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Social Cognition Disability Excerpts from Mel Levine's Chapter on Social Cognition |
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a. Social Cognition b. Bully Syndrome c. Bullies in the Workplace |
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A Social Cognition Disability (SCD) entails deficits or lack of skills in several domains of social interaction that are impacting significantly on a person's academic and/or professional development, and success. Socially adept children and adults, compared with their peers having poor social skills, often differ in the following social skill domains: |
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Relevance: Socially-adept persons have the ability to "read" the social situation or setting and adapt their behavior to the ongoing flow of interaction. In other words, socially competent persons entering a new social scene are able to perceive the situation, and interpret its ambiance, its tone, and drift.
Responsiveness: This refers to the capacity to be receptive to others and reinforce their social initiative, actions, or efforts in a positive manner; in other words, a person's skill in making others feel wanted, recognized and accepted.
Time and staging: Socially-adept persons better understand that the formation of relationships requires time and careful staging. They do not take liberties early in a relationship, or rush things, or treat a new relationship as if it were a well-established one. In other words, timing and staging is about taking time to nurture relationships.
Resolution of conflict: All continuous interactions run into periodic trouble. Conflict is an integral component of social intercourse. What varies considerably is the capacity to negotiate such conflict. Socially skilled persons do better at resolving conflicts; they use strategies such as :
Recuperative strategies: Everybody commits errors now and then; however, individuals vary in the extent to which they are able to develop strategies to recuperate from misguided actions or statements. Socially-adept persons usually have more recuperative strategies. Their problem-solving strategies are more effective and their responses to social stress are often more adapted.
Verbal Pragmatic Strategies: More adept persons in this domain use language judiciously and effectively in social contexts. Their selection of words and vocal tone communicate feelings intended to keep the conversation or interaction going in a certain direction, for the purpose of reaching certain goals.
Social prediction: Socially adept persons have a keen awareness of what to do to elicit warm and friendly responses form others. Having a better understanding of their own personality, characteristics and knowledge structures as well as those of others, which they respect even though they might differ, helps them to adapt their thinking and behavior to that of their conversational partner.
Affective matching: Socially adept individuals have a keen capacity to read the mood or emotions and intensify it. A person may sense another individual's sadness, become sad, thereby offering commiseration and support. When one person is laughing, another person perpetuates (often heightens) the mirth, thereby creating a tight bond or basis for shared experience. Less socially-adept people, on the other hand, may contradict the prevailing mood, thus failing to legitimize the affective communication of their partner. The difficulty "reading" emotions of others could therefore cause the person to either fail at or refrain from affective matching.
Feedback Cues: Social interaction, like any other endeavor, is enhanced by appropriate self-monitoring. Socially-adept persons are more accurate than less-adept ones, in their reading of feedback. They are capable of sensing or knowing when they have said the wrong thing, undertaken the wrong action, or conveyed the wrong feeling. Moreover, they are better able to read visual feedback on the faces of others, interpret tone of voice and semantic connotations that suggest either that a relationship is faltering or thriving.
Self-marketing: Socially-adept persons know more strategies on how to market themselves. They are more aware of dress codes, norms of social behavior, social language and socially acceptable avocations. Such sensitivities allow them to "package themselves" effectively to be socially acceptable. Their greater understanding of values allows them to fashion their image to the models of their times and cultural milieu.
Political Acumen: Successful persons use networking as a way of building meaningful relationships that are mutually beneficial. Such persons put more emphasis on collaboration. They engage in opportunities for sharing and cooperative work. |
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Differential Diagnosis Weak social skills is a disability associated with many diagnoses, including learning disabilities. However, this is not always the case. Students who are experiencing great difficulty academically can have impressive success socially. In fact, honors and gifted students are sometimes socially isolated (neglected or rejected). Some may exhibit deft cognitive strategies for school but disastrous ones for peer relationships. A variety of reasons can explain social inability in children and adults. The following areas of dysfunction can have a potentially negative impact on social skills.
