This thesis copes with the research of empathy of deliquent youngsters-specifically their emotional and congitive part, it also evaluates the egoism or altruism of these individuals and their compassion level. The main purpose of this thesis is therefore to find out, what is the level and structure of empathy in these deliquent youngsters. The data was acquired by a specific TAT test and was evaluated according to the five subscales of SCORS ,which resemblance to empathy is proven in this work. Moreover, the content analysis of the acquired TAT protocols was carried out. The results of protocol evaluation according to SCORS system show low,yet not pathological values of emotional and cognitive empathy of youngster deliquents, additionally, they show their mainly egoistic motives across their social interactions as well as a pathological low level of compassion with others. In this thesis, the results, describing the level of cognitive and emotional empathy, are being compared to the Smith's theory (2006), which copes with the possibility of having a disorder caused by general lack of empathy in youngster deliquents. TAT protocols of respondents were also subjects of the content analysis, and its result show for example uncertainity in the external manifestation of respondents, "black and white"...

Human sociality, with its wide scope, early ontogeny and pervasiveness across cultures, is remarkable from an evolutionary perspective. We form bonds with other individuals and live in large social groups. We help, empathise with and share our resources with others, who are unfamiliar and genetically unrelated to us. It has been suggested that interpersonal coordination and rhythmic synchronisation of movements may be one proximate mechanism that enables such widespread human sociality and facilitates cooperation. In the last decade, considerable research has examined the effect of movement synchrony on social bonding and cooperation. However, when this thesis started, there was virtually no experimental study investigating the ontogeny of the movement synchrony-social bonding link, which is proposed to have deep evolutionary roots and important, long-lasting consequences in social life. This thesis aims to investigate the effects of movement synchrony on social bonding and cooperative behaviour across different time points in ontogeny. Three experimental studies were conducted examining infancy, early childhood and middle childhood. Each study explored a different aspect of social bonding and cooperation based on the motor, social and cognitive developments that mark that age group. Study 1a found that at 12 months of age, infants prefer individuals who move in synchrony with them, when the individuals are social entities, but not when they are non-social. Study 1b showed no preferences for synchrony at 9 months in either social or non-social contexts, however. Study 2 revealed that in early childhood, performing synchronous movements actively with a peer facilitates helping behaviour among the children, as well as eye contact and mutual smiling during the interaction. Finally, Study 3 showed that the social bonding effects of movement synchrony applied to inter- group settings and that performing synchronous movements with out-groups increased bonding towards the out-group in middle childhood. This thesis followed an interdisciplinary, integrative and naturalistic approach, where (i) literature from a wide range of disciplines motivated and guided the present research; (ii) links between motor, social and cognitive aspects of development, which are often investigated separately, are formed; and (iii) the experiments were designed in ways that represent the real-life occurrences of the investigated phenomena. The current findings provide the first substantial evidence that movement synchrony facilitates social bonding and cooperation in childhood and thereby provides a foundation for future research.

Background. The study was prompted by observation that failure to obtain a positive postsecondary destination is significantly more prevalent in young people living in areas of greater social deprivation, and in males rather than females. Previous studies have shown that this could be linked to differences in social cognitive factors. However, these studies have been mainly correlational and no comprehensive assessment instrument was found to assess preparedness for the postsecondary transition. Aims. The present study examines senior high school student’s perceptions of the personal, behavioural and environmental factors that affect them as they prepare to leave school. It reveals the structure of these factors and how they vary with regard to social deprivation and gender. Sample. The participants were 1044 senior high school students (573 males and 471 females) who attended six urban high schools. Method. A pre-empirical, 50-item assessment instrument was constructed based on the literature review to identify the wide range of factors previously shown to be relevant to achievement of a positive postsecondary destination. This was then administered to participants. Results. Factor analysis indicated that young people’s perceptions about leaving school were best represented by thirteen factors. An ANOVA model indicated that young people living in areas of higher deprivation reported significantly lower levels of positive postsecondary destination self-efficacy belief, less experience of vicarious career success, less performance of career development tasks, greater perception of career barriers, greater endorsement of a fixed career mindset, and fewer career scaffolding attachments. Males, compared to females, reported less experience of past career success, and fewer career scaffolding attachments. However, despite being at greater risk of a negative postsecondary destination, males reported higher levels of positive postsecondary destination self-efficacy belief, greater experience of positive career-related emotional arousal, greater ability to set career goals, and greater levels of career optimism. Conclusion. Twelve significant main effects on the measured social cognitive factors have the potential to contribute to an explanation of why failure to obtain a positive postsecondary destination is more prevalent in young people living in areas of greater social deprivation, and in males rather than females. A new assessment instrument has been produced to inform an ongoing exploratory process to design, target and evaluate educational interventions to improve postsecondary destinations for all. Increasing internal consistency, external validity and generalisability of findings are all desirable. Some future interventions are proposed on the basis of the results, including greater use of positive career role models in career development programmes, career mindset retraining for high school students, and psycho-education on attachment-fostering behaviours for parents and professionals.

