Selman’s levels of perspective-taking AO3

• +Research support for stages of perspective-taking. Selman tested 60 children aged 4-6 (cross-sectional study) and found positive correlations between age and the ability to take different perspectives. This is supported by longitudinal follow-up studies (Gurucharri and Selman) which confirm that perspective-taking develops with age. This means that Selman’s stages have support from different lines of research.
• +Research support for importance of perspective-taking. Buijzen and Valkenburg observed child parent interactions in shops when parents refused to buy things their child wanted. The researchers found negative correlations between both age/ perspective-taking and coercive behaviour, i.e. trying to force parents to buy them things. This suggests that there is a relationship between perspective-taking abilities and healthy social behaviour.
• +-Not all research supports the link between perspective-taking and social development. Gasser and Keller found that bullies displayed no difficulties in perspective-taking, in fact scoring higher than victims. This suggests that perspective-taking may not be a key element in healthy social development.
• -Overly cognitive.

  Selman's theory looks only at cognitive factors whereas children's social development involves more than their developing cognitive abilities. For example, internal factors (e.g. empathy) and external factors (e.g. family atmosphere are important and it is likely social development is due to a combination of these. This means that Selman's approach to explaining perspective-taking is too narrow.
• Nature v Nurture

  Wu and Keysar compared American and matched Chinese children and found that the Chinese children were significantly more advanced. This suggests cultural influence. However, Selman believed that his stages of perspective-taking were based primarily on cognitive maturity and so universal (Vassallo). This suggests there may be an interaction between nurture and nature, and perhaps Selman wrongly downplayed this.