Executive Functions: There are cognitive abilities that control and regulate behavior and other abilities. Deficits in executive functions, such as with attention and impulse-control, can lead to difficulties predicting social consequences, generating appropriate interaction strategies, and controlling aggressive outbursts.
Spatial and Temporal-Sequential Ordering: Persons with simultaneous and sequential processing problems can have trouble predicting social consequences or sequence of actions because of problems with reading nonverbal feedback (e.g., facial expressions).
Oral Language Abilities: Linguistic proficiency has frequently been shown to relate to socialization. Children with intact receptive and expressive language skills are better able to detect verbal cues. Persons with learning disabilities might have problems with the "cognitive-linguistic" analysis of communication (an aspect of verbal pragmatics). This can lead to misinterpreting others, inferring the wrong feelings or intentions, and to inappropriate reactive behaviour and statements. |
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Diagnostic instruments There are various methods to evaluate social cognition abilities. The direct observation of students in the classroom or of other individuals in various settings provide important data about peer interactions and relationships. Interviews during the assessment or therapy is often of great value to assess a person's social skills as well as their ability to process information.
Another form of direct assessment is the use of inventories in which persons describe their perceptions. It can be done through self-reports or parent/teacher reports. Most inventories assess related aspects of social skills, including self-concept and self-esteem, family and school functioning. For instance, the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scales relate to self-concept but also provide insights into interactions. Other standardized tests measuring social skills and related domains are: |
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References Levine, M.D. (2001). Developmental variation and learning disorders (2nd ed). (Chapter 8, Social ability, pp. 261-295). Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Services, Inc. Goleman, Daniel. (2006). Social Intelligence. New York: NY. Bantam Dell. Bloom Lewkowicz, Adina (2007). Teaching emotional intelligence: Strategies and activities for helping students make effective choices. Thousand Oaks, CA : Corwin Press. |
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Bully Syndrome
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Diagnostic Features Bullies can be children or adolescents who frequently, persistently and intentionally use physical, psychological or verbal means to intimidate, control, or humiliate one or more other youngsters. Many bullies use overt aggression toward their victims, although relational forms of aggression (e.g., social humiliation via ostracism, exclusion, or rumor) are a prominent feature of many bully-victim relationships. Bullies may act alone or in groups in victimizing others. Among young males, bullying is associated with aggressive, antisocial behavior and other externalizing symptoms and is also predictive of using coercion and aggression in early adult years. Bullies tend to hold more favorable attitudes toward the use of aggression (e.g., aggression is acceptable and effective) than non-bullying peers, who focus on higher education and leadership skills towards achieving their goals in life.
Prevalence Studies of the prevalence of bullying have been conducted primarily in schools and suggest that bullying is a common experience for children, although rates differ depending on the reporter (e.g., teacher, or peer), the time-frame used and the frequency of behaviors used to define bullying. Studies of bullying in U.S. schools have found that one fourth of children and adolescents admit bullying another student at least once during their academic year. Estimates are lower (7-11 percent) for the percentage of youth who bullies others on multiple occasions. Similar rates have been found by studies conducted in other countries, primarily Europe. In general, boys are more often identified as bullies and use more physical aggression than girls, although female bullies may rely on relational aggression more frequently than do boys. In addition, boys tend to pick on both boys and girls while girls typically pick on other girls. Girls tend to use more indirect approaches, such as gossiping about classmates or isolating them.
Etiology Social environmental features thought to contribute to the onset and maintenance of bullying includes exposure (either direct or vicarious) to bullying-victim relationships at home or school and inattention to or tolerance of aggression toward vulnerable children and adolescents by adults and peers.
Prognosis Male bullies are at risk for later delinquency and criminal offences, especially violent crimes. Less is known about the long term risk for female bullies. Persistent bullying that co-occurs with multiple signs of disruptive behavior disorders carries substantial risk for poor outcomes.