No description available.

Mindreading is the capacity to attribute psychological states to others and to use those attributions to explain, predict, and understand others’ behaviors. In the past thirty years, mindreading has become the topic of substantial interdisciplinary research and theorizing, with philosophers, psychologists and, more recently, neuroscientists, all contributing to the debate about the nature of the neuropsychological mechanisms that constitute the capacity for mindreading. In this thesis I push this debate forward by using recent results from developmental psychology as the basis for critiques of two prominent views of mindreading. First, I argue that the developmental studies provide evidence of infant mindreading and therefore expose a flaw in José Bermúdez’s view that certain forms of mindreading require language possession. Second, I argue that the evidence of infant mindreading can also be used to undermine Alvin Goldman’s version of Simulation Theory.

Un déficit de la cognition sociale incluant l’attribution d’états mentaux, la perception sociale et la perception des émotions est l’une des caractéristiques les plus handicapantes de la schizophrénie. Les résultats d’une étude par Hardy-Baylé et al. (2003) suggèrent que les difficultés des schizophrènes (SZ) à attribuer des intentions aux autres seraient dues à l’incapacité à utiliser l’information contextuelle. Certaines études (Ivanko & Pexman, 2003; Pexman & Olineck, 2002b) démontrent que des facteurs comme le degré d’incongruité entre le contexte et l’énoncé, l’intonation de la voix et les caractéristiques des personnages peuvent influencer la compréhension de l’intention ironique chez les sujets sains (CT). L’objectif de cette étude est de manipuler des informations contextuelles afin de déterminer si le type de métier du locuteur est un indice social facilitant la compréhension de l’intention du locuteur (théorie de l’esprit ; TdE) et de la perception sociale chez les patients SZ. Trente participants SZ appariés avec trente participants CT ont été recrutés. Ils ont été évalués sur la compréhension de l’ironie et sur la mémoire de travail. Les histoires étaient développées selon deux conditions de métier: un métier favorisant la compréhension de l’ironie (e.g. comédien) et un métier ne favorisant pas la compréhension de l’ironie (e.g. prêtre). Les résultats montrent que les patients SZ ont un trouble de TdE et ils ne semblent pas sensibles aux stéréotypes contrairement aux participants CT. Toutefois, les résultats indiquent que les participants SZ n’ont pas de déficit concernant la perception sociale. / Individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) have a deficit in social cognition including mental state attribution, social perception and emotional perception. The results of a study by Hardy-Baylé et al. (2003) suggest that their inability to infer intentions and beliefs to others may result from their inability to use contextual information. Studies (Ivanko & Pexman, 2003; Pexman & Olineck, 2002b) showed that several factors such as level of incongruity between context and speaker’s utterance, vocal inflections and character’s features can influence the comprehension of an ironic intent among healthy (HT) subjects. The aim of this study is to manipulate contextual information to determine if stereotypes (type of speaker’s occupation) are social factors that cue comprehension of speaker’s intention (theory of mind; ToM) and social perception in schizophrenia. Thirty SZ patients and thirty HT participants were recruited for this study. Participants were tested on working memory and irony comprehension. Each story had been manipulated with two conditions of speaker’s occupation: occupation that cues ironic intent (e.g. actor), and occupation that does not cue ironic intent (e.g. priest). The results showed that SZ patients have an impaired ToM and are not sensitive to stereotypes as CT participants. However, the results revealed that SZ participants do not have a deficit in social perception.

