too extensive than normal forgetting. Some people cannot remember anything about the past. Others can no longer recall specific events, people, places, or objects, while other memories remain intact. Usually precipitated by emotionally traumatic event or physical accident. This is the most common type of dissociative disorders. More in adolescents and young adults.

Several types of Dissociative Amnesia are-

(a)  Localized Amnesia- fail to recall events of a particular period.

(b)  Selective Amnesia- Person recalls some but not all of events in a particular period.

(c)  Generalized Amnesia- failure to recall persons entire life. Rare

(d)  Continuous Amnesia- inability to recall events after a specific time, until present.

(e)  Systematized Amnesia- Loss of memory for certain categories of Information such as memories relating to a specific person.

2.Dissociative Fugue-

           Essential feature of fugue is travel away from home and customary workplace, the assumption of a new identity, and inability to recall previous identity. The travel is more purposeful than wandering of dissociative amnesia. Such people set up a new life in some distant place as a different person. 

The fugue state ends when the person wakes up , mystified and distressed at being in different circumstances. Person generally doesn't remember what happened during fugue state and once recovered, wont reccurent.

3.Dissociative Identity Disorder-

          Often referred as multiple personality disorder. In this disorder, individual assume alternative personalities. Each personality has its own set of memories and typical behaviors. None of personality has any awareness of other. One way amnesia is also seen.

          Cases increasing now. Correlates with traumatic Childhood experiences and many clinicians think dissociative identity disorder as a psychological adaptation to traumatic experiences in childhood.  More in female. Personalities find themselves of being in different gender, age and sexual orientation. Separate styles, wardrobe, interests etc.

4. Depersonaliation-

          Its the change in self perception, and persons sense of reality is temporarily lost or changed. They feel as they are in dream, fear of losing sanity. A sense of being cut off from one’s self.