William Turnbull

Counterfactual Thinking and Social Perception: Thinking about What Might Have Been

Publisher Summary The chapter examines the influence of norms dominated by postcomputed representations on perceptions of social events. The aim is to simply encourage consideration of the role that counterfactual thinking plays in the process. To accomplish this, show that peoples reactions to social events that evoke the same precomputed representations will vary if those events evoke different postcomputed counterfactual representations. The chapter focuses on three factors that influence the relation between the target event and the postcomputed representations it evokes. These factors are (1) the ease with which actions leading to the event can be undone mentally, (2) the ease with which the event itself can be undone mentally, and (3) the ease with which the event can be replicated mentally. Reality is also compared to the postcomputed representations that are neither consciously nor unconsciously held prior to an event but are generated post hoc by the event itself.

How big is big? Relative and absolute properties in memory

Abstract Previous studies of semantic memory have overlooked an important distinction among so-called “property statements”. Statements with relative adjectives (e.g., Flamingos are big ) imply a comparison to a standard or reference point associated with an immediate superordinate category (a flamingo is big for a bird), while the truth of statements with absolute adjectives (e.g., Flamingos are pink ) is generally independent of such a standard. To examine the psychological consequences of this distinction, we asked subjects in Experiment 1 to verify sentences containing either relative or absolute adjectives embedded in either predicate-adjective (PA) constructions (e.g., A flamingo is big (pink) ) or predicate-noun (PN) constructions (e.g. A flamingo is a big (pink) bird) , where the predicate noun was the immediate superordinate. Reaction times (RTs) and errors for relative sentences decreased when the superordinate was specified, but remained constant for absolute sentences. These data also suggest that the truth value of relative sentences depends, not just on the superordinate, but also on a more global standard for everyday, human-oriented objects. Experiment 2 extends these results in showing that ratings of the truth of relative sentences are a function of the difference in size between an instance and its superordinate standard (e.g., between the size of a flamingo and that of an average bird) and the difference between the instance and the standard for everyday objects. Experiment 3 replicated these findings using reaction time as the dependent measure.

A Social Pragmatic Model of Talk: Implications for Research on the Development of Children’s Social Understanding

We present a social pragmatic model of talk-as-interaction. Talk consists of observable and orderly sequences of turns by means of which participants together construct and interpret action. The meaning of a speaker’s turn, the action accomplished, is observable in the manifest details of that turn and responses to it. We discuss methodological implications and illustrate the relevance of this social pragmatic model for theory and research on human development through an analysis of the role of talk in the development of children’s understanding of mental states.

The Construction of Knowledge in Classroom Talk.

Social interaction is important for the development of knowledge (M. Chapman, 1991). Social interaction, however, takes many forms, and J. Piaget (1977/1995) proposed that the construction of knowledge is facilitated in cooperative as opposed to constraining relationships. These views of knowledge development were drawn on in a study of classroom talk in higher education, namely in 2 first- and 2 fourth-year college and university psychology classes. Classroom talk was recorded, transcribed, and analyzed following conversation analytic (H. Sacks, 1992) and social pragmatic (W. Turnbull, 2003) approaches. Examination of how cooperation and constraint were constituted in the corpus was based on N. Mercers (1995, 2000) categorization of different ways of making reasoning manifest, namely exploratory talk, or the joint negotiation of ideas; disputational talk, or the competitive negotiation of knowledge claims; and cumulative talk, or the uncritical addition of knowledge claims. Analysis focused on the sequential structures of classroom talk in and through which reasoning is achieved. Analysis revealed that most fourth-year talk was exploratory, whereas most first-year talk was disputational or cumulative.

