Social Cognition, Self-Perceptions, and Social Withdrawal in Adolescents

• Authors: Bosacki Sandra Leanne , Talwar Victoria , Sitnik Valentina , Pissoto Flavia Moreira , Coccimiglio Maria , Quenneville Shanel

Title variants

PL

Poznanie społeczne, postrzeganie siebie i wycofanie się z życia społecznego u młodzieży

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This study explored individual differences in emotion recognition within the context of social orientations and self-perceptions. One hundred and forty-four Canadian adolescents (88 girls, 11–14 years), with a mean age of 13.4 years completed emotion recognition, perceived self-competencies, social preferences (shyness, unsociability, and regulated withdrawal), and social (dis)satisfaction measures. The highest scores were related to epistemic or neutral emotions, followed by negative and finally positive emotions. Furthermore, there were relationships between high levels of emotion recognition (negative emotions) and low levels of physical and global self-worth. Positive correlations were found between high levels of shyness and the ability to recognise negative and epistemic emotions, and experience feelings of low self-worth, with girls scoring higher than boys in recognising positive emotions. Adolescents characterised by high shyness and high social satisfaction (i.e., conflicted shyness) scored the highest on emotion recognition and feelings of low self-worth. Implications for the refinement of theory and research on social withdrawal and social cognition are discussed.

PL

Niniejsze studium stanowi analizę różnic indywidualnych w rozpoznawaniu emocji, osadzoną w kontekście orientacji społecznych i postrzegania siebie. Stu czterdziestu czterech kanadyjskich nastolatków (88 dziewcząt, 11–14 lat) w wieku średnio 13,4 roku, pozyskało zdolność rozpoznawania emocji, postrzegania własnych kompetencji, preferencji społecznych (nieśmiałość, nietowarzyskość i regulowane wycofywanie się) oraz środków (dys)satysfakcji społecznej. Najwyższe wyniki dotyczyły emocji epistemicznych lub neutralnych, w dalszej kolejności – negatywnych i wreszcie pozytywnych. Ponadto istniał związek pomiędzy wysokim poziomem rozpoznawania emocji (negatywnych) a niskim poziomem poczucia własnej wartości, fizycznej i globalnej. Stwierdzono pozytywne korelacje między wwysokim poziomem nieśmiałości a umiejętnością rozpoznawania negatywnych i epistemicznych emocji oraz doświadczeniem niskiej samooceny, przy czym dziewczęta uzyskiwały wyższe oceny w rozpoznawaniu pozytywnych emocji niż chłopcy. Młodzież charakteryzująca się istotną nieśmiałością i istotną satysfakcją społeczną (tj. nieśmiałością konfliktową) uzyskała najwyższe wyniki w zakresie rozpoznawania emocji i niskiej samooceny. W artykule omówiono implikacje dla udoskonalenia teorii i badań nad społecznym wycofaniem i społecznym poznaniem.

Keywords

EN

social withdrawal; social cognition; emotion recognition; self-perceptions; adolescence; loneliness

PL

społeczne wycofanie; społeczne poznanie; rozpoznanie emocji; postrzeganie siebie; adolescencja; osamotnienie

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. Wydawnictwo UMK
• Journal: Paedagogia Christiana
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 2/46
• Pages: 63-91

