REQUISITOS DEL MATRIMONIO ATENDIENDO A LAS CLASES O TIPOS DEL MISMO:

4.1. Introduction

Social problem-solving is the self-directed cognitive behavioural process by which effective solutions for everyday, real-life problems (i.e making friends) are discovered (D’Zurilla, Nezu, & Maydeu-Olivares, 2005). The ability to solve social problems is a

key skill for child and adolescent interpersonal relationships where deficits are linked to less effective adult social adaptation. (Feldman, Mc Clasky & Dodge, 1985; Lochman & Lampron, 1986; Hartup,1992; Burks, Laird, Dodge, Petit & Bates, 1999; Malik, Balda, & Punia, 2006).

A modified Means End Problem-Solving Procedure (MEPS; Platt & Spivak, 1975) is a measure of social problem-solving and a well validated method of studying children’s and adolescent’s social problem-solving ability. The general pattern of results in studies using the MEPS suggests a developmental trend of increasing competence with the progression of age. Older children are able to encode and interpret information in the social realm more accurately and generate more appropriate and effective responses to social situations when they are presented with them (Dodge & Price, 1994; Mayeux & Cillesen, 2003). An interesting study by Feldman and Dodge (1987), utilising adapted social information processing measures (similar to the MEPS), demonstrated that this developmental trend of generating better solutions was no longer apparent when social status was comprised (children neglected or rejected). Older children were more likely to

attribute hostile intent in conflict situation to their peers as well as rating aggressive responses (in conflict, teasing situations) as generally effective.

Dodge, Murray, and Buschbaum (1984) suggested that possible errors in problem- solving could be a result of a possible developmental lag, where rejected or aggressive children may resemble their younger peers instead of processing social information at an adequate developmental level. The study could not compare any developmental trends however, as younger and older participants were not included. This trend had been identified in earlier literature as a Piagetian lag (Chandler, 1973). Dodge and Price replicated these results found by Dodge, Murray, and Buschbaum (1984) in early school- aged participants.

Developmental differences in social problem solving may be linked to differences in executive functioning. Executive skills allow a problem to be handled in a ‘conscious, rational, effortful’ and purposeful fashion (D’Zurilla, Nezu, & Maydeu-Olivares, 2004). Inhibition (self regulation) is an executive function that could play an important role in social problem solving (Barkley, 1997). Inhibition is a cognitive process that allows us to delay or to prevent heavily reinforced responses, allowing us to modify prior well learned responses when alternative responses are demanded of us (Wright, Waterman, Prescott, & Murdoch-Eaton, 2003). A disruption in goal directed behaviour, with deficits in inhibition, would prevent successful planning and implementation of social problem solving (Schachar & Logan, 1990). If the basic structures necessary to implement appropriate social problem schemas are not in place, it is logical that this could have a knock on effect in the skills necessary to establish and to maintain friendships and social contact (Greening, 1997; McMurran, Blair, & Egan, 2002). Despite the importance of

inhibitory control in theories of child development, an understanding of the relationship between inhibition (self regulation) and problem-solving ability (social cognition) has not been clarified (Salthouse, 2005; Savitz & Jansen, 2003; Barkley, 1997; 2008).

As the child’s neurological system matures, inhibitory processing should become increasingly more efficient, contributing to more selective attention, maintaining information that is task irrelevant outside of working memory (Bjorklund & Harnishfeger, 1990; Shallice, 1988). Pfeifer, Goldsmith, Davidson, and Rickman (2002) noted that the gradual change from uninhibited to inhibited status is most salient in the first 18 years of human life. Increasing affect and behaviour regulation have been identified with the gradual development of inhibitory control (Carver, Livesey, & Charles, 2001; Denckla, 1995; Diamond & Taylor, 1996; Kochanska & Radkeyarrow, 1992; Livesey & Morgan, 1991; Tamm, Menon, & Reiss, 2002). Though behavioural characteristics of dis-inhibition are well recognised, measurable cognitive correlates of these behavioural changes are less well identified (Wright, Waterman, Prescott, & Murdoch-Eaton, 2003).

Shallice (1988) and Shallice and Burgess (1991) have outlined in some detail how executive functions may play a role in problem solving. In their framework central executive functioning is described in terms of a supervisory attentional system. There are three key stages in problem solving which involve the supervisory attentional system. First, there is a planning stage where the goal is to devise a solution to a problem. The second stage involves the processes required to implement the plan and the third stage involves the monitoring of progress in order to achieve the desired response, and if it wasn’t successful implement a new strategy. Episodic retrieval plays a key role in the

planning stage. The argument is that finding solutions to open-ended, unstructured problems can be facilitated by recalling previous examples of solving either identical or similar problems. In other words, previous examples already in memory banks could be extrapolated to solve a novel situation by comparing it to previous (See Figure 4.1) (Dritschel, Kogan, Burton & Goddard, 1998).

