selman's perspective taking#

• levels of perspective taking

  selman - interested in the socal perspective taking that is equivalent to piaget's egocentrism (physical perspective taking)

  • social perspective taking - being able to look at a social situation from another person's point of view and consider what other people are thinking
  • it is a domain-specific process in cognitive development
• perspective taking research

  selman - looked at how responses to the holly dilemma change as they develop social perspective-taking skills

  • procedure - 60 participants were asked about how holly, her friend and her father felt if she climbed the tree to save a kitten despite promising her father she wouldn't climb anymore after a fall
  • finding - found 5 levels of perspective taking that clearly correlated with age

  
• stages of perspective-taking


  selman - based on holly dilemma there are 5 distinct stages to social perspective-taking that relate to age

  0. undifferentiated

  1. social-informational

  2. self-reflective

  3. mutual

  4. societal
• undifferentiated perspective-taking


  stage 0 - 3-6 years old

  • children can't distinguish between themselves and others and take an egocentric approach
  • holly's father wouldn't tell her off because he would be happy shawn got his kitten back
• social-informational perspective taking


  stage 1 - 6-8 years old

  • children recognise that other shave perspectives that differ from their own
  • recognise others only have different perspectives because they have different information
  • holly's father might tell her off because he doesn't know why she climbed the tree
• self-reflecting perspective taking


  stage 2 - 8-10 years old

  • children know their own and other's points of view may conflict even when they have the same information
  • can't consider more than one viewpoint at a time
  • holly thinks her father will understand if she explains why she went up the tree
• mutual perspective taking


  stage 3 - 10-12 years old

  • children can consider their own and another's point of view and the other person can do the same
  • cana assume the perspective of a disinterested third person and how they would react to the viewpoint of others
  • holly won't be punished because she thought she should help her friend, and her father would only punish her if he thought holly climbed the tree for fun
• societal perspective taking


  stage 4 - 12+ years old

  • can understand another person's perspective through comparing it to the society they live in
  • expects others to take the viewpoint of most of the people in the social group to maintain order
  • holly won't be punished because it's important to help other people
• selman's complete theory

  schultz - the five levels of social perspective-taking can't fully explain social cognition, so there are three aspects

  1. interpersonal understanding - taking different roles to help understand social situations and how others think
  2. interpersonal negotation strategies - develop skills to help resond to how others think eg. conflict resolution
  3. awareness of personal meaning of relationships - ability to reflect on social behaviour and the context of social relationships eg. position on social hierarchy
• interpersonal understanding - taking different roles to help understand social situations and how others think (schultz)
• interpersonal negotation strategies - develop skills to help resond to how others think eg. conflict resolution (schultz)
• awareness of personal meaning of relationships - ability to reflect on social behaviour and the context of social relationships eg. position on social hierarchy (schultz)
• social perspective taking - being able to look at a social situation from another person's point of view and consider what other people are thinking
• strengths

  • selman et al. - longitudinal research found improvements in the holly dilemma correlated with age so stages and ages have good validity
  • also benefits of longitudinal method
  • buijzen + valkenberg - observation in toyshops and supermarkets found a negative correlation between coercive behaviour and age, and coercive behaviour and perspective taking so vital for social development
  • also high ecological validity as field experiment
  • HOWEVER gasser + keller - bullies had no perspective-taking issues
• limitations

  • wu + keysar - american + chinese children matched for intelligence found chinese children were much more advanced in perspective-taking which shows there are cultural differences despite selman suggesting it was biological and universal
  • may be because china is collectivist
  • reductionist - only accounts for cognitive factors when social development is the result of other factors eg. empathy and parenting
  • gasser + keller - bullies had no perspective-taking issues which suggests the level may not be related to social development
• acronym

  Understanding Selman's ideas Somehow really Makes Sense

  undifferentiated (pt), social informational (pt), self-reflective (pt), mutual (pt), societal (pt)