Contributors

author

Bosacki Sandra Leanne

• ORCID: 0000-0001-9583-4582
• Brock University

author

Talwar Victoria

• ORCID: 0000-0001-9806-0279
• McGill University

author

Sitnik Valentina

• ORCID: 0000-0001-7880-9895
• Brock University

author

Pissoto Flavia Moreira

• Brock University

author

Coccimiglio Maria

• Brock University

author

Quenneville Shanel

References

• Asher, S. R., Hymel, S. & Renshaw, P. D. (1984). Loneliness in children. Child Development, 1456–1464. doi:10.2307/1130015
• Banerjee, R. & Yuill, N. (1999). Children’s understanding of self-presentational display rules: Associations with mental-state understanding. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 111–124.
• Banerjee, R., Rieffe, C., Meerum Terwogt, M., Gerlein, A. M. & Voutsina, M. (2006). Popular and rejected children’s reasoning regarding negative emotions in social situations: The role of gender. Social Development, 15, 418–433.
• Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y. & Plumb, I. (2001). The “Reading the mind in the eyes” test revised version: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 241–251.
• Barry, C. T., Loflin, D. C. & Doucette, H. (2015). Adolescent self-compassion: Associations with narcissism, self-esteem, aggression, and internalizing symptoms in at-risk males. Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, 77, 118–123.
• Bayram Özdemir, S., Cheah, C. & Coplan, R. J. (2015). Conceptualization and assessment of multiple forms of social withdrawal in Turkey. Social Development, 24, 142–165. doi: 10.1111/sode.12088
• Bergman, L. R. & Trost, K. (2006). The person-oriented versus the variable-oriented approach: Are they complementary, opposites, or exploring different worlds? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 52, 601–632. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1353/mpq.2006.0023
• Białecka-Pikul, M., Szpak, M., Zubek, J., Bosacki, S. & Kołodziejczyk, A. (2020). The psychological self and advanced theory of mind in adolescence. Self and identity, 19(1), 85–104. doi:10.1080/15298868.2018.1538900
• Bowker, J. C., Ojo, A. A. & Bowker, M. H. (2016). Brief report: Perceptions of social withdrawal during emerging adulthood in Lagos, Nigeria. Journal of Adolescence, 47, 1–4. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.11.006
• Bowker, J., Ooi, L., Coplan, R. & Etkin, R. (2019). When is it okay to be alone? Gender differences in normative beliefs about social withdrawal in emerging adulthood. Sex Roles, 82, 482–492.
• Calandri, E., Graziano, F., Celino, E. & Testa, C. (2020). Depressive symptoms and loneliness in early adolescence: The role of empathy and emotional self-efficacy. Journal of Early Adolescence, 1–25.
• Chaplin, L. N. & Norton, M. I. (2015). Why we think we can’t dance: Theory of mind and children’s desire to perform. Child Development, 86, 651–658.
• Cheek, J. M. & Melchior, L. A. (1990). Shyness, self‐esteem, and self-consciousness. In H. Leitenberg (Ed.), Handbook of social and evaluation anxiety (pp. 47–82). New York, NY: Plenum Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978‐1‐4899‐2504‐6_3
• Chen, X. (2019). Culture and shyness in childhood and adolescence. New Ideas in Psychology, 53, 58–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2018.04.007
• Chen, X., Wang, L. & Cao, R. (2011). Shyness-sensitivity and unsociability in rural Chinese children: Relations with social, school, and psychological adjustment. Child Development, 82, 1531–1543.
• Colonnesi, C., Nikolić, M., de Vente, W. & Bögels, S. M. (2017). Social anxiety symptoms in young children: Investigating the interplay of theory of mind and expressions of shyness. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 45(5), 997–1011. doi: 10.1007/s10802-016-02060
• Coplan, R. J. & Arbeau, K. A. (2008). The stresses of a “brave new world”: Shyness and school adjustment in kindergarten. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 22, 377–389.
• Coplan, R. J. & Armer, M. (2007). A “multitude” of solitude: A closer look at social withdrawal and nonsocial play in early childhood. Child Development Perspectives, 1, 26–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1750-8606.2007.00006.x
• Coplan, R. J. & Weeks, M. (2010). Unsociability in middle childhood: Conceptualization, assessment, and associations with socioemotional functioning. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, (1982), 105–130. https://www.jstor.org/stabl e/23098037
• Coplan, R. J., Ooi, L. L. & Baldwin, D. (2019). Does it matter when we want to be alone? Exploring developmental timing effects in the implications of unsociability. New Ideas in Psychology, 53, 47–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2018.01.001
• Crick, N. & Nelson, D. (2002). Relational and physical victimization within friendships: Nobody told me there’d be friends like these. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 30, 599–607.
• Crozier, R. (1995). Shyness and self-esteem in middle childhood. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 65, 85–89.
• Denham, S. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guilford.
• Devine, R. & Hughes, C. (2013). Silent films and strange stories: Theory of mind, gender, and social experiences in middle childhood. Child Development, 84, 989–1003. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12017
• Doey, L., Coplan, R. J. & Kingsbury, M. (2014). Bashful boys and coy girls: A review of gender differences in childhood shyness. Sex Roles, 70, 255–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-013-0317-9
• Doherty, M. & Perner, J. (2020). Mental files: Developmental integration of dual naming and theory of mind. Developmental Review, 56, 100909. doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2020.100909
• Dunn, J. (2005, June). Relationships and children’s discovery of the mind. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Vancouver, BC.
• Corsano, P., Musetti, A. & Favari, D. (2020). Self-concept, loneliness, and voluntary aloneness during late childhood. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00675-7