Relations between Mother-child Talk and 3- to 5 Year-Old Children's Understanding of Belief: Beyond Mental State Terms to Talk about the Mind

In relating parent-child conversation to childrens social cognitive development, we examined how mother-child dyads talked about the psychological world. Seventy mothers and their 3- to 5-year-old children made up a story about a series of pictures depicting a sequence of events involving a false belief. Mother-child talk was coded for the use of mental state terms as well as talk about important aspects of the depicted events. The children were given 2 false belief tasks. When age was controlled, mental state term use was associated with childrens false-belief understanding. However, when mental state terms and talk about the aspects of the false-belief component of the story were both taken into account, only talk about the false-belief section of the story accounted for significant additional variance in childrens false-belief understanding. We suggest that these results encourage a broader view of talk about the psychological world beyond an exclusive focus on the use of mental state terms.

Parent–child talk and children's understanding of beliefs and emotions

We examined the development of childrens understanding of beliefs and emotions in relation to parental talk about the psychological world. We considered the relations between parent–child talk about the emotions of characters depicted in a picture book, false belief understanding and emotion understanding. Seventy-eight primarily Caucasian and middle-class parents and their 3- to 5-year-old children participated (half boys and half girls). The emotions talked about were relatively simple, but the complexity of the situation varied in terms of whether or not an understanding of beliefs was required to understand the emotion. Talk about the belief-dependent aspects of the emotions of picture book characters predicted childrens false belief understanding, whereas talk about non-belief-dependent aspects of these emotions predicted childrens emotion understanding. We argue that these data suggest that the development of childrens understanding of beliefs and emotions is intertwined with learning to talk about the psychological world.

Talk and the Development of Social Understanding

Our theme is that parent-child talk about the mental world plays a central role in the development of childrens social understanding. This view is supported by Wittgensteins argument that public criteria are necessary for learning the meaning of mental state terms. We propose that children, mainly in talk, learn the patterns of interaction that are criterial for the use of mental state terms. Two examples of empirical research illustrate this proposal. The first, a qualitative analysis of how criteria for psychological terms are displayed in mother-child talk, revealed that criteria were variously displayed and were presented in temporal, cause and effect sequences. The second, a quantitative analysis of key elements for understanding false beliefs present in mother-child talk, compared dyads in which children Failed (N = 14) or Passed (N = 10) false belief tests. In both Fail and Pass dyads, mothers elicited the vast majority of elements but produced about the same number as children. Only Pass children produced elements without mothers eliciting them. There were no instances of child-elicited/mother-produced elements. Overall, Fail children were less competent at recognizing and commenting on important aspects of a situation of false belief. We conclude that the development of talk and social understanding are inextricably intertwined.

The Long-Term Effects of Father Absence in Childhood on Male University Students' Sex-Role Identity and Personal Adjustment

Summary In order to assess the long-term effects of father absence on sex typing and personal adjustment, a questionnaire comprising biographic items, subsections of the California Personality Inventory and Berns Sex Role Inventory were completed by 89 father-absent and 84 father-present male university students. Father absence was through death, divorce, or employment. Significant differences among the groups were found only between father absent (death and divorce) males who had experienced the onset of father absence before age 5, and father absent (death and divorce) males with onset after age 5, on measures of self-esteem and self-confidence is personal and social interaction. Results are taken to support social learning and cognitive-developmental theories of sex-role development. The importance of early mother-son relationships to the development of self-esteem, and the effects of father absence on adult heterosexual relationships are discussed.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal relations between mother-child talk about conflict and children's social understanding

We examined the relations between the ways 48 mothers and their 3- to 5-year-olds talked about a conflict depicted in a picture book and their childrens current and subsequent level of social understanding. We distinguished explanatory talk, which directed attention to the actions that generated the conflict, from non-explanatory talk, which discussed the conflict in terms of, for example, making up or saying sorry. Controlling for child age and overall talk by mother, explanatory talk was positively associated with contemporaneous social understanding. Social understanding at time one was also positively associated with social understanding 30 months later. These data suggest that dialogue about conflict may be helpful for 3- to 5-year old childrens understanding of the mental world, to the extent that it facilitates their understanding of particular social situations.