Selman’s levels of perspective-taking

• Selman disagreed with Piaget's domain-general approach to development and proposed that social perspective-taking develops separately from other aspects of cognitive development (domain-specific).
• Selman's assessment procedure involved asking children to take the perspective of different people in a social situation and consider how each person felt. One scenario featured a child called Holly who has promised her father she will no longer climb trees, but who then comes across her friend whose kitten is stuck up a tree. The child participant was asked to explain how each person (Holly, her friend and her father) would feel if Holly did or did not climb the tree to rescue the kitten.
• 1/5

  Selman found that children of different ages responded in different ways. He used these differences to build a stage theory of how thinking about social situations changes.

  • Stage 0 (3-6 years) Egocentric - a child cannot distinguish between their own emotions and those of others nor explain the emotional states of others.
• 2/5

  • Stage 1 (6-8 years) Social-informational - a child can now distinguish between their own point of view and that of others, but can only focus on one perspective at a time.
• 3/5

  • Stage 2 (8-10 years) Self-reflective - a child can explain the position of another person and appreciate their perspective but can still only consider one point of view at a time.
• 4/5

  • Stage 3 (10-12 years) Mutual - a child is now able to consider their own point of view and that of another at the same time.
• 5/5

  • Stage 4 (12 years +) Social and conventional system - a child recognises that understanding others' viewpoints is not enough to allow people to reach agreement. Social conventions are needed to keep order.
• Key Elements

  • Interpersonal understanding - this is what Selman measured in his earlier research.
  • Interpersonal negotiation strategies - having to develop other skills, e.g. learning to negotiate and manage conflict.
  • Awareness of personal meaning of relationships - being able to relate social behaviour to the particular people we are interacting with.