• Eggum-Williams, N., Danming, An., Zhang, L. & Costa, M. (2019). Co-occurrence of cross-informant agreement on shyness, unsociability, and social avoidance during early adolescence. Social Development, 29, 73–88.
• Glick, P. & Whitehead, J. (2010). Hostility toward men and the perceived stability of male dominance. Social Psychology, 41(3), 177–185.
• Goldstein, T. R. & Winner, E. (2012). Enhancing empathy and theory of mind. Journal of Cognition and Development, 13, 19–37.
• Golan, O., Sinai-Gavrilov, Y. & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015). Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery for Children (CAM-C): Complex emotion recognition in children with and without autism spectrum conditions. Molecular Autism, 6(22), 1–9. doi: 10.1186/s13229-015-0018-z
• Kim, H. (2013). Statistical notes for clinical researchers: Assessing normal distribution (2) using skewness and kurtosis. Restorative Dentistry & Endodontics, 38, 52–54. doi:10.5395/rde.2013.38.1.52
• Harter, S. (1985). Manual for the self-perception profile for children (SPPC). Denver, CO: University of Denver.
• Hassan, R., Poole, K. & Schmidt, L. (2020). Revisiting the double-edged sword of self-regulation: Linking shyness, attentional shifting, and social behaviour in preschoolers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 196, 104842. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104842 0022-0965
• Heyder, A., van Hek, M. & Van Houtte, M. (2020). When gender stereotypes get male adolescents into trouble: A longitudinal study on gender conformity pressure as a predictor of school misconduct. Sex Roles. doi: https://doi-org.proxy.library.brocku.ca/10.1007/s11199-020-01147-9
• Hoffman, A. J., Dumas, F., Loose, F., Smeding, A., Kurtz-Costes, B. & Régner, I. (2019). Development of gender typicality and felt pressure in European French and North African French adolescents. Child Development, 90, e306–e321. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev. 12959
• Hughes, C. (2011). Social understanding and social lives: From toddlerhood through to the transition to school. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
• Hughes, C. & Dunn, J. (1999). Theory of mind and emotion understanding: Longitudinal associations with a mental-state talk between young friends. Developmental Psychology, 34(5), 1026–1037. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.34.5.1026
• Hyde, J. S., Mezulis, A. H. & Abramson, L. Y. (2008). The ABCs of depression: Integrating affective, biological, and cognitive models to explain the emergence of the gender difference in depression. Psychological Review, 115(2), 291.
• Imuta, K., Henry, J. D., Slaughter, V., Selcuk, B. & Ruffman, T. (2016). Theory of mind and prosocial behaviour in childhood: A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology, 52, 1192–1205. doi:10.1037/dev0000140
• Koch, M., Mendle, J. & Beam, C. (2020). Psychological distress amid change: Role disruption during the adolescent transition. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00667-y.
• Koerber, S. & Osterhaus, C. (2019). Some but not all aspects of the (advanced) theory of mind predict loneliness. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. doi:10.1111/bjdp.1230
• Kuhnert, R., Begeer, S., Fink, E. & de Rosnay, M. (2017). Gender-differentiated effects of the theory of mind, emotion understanding, and social preference on prosocial behaviour development: A longitudinal study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 154, 13–27. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.10.001.
• Laghi, F., Cerutti, R., Terrinoni, A., Lonigro, A., Pongetti, A., Ferrara, M. & Fantini, F. (2019). Evaluation of the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test” with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) adolescents: A pilot study. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00505-5
• Maccoby, E. (1998). The two sexes: Growing up apart, coming together. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Maes, M., Vanhalst, J., Spithoven, A., Van den Noortgate, W. & Goossens, L. (2016). Loneliness and attitudes toward aloneness in adolescence: A person-centred approach. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45, 547–567.
• Meesters, C., Muris, P., Dibbets, P., Cima, M. & Lemmens, L. (2017). On the link between perceived parental rearing behaviours and self-conscious emotions in adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 1536–1535. doi: 10.1007/s10826-017-0695-7
• Mewhort‐Buist, T. & Nilsen, E. (2020). Shy children’s understanding of irony: Better comprehension does not always mean better socioemotional functioning. Infant & Child Development, e2131. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/icd.2131
• Morton, A. (2010). Epistemic emotions. In P. Goldie (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of emotion (pp. 385–399). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Muris, P. & Broeren, S. (2009). Twenty-five years of research on childhood anxiety disorders: Publication trends between 1982 and 2006 and a selective review of the literature. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 18, 388–395. doi: 10.1007/s10826-008-9242-x
• Nelson, L. (2013). Going it alone: Comparing subtypes of withdrawal on indices of adjustment and maladjustment in emerging adulthood. Social Development, 22, 522–238. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2012.00671.x
• Nielson, M., Xiao, S. & Padilla-Walker, L. (2019). Gender similarity in growth patterns of support toward friends during young adulthood. Social Development, 1–29. doi:10.1111/sode.12419
• Nikolic, M., van der Storm, L., Colonnesi, C., Brummelman, E., Kan, K. & Bogels, S. (2019). Are socially anxious children poor or advanced mind readers? Child Development, 90, 1424–1441. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13248
• Page, R. M. (1990). Shyness and sociability: A dangerous combination for illicit substance use in adolescent males? Adolescence, 25, 803–806.