Contexte : la présence d’un biais cognitif négatif chez les individus qui souffrent de dépression majeure (DM) et ceux qui y sont à haut risque (e.g. enfants de mères qui souffrent de DM) est maintenant établie. Aucune étude portant sur la vulnérabilité cognitive (VC) des membres de la fratrie n’est rapportée. Objectifs : la présente étude a pour but de vérifier si la fratrie des adolescents qui souffrent de DM présentent une VC qui les prédisposent à la DM. Méthode : cette étude porte sur 49 adolescents (18 participants traités pour une DM, 16 membres de la fratrie et 15 participants témoin), âgés entre 12 et 20 ans. La VC de chaque participant est quantifiée via un questionnaire qui mesure la réactivité cognitive (RC), soit le LEIDS-R, et une tâche de reconnaissance des expressions faciale (REF). La cognition sociale des participants est mesurée par le MASC, un outil qui évalue la cognition sociale par médium vidéo et que notre équipe a traduit de l’allemand au français. Résultats : les résultats préliminaires de la présente étude indiquent qu’une différence de réactivité cognitive est présente entre les adolescents traités pour une DM et les participants du groupe témoin (p < 0,001). L’analyse préliminaire tend à indiquer qu’une différence est présente entre la fratrie et le groupe contrôle. Conclusion : plusieurs de nos résultats tendent en faveur de la présence d’une VC prédisposant à la DM chez la fratrie des adolescents souffrant de DM. Ces résultats préliminaires doivent être confirmés par des études longitudinales. / Background: a negative cognitive bias is present among individuals who suffers from major depression. This bias is also reported among individuals at high risk of major depression (e.g. child of depressed mother). No study to date aimed to evaluate cognitive vulnerability of siblings of depressed individuals. Objectives: the present study aim to verify if siblings of depressed adolescents present a cognitive vulnerability that would predispose them to develop a major depression. Method: This study evaluates 49 adolescents (18 participants treated for depression, 16 siblings and 15 controls), aged between 12 and 20 years old. The cognitive vulnerability of every participant has been assessed using an auto-report questionnaire of symptoms (LEIDS-R) that evaluates cognitive reactivity and a task of facial recognition. Social cognition of participants is measured using the Movie for Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) that we translated from german to french. Results: the preliminary analyses of this study concludes that a significant difference of cognitive reactivity is present between adolescents treated for depression and controls (p < 0.001). Conclusion: some of our results tend to confirm the presence of a cognitive vulnerability to depression among siblings of depressed adolescents. Those results are still preliminary and need to be confirmed by longitudinal studies. / Réalisé sous la co-direction de Linda Booij, Catherine Herba et Patricia Garel

Our ability to learn from the outcomes of our actions and to adapt our decisions accordingly changes over the course of the human lifespan. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in using computational models to understand developmental changes in learning and decision-making. Moreover, extensions of these models are currently applied to study socio-emotional influences on learning in different age groups, a topic that is of great relevance for applications in education and health psychology. In this article, we aim to provide an introduction to basic ideas underlying computational models of reinforcement learning and focus on parameters and model variants that might be of interest to developmental scientists. We then highlight recent attempts to use reinforcement learning models to study the influence of social information on learning across development. The aim of this review is to illustrate how computational models can be applied in developmental science, what they can add to our understanding of developmental mechanisms and how they can be used to bridge the gap between psychological and neurobiological theories of development.

La mentalisation, ou la capacité d’élaborer des hypothèses sur les états mentaux d’autrui, a fait l’objet de nombreuses études durant les 20 dernières années dans le champ des neurosciences sociales. Toutefois, les bases neurales de cette fonction particulièrement complexe restent mal comprises, notamment en termes de connectivité structurale. Récemment, une organisation anatomo-fonctionnelle en double voie a été proposée. Selon ce modèle, les aspects réflexifs, inférentiels, de la mentalisation seraient sous-tendus par le faisceau cingulaire. Les aspects préréflexifs, identificatoires, seraient médiés, quant à eux, par le complexe faisceau arqué/partie latérale du faisceau longitudinal supérieur (FLS). L’objectif général de ce travail est d’apporter des données originales sur l’organisation anatomo-fonctionnelle du réseau neural impliqué dans la mentalisation basée sur les visages. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé comme modèle physiopathologique d’étude le gliome diffus de bas grade. Cette tumeur cérébrale primitive s’avère particulièrement intéressante pour l’étude du rôle de la substance blanche dans la cognition et ce pour deux raisons : (i) les cellules tumorales se propagent préférentiellement le long des fibres blanches ; (ii) l’exérèse chirurgicale est souvent réalisée en condition éveillée avec cartographie fonctionnelle peropératoire pour permettre d’identifier, et ainsi de préserver, les structures fonctionnelles, notamment de substance blanche.Dans une première étude, grâce aux stimulations électriques peropératoires, nous avons pu identifier un vaste réseau cortico-sous-cortical impliqué dans la mentalisation. L’analyse des déconnexions induites par les stimulations de la substance blanche nous a permis de mettre clairement en évidence, et ce pour la première fois, le rôle du faisceau occipito-frontal inférieur (FOFI) tout en confirmant celui du FLS. Dans une deuxième étude, en utilisant des techniques de cartographie lésionnelle chez des patients ayant été opérés, nous avons démontré que les troubles permanents, non compensables, de la mentalisation étaient expliqués par l’atteinte du faisceau arqué. Enfin, dans une dernière étude, en combinant l’imagerie par résonance magnétique fonctionnelle de repos (IRMfr) et les sites corticaux démasqués pendant la chirurgie, nous avons pu générer de véritables cartographies fonctionnelles du réseau cortical de la mentalisation, très similaires à celles observées en imagerie fonctionnelle classique.De façon générale, nos découvertes suggèrent que la mentalisation basée sur les visages reposerait sur l’intégrité d’au moins deux faisceaux associatifs de substance blanche. Elles permettent également de valider l’utilisation combinée de l’IRMfr et des stimulations corticales en tant qu’approche originale pour cartographier les réseaux neurocognitifs.En plus de ces considérations fondamentales, nos résultats ont des implications cliniques, notamment pour la cartographie fonctionnelle peropératoire. Ils permettent en outre de mieux comprendre les pathologies cérébrales caractérisées par un trouble de la mentalisation et une atteinte des voies de substance blanche. / Mentalizing, or the ability of human beings to make assumptions about other people’s mental states, has been the subject of many studies over the last 20 years. The neural bases and especially the white matter connectivity of this complex cognitive function is still poorly understood. Recently, an anatomo-functional organization into two neural pathways has been proposed. According to this model, it is assumed that the reflective, inferential aspects of mentalizing is underpinned by the cingulum. The reflexive, identificatory aspects of mentalizing are thought to be mediated, for their part, by the arcuate fascicle and the lateral part of the superior longitudinal fascicle. The main purpose of this scientific work is to provide original data on the anatomo-functional organization of the neural network involved in the face-based mentalizing. We used as a pathophysiological study model diffuse low-grade gliomas. These primary brain tumors are particularly interesting for the study of the functional role of the white matter for two reasons: (i) the tumor cells propagate preferentially along the white matter fibers; (ii) the surgical resection is often performed in awake condition with intraoperative functional mapping to identify, and thus to preserve functional structures, including the white matter.In our first study, using intraoperative electrical stimulation, we were able to identify a large cortico-subcortical mentalizing network. The analysis of the disconnections induced by the stimulation of the white matter allowed us to clearly highlight, for the first time, the role of the inferior fronto-occipital fascicle. We also confirmed the already established role of the superior longitudinal fascicle in mentalizing. In a second study, using lesion mapping analyses in patients operated on for a diffuse low-grade glioma, we demonstrated that the long-term, non-compensatory mentalizing deficit was explained by the involvement of the arcuate fascicle. Finally, in a third study combining resting-state functional MRI and the cortical sites unmasked during surgery, we were able to identify a large cortical mentalizing networks, which were very similar to those identified by classical task-based functional imaging.In general, our findings suggest that the face-based mentalizing would require the integrity of at least two associative white matter fascicles. They also validate the combined use of resting-state functional MRI and direct cortical stimulations as an original approach to map neurocognitive networks.In addition to these fundamental considerations, our results have also clinical implications, especially regarding the intraoperative functional mapping. They also provide a better understanding of brain pathologies characterized by both mentalizing deficit and white matter impairment.