Assessment Self-report, peer nomination, and teacher nomination have been used to assess bullying in research studies. Measures typically include items to tap the use of events and relational forms of aggression during specific time frames (e.g., 3 months). There are standard clinical procedures to assess aggression (e.g., interviews, behavioral rating scales).
Intervention The most extensive early test of school-based programs against bullying was begun by Olweus in the 1970s in Scandinavia. The program consisted of intervention at three levels: the school level, the class level, and the individual level. It also served as a model for numerous other interventions and prevention programs. Results of Olweus’ studies and other similar interventions have indicated reductions in bully-victim problems and in general antisocial behavior, increases in student satisfaction, and improved academic performance.
References Ollendick,T.H., & Shchoeder, C.S. (2003). Encyclopedia of clinical child and pediatric psychology. New York, NY: Springer. Bullying: We can all help to stop it. Ministry of Education, Ontario, Canada. |
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Bullies in the Workplace
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Workplace bullying, like childhood bullying, is the tendency of individuals or groups to use persistent aggressive or unreasonable behavior against a co-worker. The most frequently reported incidents of workplace bullying include various forms of verbal aggression like insults, shouting, Billingsgate vocabularies, name-calling, threats, humiliating an employee in the presence of others, ridicule, teasing, and false accusations. Also flaunting status, aggressive posturing, undermining someone and spreading stories, trumping up charges against co-workers, innuendoes, setting a person up for failure and colleagues ganging up against a co-worker, are further examples of bullying.
The bullying must be:
It is useful for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes to identify the types of bullying. Tim Field suggested that workplace bullying takes the following forms:
· Serial bullying — the source of all dysfunction can be traced to one individual, who picks on one employee after another and after destroying them, moves on. Probably this is the most common type of bullying. · Secondary bullying — the pressure of having to deal with a serial bully causes the general workplace behavior to decline and sink to the lowest level. · Pair bullying — this takes place between two people, one active and verbal, the other often watching and listening. · Gang bullying or group bullying — is a serial bully with colleagues. Gangs can occur anywhere, but flourish in corporate bullying climates. It is often called mobbing and usually involves scapegoating and victimization. · Vicarious bullying — two parties are encouraged to fight. This is the typical “Triangulation” where the aggression gets passed around. · Regulation bullying — where a serial bully forces the target to comply with rules, regulations, procedures or laws regardless of their appropriateness, applicability or necessity. · Residual bullying — after the serial bully has left or been fired, the behavior continues. It can go on for years. · Legal bullying — the bringing of a vexatious legal action to control and punish a person. It is one of the nastiest forms of bullying. · Pressure bullying or unwitting bullying — having to work to unrealistic deadlines and/or with inadequate resources. · Corporate bullying — where an employer abuses an employee with impunity, knowing the law is weak and the job market is soft. · Organizational bullying — a combination of pressure bullying and corporate bullying. Occurs when an organization struggles to adapt to changing markets, reduced income, budget cuts, imposed expectations and other extreme pressures. · Institutional bullying — entrenched bullying that is accepted as part of the culture. · Client bullying — an employee (for instance, subway attendants or public servant) is bullied by those they serve. · Cyberbullying — the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm.
Prevalence and Etiology Statistics show that 13% of U.S. employees are currently bullied, 24% have been bullied in the past and 12% witness workplace bullying. Nearly half of all American workers (49%) have been affected by workplace bullying, either by being a target themselves or having witnessed abusive behavior against a co-worker.
A small percentage of bullies are sociopathic (2-4 %) while others are mildly antisocial and bully for various reasons, ranging from the desire to gain power and an obsession to control the environment to being threatened by competency or popularity, while some bullies are just opportunistic and would bully those who are down or vulnerable in order to improve their own position.
Some circumstances encourage hostile work environments. These are managerial factors, like ineffective job description, inappropriate and/or inadequate communication, low moral standards, lack of stimulating and challenging tasks and poor supervisors. Bullying also emerges from frustration and conflict relating to rights, obligations, position and poor interpersonal relationships, and also when the corporate culture of an organization permits hostile behavior.