• Pallant, J. (2007). SPSS survival manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using SPSS for windows. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Open University Press.
• Pekrun, R. & Stephens, E. J. (2012). Academic emotions. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, T. Urdan, S. Graham, J. M. Royer & M. Zeidner (Eds.), APA educational psychology handbook: Vol. 2. Individual differences and cultural and contextual factors (pp. 3–31). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/13274-001
• Pequet, A. & Warnell, K. (2020). Thinking of you: Relations between mind-mindedness, theory of mind, and social anxiety in middle childhood and adulthood. Social Development. doi: 10.1111/SODE.12468
• Poole, K., Khalesi, Z., Rutherford, M., Swain, A., Mullen, J., Hall, G. & Schmidt, L. (2020). Personality and opponent processes: Shyness, sociability, and visual afterimages to emotion. Emotion, 20, 605–612. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000574
• Qualter, P., Rotenberg, K., Barrett, L., Henzi, P., Barlow, A., Stylianou, M. & Harris, R. A. (2013). Investigating hypervigilance for the social threat of lonely children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41, 325–338.
• Rapee, R. M., Kim, J., Wang, J., Liu, X., Hofmann, S. G., Chen, J., … Alden, L. E. (2011). Perceived impact of socially anxious behaviours on individuals’ lives in Western and East Asian countries. Behaviour Therapy, 42, 485–492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2010.11.004
• Ronchi, L., Banerjee, R. & Lecce S. (2020). Theory of mind and peer relationships: The role of social anxiety. Social Development, 29, 478–493. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12417
• Rose, A. J. & Rudolph, K. D. (2006). A review of sex differences in peer relationship processes: Potential trade-offs for the emotional and behavioural development of girls and boys. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 98–131.
• Rubin, K. & Asendorf, J. (1993). Social withdrawal, inhibition, and shyness in childhood: Conceptual and definitional issues. In K. Rubin & J. Asendorf (Eds.), Social withdrawal, inhibition and shyness in childhood (pp. 3–17). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Rubin, K., Burgess, K. & Coplan, R. (2002). Social withdrawal and shyness. In P. Smith & C. Hart (Eds.), Blackwell’s handbook of childhood social development (pp. 329–352). London: Blackwell.
• Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R. J. & Bowker, J. (2009). Social withdrawal in childhood. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 141–171. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163642.
• Ruble, D. & Martin, C. (1998). Gender development. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional and personality development (pp. 933–1016). New York: Wiley.
• Rudolph, K., Monti, J., Flynn, M. & Goodwin, G. (2020). Maladaptive consequences of emotional clarity deficits in early adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence, 1–18. doi: 10.1177/0272431620912490
• Saarni, C. (1999). The development of emotional competence. New York: Guilford.
• Sette, S., Baldwin, D., Zava, F., Baumgartner, E. & Coplan, R. (2020). Shame on me? Shyness, social experiences at preschool, and young children’s self-conscious emotions. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 47, 229–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.12.012
• Sutton J., Smith P. & Swettenham J. (1999). Social cognition and bullying: Social inadequacy or skilled manipulation? British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 435–450. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151099165384
• Thompson, B. & Thornton, B. (2014). Gender and theory of mind in preschoolers’ group effort: Evidence for timing differences behind children’s earliest social loafing. The Journal of Social Psychology, 154(6), 475–479. doi: 10.1080/00224545.2014.933763
• Vanhalst, J., Gibb, B. & Prinstein, M. (2015). Lonely adolescents exhibit heightened sensitivity for facial cues of emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 31(2), 377–383. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1092420
• Vellante, M., Baron-Cohen, S., Melis, M., Marrone, M., Petretto, D. R., Masala, C. & Preti, A. (2013). The “Reading the mind in the eyes” test: Systematic review of psychometric properties and a validation study in Italy. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 18, 326–354.
• Viana, K., Zambrana, I., Karevold, E. & Pons, F. (2020). Emotions in motion: impact of emotion understanding on children’s peer action coordination. Cognition and Emotion, 34(4), 831–838. Doi: 10.1080/02699931.2019.1669535
• Vogl, E., Pekrun, R., Murayama, K. & Loderer, K. (2020). Surprise-curious-confused: Epistemic emotions and knowledge exploration. Emotion, 20(4), 625–641. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000578.
• Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Original works published 1930, 1933, 1935).
• Wagner, N. J., Bowker, J. & Rubin, K. H. (2020). Associations between callous-unemotional traits and peer-rated social-behavioural outcomes in elementary and middle school. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 48, 757–769. doi: 10.1007/s10802-020-00636-5
• Walker, S. (2005). Gender differences in the relationship between young children’s peer-related social competence and individual differences in theory of mind. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 166(3), 297–312. doi:10.3200/ GNTP.166.3.297-312
• Wellman, H. (2014). Making minds. How theory of mind develops. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Wellman, H. (2020). Reading minds: How childhood teaches us to understand people. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Wichmann, C., Coplan, R. & Daniels, T. (2004). The social cognition of socially withdrawn children. Social Development, 13, 377–329.

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.12775/Pch.2020.019