Hi Ioanna,

although I'm not an expert in this domain, you might find the following paper interesting (but I'm not sure how this relates to threat):

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/01/28/0956797613516802.abstract

Best, Robert

What is the evidence that children perceive threat? Are you talking about fear responses, e.g., stranger anxiety in older infants? Or anxious reactions of older children in social groups?

That´s an interesting question... i'm working on the social experiencie of students with disabilities in mainstream schools, i think adults play a very important role, and considering the role of diagnose and labeling with these childrens maybe it generates biases in the social perception (own and of others). Maybe Subjective Groups Dynamics from Dominic Abrams may help you.

Hello and thank you everyone for your responses!

Boris, your research sounds very interesting!I would love to hear/read more about it! As for threat, yes adults definitely play a crucial role. parental socialization and peer group processes are key factors for social categorizations. However, none of the existing literature explains the perception of threat and its origins. they mention and prove it happens but without providing a concise explanation as to how. I think there is a need for a general theoretical framework that will incorporate all factors into one, in an attempt to combine the processes underlying the development of threat and so, explain it better.? What do you think?

Ps. I am doing my PhD with Dominic, funny you would mention him ! lol

Gedeon,

When I talk about threat i refer to intergroup threat, which is experienced prior or during social categorizations. intergroup threat, seems to be the motivating factor leading to social categorizations and formation of groups (ex. race, ethnicity, gender etc). What I am curious about is what makes this a threat and why is this threat perceived whilst I also want to look at how is this threat cognitively represented, if at all.

Robert,

Thank you for the link! I haven't read that one so I'm sure it will be helpful!

I'll give it a read and share my thoughts!

Thanks again!

Dear Ioanna, it's my topc. I worked a lot on it and found the elevated sensitivity against social insecurity as a sound explanation for what we call actually "ADHD". I described a "sense of security" as essential functional unit of the brain comparable with the sense of balance. The more insecurity the sense of security measures the more general brain organization changes from top do to bottom up.

Social categorization may result in devaluation or exclusion. The latter ist indeed the main reason for social insecurity and for this the process of social categorization indicates the option of social insecurity. That is enough information for activation of the sense of security. The higher the sensitivity of the individuals sense of security is, the more activation takes place and the more the individual shows the signs of perceived threat.

Unfortunately I didn't succeed in finding an anglo-american publisher who is interested in my main work "Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit-Syndrom ADHS - Die Einsakeit in unserer Mitte (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit-Syndrom-ADHS-Einsamkeit-unserer-Mitte/dp/3794526538/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392024031&sr=8-2&keywords=karsten+dietrich), but if you see my account of researchgate of visit my page ADHD-TRASPARENT.INFO you can find some posters to be downloaded with further information.

Karsten

Hi Ioanna,

You rightly identify a gap in the field. We certainly need some kind of "Developmental Integrated Threat Theory" in a sense.

One issue you need to consider with younger children is the extent to which they enact behaviours that imply threat but they are not in a position to reflectively grasp such kind of threats and describe them in any coherent way when you actually interview them or ask them to take a position in a questionnaire format. For example in some of the work we did with the late Gerard Duveen on gender (see Psaltis & Duveen, 2006;2007; Psaltis, Duveen & Perret-Clermont, 2009) you could see the resistance of boys in being positioned as "less knowledgeable" in a problem solving situation when interacting with expert girls. However, you were highly unlikely to get any admission if you asked boys that they feel an "identity threat" of some kind during problem solving.

Charis, that's very interesting -- I'd like to see those papers. It instantly reminded me of older, related work by some of the same authors (Perrett-Clermont was one, I recall) showing that children benefit by working together in solving a problem only if one of them has at least minimal ability to solve that problem, and the other one is fairly competent but not too far above the abilities of the first child. Fascinating work!

As an aside, the work you describe also reminded me of a study by my former advisor Patricia Bauer, showing that girl toddlers (1-year-olds) will imitate/reproduce sequences of male-stereotyped (or non-gendered) play actions, but boy toddlers often will not attempt to imitate female stereotyped play actions. (Is that a response to threat?? I doubt it, but it is a curious finding!)