Health and Social Effects The effects of bullying, work Trauma, has a devastating effect on the victims' productivity, as well as emotional and physical health. According to research, the victims waste between 10 and 52 per-cent of their time at work defending themselves and networking for support, thinking about the situation, being demotivated and stressed, in addition to being absent due to stress-related illnesses, such as chronic fatigue. In the severe cases, victims suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Differential Diagnosis Bullying Syndrome (i.e., on the part of the perpetrator) is to be distinguished from Asocial Personality (Psychopathy), Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and some personality disorders such as Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorders.
Strategies that Deal with Bullying 1. Be alert and know that you too can be the target in a hostile work environment. 2. Don't let your position and status define you. Realize that you are more than your job or any professional title. 3. Insist that you be treated with dignity and respect at all times. 4. Assert yourself and confront the perpetrator; you cannot afford to be meek. 5. Make use of the grievance procedures at your organization. 6. Record all incidents of hostile behavior in your diary. 7. Take the matter to the perpetrator's boss or a senior person in the organization. Be specific and open about the actions you would like them to take. 8. If necessary, make an appointment with a labour law consultant. 9. Show support and understanding for targets or victims. 10. Choose an empowering "theme song" (like Ally McBeal did) and sing it when you are under attack (at least in your mind) 11. You are entitled to happiness at the workplace - campaign for a Code of Conduct that would effectively prohibit any uncivilized behavior at work. |
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References Field, T. (1998). Bully in sight: How to predict, resist, challenge and combat workplace bullying - Overcoming the Silence and Denial by Which Abuse Thrives. Oxfordshire, UK. Success Unlimited. |
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Antisocial Personality Disorder Oppositional Defiant Disorder Conduct Disorder Intermittent Explosive Disorder |
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For the above disorders please refer to: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th Ed.). (1998). Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Publishing. The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders. (2004) Geneva, Switzerland. World Health Organization.
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School Safety Team Excerpts from Larson & Busse A problem-solving approach to school violence prevention |
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In most large school boards a School Safety Team has for mandate not only school safety but most importantly to enhance positive climate learning. They constantly work on promoting a positive learning environment; however, when problems arise the School Safety Team in collaboration with the school administrators work on a problem solving process that resembles Larson and Busse’s model (Larson & Busse, 2003). It includes 5 steps:
Step 1: Problem Identification Effective problem identification involves two essential processes: (a) understanding through assessment an (b) reframing the action. The school must first gather enough reliable information to be able to frame the problems that the school is experiencing in language that lends itself to action plans. To begin this process, the School Safety Team needs to seek out and analyze relevant information regarding the problems. An appropriate starting place is with archival data. Software is commercially available to assist schools in collecting, maintaining, and analyzing discipline data: e.g., the School Safety Software: SPP (GBA Systems).
Additionally, personal experience and context data can be obtained through by assessment and self-reports. A useful tool for school personnel is the California School Climate and Safety Survey—Staff Form. It is a 62-items survey that examines school staff member’s opinions and experiences with safety-related issues. The measure is comprise of three major sections: Perceptions of School Climate, Perceptions of School Dangers, and Reports of Victimization.
Students are also an essential source of information and their input into the problem definition undertaking can provide the School Safety Team with substantial clarification and direction. The California School Climate and Safety Survey—Short Form is a 52-item revision form that yield self-report information from students in three principal areas: School Danger, School Climate, and School Victimization.
Step 2: Problem Analysis and Hypotheses Development This phase of the problem-solving process necessitates that the School Safety Team organize the data in a manner such that converging trends become evident. The main foci of the problem analysis phase are validation of the problem definition(s) and subsequent generation of hypothesis responding to the problem. The hypothesis generated will need to be tested through current research methods.