Des difficultés de compréhension interpersonnelles sont régulièrement rapportées par les proches et les patients atteints de Dystrophie Myotonique de type I (DM1) ou de Dystrophie Facio-Scapulo-Humérale (FSHD). Nous nous sommes intéressés à différents facteurs qui peuvent éclairer la présence d’un contresens relationnel au sein des couples (le patient avec son conjoint). Les facteurs étudiés sont : les troubles cognitifs, l’atteinte des mimiques faciales et le style d’attachement de chacun des partenaires. La méthode utilisée est basée en partie sur l’observation de l’interaction (communication verbale et non verbale) au sein des couples lors la réalisation d’une tâche de résolution de problème. Un test de reconnaissance des émotions faciales avec des visages atteints et des visages contrôles a également été construit et proposé à 57 sujets naïfs. Les résultats observés permettent de confirmer que l’atteinte du visage et de la cognition sociale (théorie de l’esprit) ainsi que le style d’attachement des membres du couple jouent un rôle dans les difficultés à se comprendre entre partenaires de l’interaction. Il est important de sensibiliser chacun des partenaires au rôle de la communication non verbale (CNV) dans leur quotidien. La CNV transmet non seulement des informations sur l’état interne (notamment les émotions) de l’autre, mais également sur ses besoins d’attention, de soutien, de support émotionnel. / Interpersonal communication difficulties are regularly reported by individuals suffering from Myotonic Dystrophy type I (DMI) and Facioscapulohumeral muscular Dystrophy (FSHD), and their families. Our study focuses specifically on communication between patients and their spouses. In order to investigate the nature of communication difficulties, cognitive impairment, impaired facial expression and the attachment styles of subjects were examined. Our investigation procedure involved detailed observation of couples’ communication processes (verbal and non-verbal communication) while completing a problem-solving task. Furthermore, we construct a test of facial emotion recognition composed of images from the DM1 and control groups, which was administered to 57 naive subjects. Results enables us to confirm that impaired facial expression, social cognition difficulties (theory of mind) and attachment style play a major role, in the communication and comprehension difficulties reported by patients and their families. A phenomenon of relational misinterpretation seems to occur between patients and their partners. It is therefore important to raise couples’ awareness of the role of non-verbal communication in everyday life. Non-verbal communication not only provides information about an individual’s internal state (such as emotions), but also about his or her needs for attention and emotional support.