Selmans levels of perspective taking

• Social cognition= describes the mental processes we make use of when engaged in social interaction. Eg: making decisions on how to behave based on our understanding of a social situation.
• Selman- concerned with how children develop social perspective taking, stage theory to plot the cognitive development from infancy.
• Perspective taking= our ability to appreciate a social situation from the perspective of other people. Understanding the thoughts and feelings of another.
• Perspective taking research

  Selman looked at changes that occured with age in children's responses to scenarios in which they take the role of different people in a social situation.

  • Found a number of distinct levels of perspective taking identified. Selman found that the level of perspective taking correlated with age.
• Stage 0 (3-6 years) Egocentric

  • Child cant distinguish between their own emotions and those of others. They can identify emotional states in others but don't understand what social behaviour caused them.
• Stage 1 (6-8 years) Social-informational

  • Child can tell the difference between their own point of view and that of others, but can only focus on one of these perspectives.
• Stage 2 (8-10 years) Self reflective

  • Child can put themselves in the position of another person and fully appreciate the others perspectives. They can only take on board one point of view at a time.
• Stage 3 (10-12 years) Mutual

  • Child now able to look at a situation from their own and anothers point of view at the same time.
• Stage 4 (12+ years) Social and conventional system

  • Become able to see that sometimes understanding others viewpoints isn't enough to allow people to reach agreement.
  • This is why social conventions are needed to keep order.
  • Based on both maturity and experience.
• Interpersonal understanding

  • What selman measured in his earlier perspective taking research. If we take different roles then 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 such as asserting our position and managing conflict.
• Awareness of personal meaning of relationships

  • Social development also requires the ability to reflect on social behaviour in the context of different relationships.
• Evaluation- research support for stages

  • Evidence that perspective taking becomes more advanced with age.
  • Selman tested children aged 4-6 using scenarios, there were significant positive correlations between age and the ability to take different perspectives.
  • This cross sectional research has been supported by longitudinal studies- they have recorded improvements in their perspective taking skills. Longitudinal studies have good validity because they control for individual differences whereas cross sectional studies don't.
• Evaluation- research support for perspective taking

  • importance of perspective taking in social development. This is supported by an observational study of child parent interaction in toyshops.
  • Observed interactions including parents refusing to buy things their child wanted. Noted any coercive behaviour in the children which is an example of unhealthy social behaviour.
  • Found negative correlations between coercive behaviour and both age and perspective taking abilities.
  • Suggests a relationship between perspective taking abilities and healthy social behaviour
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  • Other lines of research haven't supported links between perspective taking and social development.
  • Assessment of perspective taking in bullies, victims and non-participants. Found that bullies displayed no difficulties in perspective taking.
  • So perspective taking may not be a key element in healthy social development.
• Evaluation- too cognitive

  Limitation= focus on cognitive factors alone.

  • Perspective taking is a cognitive ability but there is more to children's social development.
  • By focusing on the cognitive element of development, selmans approach fails to take into account other factors that impact on a child's social development.
  • Internal factors include the development of empathy and emotional self regulation.
  • External factors include parenting style, family climate and opportunities to learn from peer interaction.