Cultural differences in self‐recognition: the early development of autonomous and related selves?

Abstract

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Ross, J., Yilmaz, M., Dale, R., Cassidy, R., Yildirim, I. and Suzanne Zeedyk, M. (2016), Cultural differences in self-recognition: the early development of autonomous and related selves? Developmental Science. which has been published in final form at doi: 10.1111/desc.12387. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving performed best in mirror self-recognition task, whereas Zambian infants performed best in a body-as-obstacle task. Turkish infants' performance patterned in between the other nationalities.2. This can be interpreted as a cultural difference, such that one of the tasks is better suited to an autonomous perspective of self (the mirror mark test of self-recognition), and the other appears better suited to a related perspective (body-as-obstacle test).3. In support of this idea, associations between distal/autonomous and proximal/related parenting practices and performance in the tasks are reported.4. This novel data highlights the importance of designing culturally sensitive tests of 'universal' cognitive developments, as exemplified for tasks measuring self-awareness in young children.Cultural differences in self-awareness 3 Abstract 15 to 18 month-old infants from three nationalities were observed interacting with their mothers and during two self-recognition tasks. Scottish interactions were characterized by distal contact, Zambian interactions by proximal contact, and Turkish interactions by a mixture of contact strategies. These culturally distinct experiences may scaffold different perspectives on self. In support, Scottish infants performed best in a task requiring recognition of the self in an individualistic context (mirror self-recognition), whereasZambian infants performed best in a task requiring recognition of the self in a less individualistic context (body-as-obstacle task). Turkish infants performed similarly toZambian infants on the body-as-obstacle task, but outperformed Zambians on the mirror selfrecognition task. Verbal contact (a distal strategy) was positively related to mirror selfrecognition and negatively related to passing the body-as-obstacle task. Directive action and speech (proximal strategies) were negatively related to mirror self-recognition. Selfawareness performance was best predicted by cultural context; autonomous settings predicted success in mirror self-recognition, and related settings predicted success in the body-asobstacle task. This novel data substantiates the idea that cultural factors may play a role in the early expression of self-awareness. More broadly, the results highlight the importance of moving beyond the mark test, and designing culturally sensitive tests of self-awareness.Cultural differences in self-awareness 4 Self-awareness can be defined as the capacity to reflect on the self as an object in the environment. The development of self-awareness is typically measured using the mirror mark test of self-recognition...

The Me in Memory: The Role of the Self in Autobiographical Memory Development

“…Contributing to broader gap in the literature concerning the functional development of self beyond mirror self-recognition (Ross, 2017;Ross, Anderson, & Campbell, 2011b;Ross et al, 2011aRoss et al, , 2017, the current study presents novel empirical evidence of a relation between autobiographical memory and the self-concept. Pioneering the empirical application of a robust source-based SRE in 3-to 6-year-old children (Cunningham et al, 2014;Ross et al, 2011a), we demonstrate for the first time that the volume and specificity of children's autobiographical memories is predicted by both the volume of their self-knowledge, and their capacity for self-source monitoring within both physical and cognitive SRE paradigms.…”

Elephants know when their bodies are obstacles to success in a novel transfer task

“…Unlike in the studies with human children4348, we were unable to perform a control condition in which a heavy weight was put on the mat instead of the subject’s body, nor were we able to perform a control in which the stick was weighted by a heavy object independent of the mat. These controls would have allowed a comparison of the elephant’s behaviour when either their body or another object was the obstacle preventing stick transfer.…”

“…ref. 6) and success on a body-awareness task such as the one performed in this study with elephants, and with children424348, further studies on children and other MSR-capable species (including elephants, magpies, dolphins and the great apes) are needed. In addition, due to the controversy over the cognitive implications of mirror self-recognition1617, an investigation of body-awareness using a variation of the task employed in this study with traditionally MSR-incapable species might begin to lend credence to the theory that self-awareness exists as a continuum rather than as an all-or-nothing capacity91920.…”

“…It would be interesting for future studies to test especially young elephants to assess at what age this ability emerges. Human children develop body-awareness at the same age as mirror self-recognition, around 18–24 months 42 43 48 . Elephants have a similar life span to humans and it may be that parallels also exist in the ontogenetic timeline of self-awareness development.…”

Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary Psychological Barrier of Mortality Salience? A Theory that Can Explain Unusual Features of the Origin and Fate of Our Species

“…Extended Theory of Mind as Another Distinct Feature of Humans. Many warm-blooded species appear to have independently evolved self-awareness as defined by various criteria, including the mirror self-recognition test (Anderson & Gallup, 2015;Candland, 1995;Gallup, 1977;Parker, Mitchell, & Boccia, 1994;Ross et al, 2017;Suddendorf & Butler, 2013), which has been passed by individual members of various species including chimpanzees (Anderson & Gallup, 2015;Eddy, Gallup, & Povinelli, 1996;Gallup, 1977;Kitchen, Denton, & Brent, 1996;Povinelli, Eddy, Hobson, & Tomasello, 1996;Rajala, Reininger, Lancaster, & Populin, 2010), elephants (Dale & Plotnik, 2017;Plotnik, de Waal, & Reiss, 2006), dolphins (Morrison & Reiss, 2018;Reiss, 2011;Reiss & Marino, 2001), corvid birds (Clary & Kelly, 2016;Prior, Schwarz, & Güntürkün, 2008), and possibly even trained monkeys (Huttunen, Adams, & Platt, 2017;Rajala et al, 2010;Toda & Platt, 2015). The question arises whether such individuals with awareness of their own self are also fully aware of the self-awareness of others, a state that is often referred to as "theory of mind" (Apperly, 2010;Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985;Bedny, Pascual-Leone, & Saxe, 2009;Crockford, Wittig, Mundry, & Zuberbuhler, 2012;Dumontheil, Apperly, & Blakemore, 2010;Emery & Clayton, 2009;Gentner & Goldin-Meadow, 2003;Kappeler & Silk, 2010;Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, 2016;Meltzoff, 1999;…”