With analyzed data in hand, the team next must convert the data to behaviorally-worded action hypothesis. Hypothesis development involves translating what the data indicate into workable propositions about environmental or individual variables that mediate the problem. A useful method for creating testable hypothesis is through the use of Goal Attainment Scaling. Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) is a criterion-referenced approach to operationalizing problem definition that also can be use to document intervention effectiveness.
Step 3: Problem Response Proposals When the data now organized into focused student, staff, and environmental needs, School Safety Team members must consider options regarding how to address the identified needs. In recent years, a three-tiered public health schema for classifying prevention outcome has been applied to the schools. Using this model, prevention planners apply a primary, secondary, and tertiary needs hierarchy to the school population.
At the primary level, universal interventions are designed and implemented to prevent the development of occurrences of disruptive, antisocial, aggressive behavior.
Secondary prevention employs selected measures that target a smaller group of students who because of individual exposure to risk factors already are exhibiting behavior considered precursor or marker behaviors for more serious problems in the school. The goal of these interventions is to prevent these less serious problems from evolving into more serious aggressive or violent behaviors in later grades. Often, a team that comprises social workers, psychologists and special Ed. teachers are assigned to this role.
A the tertiary level of prevention hierarchy, indicated programs target the smallest group of students whose high level of risk involvement may be manifested in serve emotional-behavioral disabilities, mental illness, or other forms of dangerous or aggressive behavior.
At this juncture in the problem-solving process, the School Safety Team must align appropriate universal, selected, and indicated prevention measures which the action hypothesis developed from the assessment data. The focus of the programs and procedures that will comprise a comprehensive school-wide violence prevention program will be guided by the assessment data from Steps 1 and 2 in the problem-solving process.
Step 4: Response Implementation This phase of the problem-solving process is a critical step, because success or failure of the best-planned violence prevention program or of a safer learning environment rests on the quality of its implementation. Fundamental to successful implementation are issues of social acceptability and intervention integrity. Social acceptability refers to “judgments by laypersons, clients, and others of whether treatment procedures are appropriate, fair, and reasonable. The School Safety Team needs to consider the impact that the proposed intervention will have on students, the staff directly involved in the implementation, and the larger body of additional shareholders in and out of the building.
Schools need also to be cognizant of the impact that any new program will have on parents and on the greater community outside of the school. In addition, the age-old question “How this will play in the press?” is worth asking.
These issues underscore the importance of effective communication, training, and team-building throughout the problem-solving process. The broadly representative School Safety team structured stressed earlier gives voice to the various constituencies affected by the plan help ensure that potential problems are proactively addressed.
Step 5: Evaluation of Prevention Strategies The final phase of the problem-solving model involves both formative and summative evaluations of the response programs. A formative evaluation component is important for monitoring ongoing process toward program goals and allows for changes to be made in the response implementation as dictated by outcome assessment methods. Ongoing assessment also will help with decisions about program goal attainment and subsequent implementations to address the next problem as prioritized by the team. The Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) can be applied to both formative and summative evaluations in a time-efficient manner by assessing the variables that have been identified as problems.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Problem-Solving Model The major advantage of applying the problem-solving model to school safety concerns is the team-based approach toward systematic assessment and intervention. The problem-solving model provides focus that can maximize resources and enhance intervention outcome. That focus, however, has initial cost due to the significant amount of time, effort, and resources required to engage in a complete problem-solving process. Nonetheless, this systematic approach to school safety or of a positive learning environment is often necessary as we could set up ourselves and our clients for failure in problem-solving when specificity is lacking. If the data are too general, the intervention vague, and follow-trough lacking, the likelihood is high that the prevention efforts will turn ineffective. Best is to choose an empirical method that with time and practice becomes easier to carry out, and which results will be most effective to help students learn and be successful.
Reference Larson J., & Busse, R.T. (2006). A problem-solving approach to school violence prevention. In S. R. Jimerson & M. J. Furlong (Eds.). Handbook of School Violence and School Safety: From research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
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