selmans theory

• selmans theory of social perspective
• social cognition - role of thinking in our behaviour with others - describes mental processes we make use of when engaing in interactions
• development of social perspective taking our ability to appreciate a social situation from the pov of others
• perspective taking - central dynamic of social development - taking another pov enables insight into how the other is thinking
• research into perspective dilemas - explored childrens development - used dilemas to explore feelings when given conflicting decisions
• perspective taking dilema - holly and the tree
• developed a stage theory of social perspective taking

  stage 0 - 3-6 years - egocentric

  stage 1 - 6-8 years - social informational

  stage 2 - 8-10 years - self reflective

  stage 3 - 10 -12 years - mutual

  stage 4 - 12+ years - social and conventional
• pro - research support - fitzgerald and white - development of perspective taking - more growth when taking the the pov of victims
• pro - practical application - autism spectrum - marton et al - using scenarios to pinpoint the stage of the childs development can help create specialised plans to tackle issue
• crit - cultural differences - wu and keysar - compared american and chinese children - chinese children more advanced influence of culture
• crit - focus on cognitive factors alone - more to development than just cog - emotional factors
• crit - correlational not causal