Seillman

• What does social perspective talking mean?

  Understanding what someone else is feeling and/or thinking (i.e. social cognition)
• What differed between what seillman and Piaget believed?

  Piaget believes in domain-general cognitive development → physical and social perspective taking will occur hand in hand wheras Selman proposed that the development of social perspective taking is a separate process = domain specific approach to cognitive development
• What did selman look at regarding what occurred with age?

  changes that occurred with age in children’s responses to scenarios in which they were asked

  to take the role of different people in social situations
• What was the procedure is Selmand procedure?

  30 boys and 30 girls took part (20 = 4, 20 = 5, 20 = 6)

  All were individually given a task designed to measure role-

  taking ability (how each person felt in various scenarios)

  e.g. Holly and the kitten
• What’s was the findings of selmans research ?

  A number of distinct levels of role-taking were identified

  Selman found that this correlated with age, suggesting a

  clear developmental sequence
• What were some of the questions the researcher asked about the holly scenario?

  How will Holly/her dad/Holly’s friend feel if Holly climbs the tree to rescue the kitten?’
• What did seilmann find from the holly scenario?

  that the younger children (e.g. four year-olds) used egocentric thinking to understand how other people might feel e.g. they used information that they themselves were aware of but which other characters in the scenario could not have been aware of e.g. Holly’s dad will not know that she has climbed the tree to rescue the kitten
• Understanding Selman’s ideaS Really Makes Sense

  Undifferentiated

  Social Informational

  Self Reflective

  Mutual

  Societal
• What happened in stage 0 (3-6 yr) ?

  Undifferentiated perspective taking

  Socially egocentric

  The child in this stage cannot reliably distinguish between their own

  emotions and those of others.They will be unable to explain the

  emotional states of others.
• What happened in Stage 1 (6-8 years) ?

  Social informational role taking

  Children understand that different perspectives may result because people have access to different

  information. However, they can usually only

  focus on one of these perspectives at a time
• What happened in Stage 2 (8-10 years) ?

  Self-reflective role taking

  Now the child can put themselves in the position of another person and fully appreciate their perspective.They also recognise that others can do this too
• What happened in stage 3 (10-12 years)

  Mutual role-taking

  Children are now able to look at a situation from their own

  and another’s point of view at the same time

  i.e. step outside of a two- person situation and imagine

  from the POV of a third,impartial party
• What happened in stage 4 (12 years +) ?

  Social and conventional system role-taking

  Young people become able to see that sometimes understanding others’ viewpoints is not enough to allow people to reach agreement.Therefore, social conventions are needed keep order.
• What were the 3 stages that Schulz, Selman and La Russo (2003) that were added to social development?

  1.Interpersonal understanding

  2. interpersonal negotiation strategies

  3. Awareness of personal meaning of relationships
• Interpersonal understanding

  Measured in earlier research i.e. if we can take on

  different roles then this shows we can

  understand social situations
• interpersonal negotiation strategies

  As well as understanding what others think in social

  situations we also have to develop skills in how to

  respond to them.We therefore develop social

  skills e.g. asserting our position and managing

  conflict
• Awareness of personal meaning of

  relationships

  As well as understanding social situations and how to manage them,social development also requires the

  ability to reflect on social behaviour in the context of life history and the full range of relationships.Therefore, a violent gang member may have an advanced social understanding

  and good social skills, but choose a simple approach to conflict (violence) because of their role in the gang.