At any rate: your answer is a good reminder that "threat" is an extremely complex and potentially broad construct, so the answer to the question probably depends critically on starting with a tighter operationalization.

Gedeon, for the aspect, that threat is in general 1. something implementing an actor or 2. coming from a certain direction 3. over the whole lifespan quite rare I decided im my work to use the item security. What children need to flourish is as one of the main prerequisites security. To less security for a to long tim results in social and mental retardation. They are not able to guarantee their own security so they are very sensitive to security. To disentangle the perceptions and the reactions needs to analyze the different aspect of security and the individual sensitivity for this aspect in every child closely adjusted for the developmental age. In the first six years of life these parameters change nearly continuously.

I definitively am not an expert in social categorization. My comment is based on limited observation of children's behavior, so bear with me. It seems that social categorization occurs in the very early stages of a human being's life. A baby will rapidly recognize the differences between Mam and Dad, that is between a women and man. Mam provides nutrition, care and love and is always around. Dad is working so he is perceived as a stranger that shows up mostly at nights and weekends and sometimes offers some comfort and expressions of affection. When the baby grows and is put in a nursery school s/he will be faced with a new environment, namely that of her/his playmates. By then the gender differences are clearly perceived and this is probably the first step in social categorization. A boy will tend to play with boys and a girl with girls. This stage is eventually a cognitive development but likely the result of the first strong social experience. I would dare to say that at this stage such differentiation (boy vs girl, male vs female) results from some _innate factor_ in the way our brains capture our environment. So it is not rational. In elementary schools things change again and social interaction becomes more rational. Possibly, now the social experience informs the brain that there are good and bad relationships (nice colleagues and obnoxious ones), so a cognitive process starts to develop. This is also the stage when a child clearly perceives and starts to understand threats. So, in my humble opinion, it is in this stage that a human being starts to develop prejudice(s), but also the feelings of liking, affection and companionship. From there on the cognitive process begins to be more influential. But our emotional brain will start to play a much bigger role too, influencing how we will deal with what we observe (cognition), determining our social likes and dislikes (social categorization).

As for an article, read this one - it may add some ideas to your research:

"Social Categorization and the Perception of Social Groups"

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/bodenhausen/BKP2012.pdf

Hi Ioanna,

The perception of threat in children is more due to their attachment styles. You probably come across with the "strange situation" test of Ainsworth where she tries to examine the anxiety and stress of children at different social situation. It might help to have a closer look to the procedure how perception of threat stems from the children attachment style and their affectionate relation with the caregiver.

Cheers,

Ali

Dear Gedeon,

I would be happy to send you any work I have, relating to this asymmetrical findings. If you do not locate any of my papers on Research Gate please send me an email at [email protected].

The findings you report are very interseting and relevant, they point to the asymmetrical nature of social representations of gender even at a much younger age shown by our findings. Could you please send me the paper you report? Behind the asymmetry is the symbolic valorisation and gender marking of toys/activities. I considered the resistance of boys being positioned as less knowledgeable by girls a a kind of "identity threat" because their resistance implies unwillingness to loose a valorised position in the societal context. In the context of Stephan & Stephan's Integrated Threat Theory for example the closer it would be is that it is some kind of symbolic threat in the sense that it stems from an exaggerated sense of difference but am not sure if the status asymmetry implied in our findings is actually captured in the threat model. Any thoughts?

The concept of threat and inadequacy is a mix of socio-cognitive and developmental problem running across the lifespan .It begins at the object permanence stage where children expect everything but change and are threatened when they become aware of the reality of change. As they grow into adolescence the problem grows into a complex one cutting across social categorization and resultant social identity. A confused state of social identity is maladaptive and may result in negative consequences. The central reason for children's feeling of threat during social categorization is their desire to ward off own and others' perceived inferiority from any of the numerous sources of inadequacy and firm up his security in order to strengthen his psychological base for survival.