Ross (1984) lent support to this notion by finding that ‘reminding’ the memory of earlier learning episodes had an effect on the subsequent learning of a cognitive skill. To further this, Seifert (1994) also postulated that retrieving past performances on many reasoning tasks could improve the performance of these tasks. These studies highlight that at least in adults, as suggested by the general tenants of social cognition, experience may play a role in how we adapt our environmental cues into successful resolutions to social problems at hand. A break down in the retrieval of similar or identical experiences, possibly through undeveloped inhibition, may explain a failure in the application of social problem solving. The link is still tenuous, however, and applies only to adult populations. One aim of the present study is to indirectly examine the role of experience in influencing children’s and adolescent’s problem-solving performance. Drummond et al. (2006) found that older children are more capable of retrieving specific memories than their younger counterparts. Therefore adolescents may have a more detailed database from which to create solutions to social problems and hence produce better social problem-solving solutions.

4.1.2 Aims of Study

The research examining developmental changes as associated with social problem solving has not addressed possible mechanisms that may underlie developmental differences in Social Problem-Solving. Inhibition has been identified as being a potentially important mechanism in the social problem-solving process. The aim of the present study is therefore to examine the relationship between social problem performance and inhibition as measured by performance on the Stroop, and how this relationship changes developmentally. We hypothesise that younger children will be poorer at solving social problem-solving than their older counterparts due to having poorer inhibitory control and also being less able to retrieve relevant experiences than their older counterparts. We will use the Child Behaviour Checklist in order to control for any non-typical developmental patterns that may influence the typical acquisition of problem solving and that could potentially skew any ensuing results.

4.2. Method

4.2.1.Participants

One hundred and two typically developing children and adolescents were recruited from local primary and secondary schools. Fifty-one typically developing Caucasian children (24 females / 27 males) aged 6 to 9 years (M: 7.47 years) and fifty-one Caucasian adolescents (24 females / 27 males) aged 15 to 16 years of age (M: 15.50 years) who were enrolled in local primary and secondary schools in Scotland took part. Participant’s typical development was established based on their placement in

mainstream local primary and secondary schools and through verification of educational progress as well as their charting within typical development on the CBCL.

4.2.2 Measures

4.2.2.1 British Picture Vocabulary Scale – Second Edition – (Dunn, Dunn, Whetton, & Burley, 1997)

The full version of theBPVS-II was administered to all participants. It is a widely used standardised picture-based test of receptive vocabulary for ages 3 to 15 years 8 months. It does not require any reading or writing. This measure was used to measure verbal capacity. The dependent measure is the ability to identify one picture out of four pictures, which matches the spoken description.

Chronological age and verbal proficiency were used to define the starting position for the participant. Participants were advised to make a reasonable guess if they did not identify the word that was presented. Testing continued forward until 8 or more errors out of 12 were made, establishing the ceiling set. Raw scores were obtained by subtracting total number of errors from the ceiling set (12-168). Raw scores were then transformed into normative scores for analysis.

4.2.2.2. MEPS Task, Modified (Platt & Spivack, 1975): Adolescent Version and Child Version of the MEPS

The adolescent and child social problem-solving tasks were modifications of the original Means end problem solving (MEPS) task developed by Platt and Spivack (1975) The original MEPS consisted of 10 hypothetical problem vignettes describing a social

problem (arguing with partner) and a positive solution to the problem. The problems are presented in the third person. The task is to describe the steps required to reach the positive solution. In the present study two distinct versions of this hypothetical social problem-solving task were developed, one for teenagers and one for children. In the version for teenagers, the protagonists in the original stories were called John or Sue and were interchangeable based on the participant’s gender. For example, a male participant would have John as a protagonist and a female participant would have Sue as a protagonist. A direct example follows: ‘John/Sue has moved house and has no friends. John/Sue wants to have friends.’ The story ends when ‘John/Sue has many friends. Begin where John/Sue has moved and is looking for friends.’ The adolescent participant is asked to fill in the missing section with the appropriate response to resolve the problem at hand, hence providing the means to reach the ends.

Vignettes differed for children as the written stories were presented in pictorial format to ensure comprehension of the scenarios as well as providing children with a more familiar context, i.e. picture books. It is essential that children could understand the question at hand, and the literacy level of children differed from each other. The characters of Sue/John were replaced by that of a small bear. Some of the language in the stories was modified to be accessible to novice readers, but the essence of the stories remained unchanged at all times. Please see the figure below for an example of a pictorial vignette.

Figure 4.1: Problem: Little Bear has moved to a new house and has no friends to play with. Resolution: Little Bear has lots of friends. (The full set of vignettes can be seen in Appendix 1).

MEPS solutions were marked on the following dimensions. Two of these methods are traditionally associated with the MEPS. The third measure was created in response to a clear trend observed during interviews. Participants redefined the introduction of the story in order to make it more accessible to them.

Relevant Means: a quantitative measure describing the number of discrete steps that allow a participant to move towards the goal. A score is produced for each scenario (see Platt and Spivack, 1975). The percentage of interrater reliability was .90%.

Effectiveness: a qualitative measure assessing the effectiveness of a solution on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all effective, to 7 = very effective) adapted from suggestions by