Policeman doll

• Study design

  • Laboratory study with control of possible extraneous variables
  • Standardised procedures to ensure replicability
  • Thirty children between the ages of three-and-a-half years and 4 years took part
• Method

  1. Children shown a model with two intersecting walls forming a cross

  2. Policeman doll placed on the model

  3. Child asked to hide a boy doll so the policeman doll could not see him

  4. Policeman placed in different positions, child asked to hide the boy each time

  5. Another policeman doll placed on the model, child asked to hide the boy doll so neither policeman could see him

  6. This repeated three times with a different hiding place each time
• Results

  90 per cent of the children aged between three-and-a-half and five years were able to hide the boy doll from the two policemen dolls.
• Conclusion

  Children aged between three-and-a-half years and five years can see things from someone else's point of view if the situation is familiar to them, and the task makes sense.

  This was very different to Piaget's findings that children were egocentric until seven years of age.
• Three mountains task

  • Used children's television characters
  • Simpler version of the task
• Three- and four-year-olds could give the correct answers when the television characters were used
• Many three- and four-year-olds could give the correct answers in the simpler version of the three mountains task
• Findings from Hughes' experiments

  Provide more support for the view that Piaget underestimated the age at which children could see things from someone else's point of view
• Criticisms of Hughes' first experiment

  • Children were tested in an unusual environment
  • Experimenter was unfamiliar to them
• If the children were in their own environment, and the experimenter was familiar to them


  More would demonstrate that they are no longer egocentric at an even younger age
• Evaluation

  Why the study is important

  • It showed that contrary to Piaget's conclusions, children younger than seven are not always egocentric.

  Limitations of the study

  • The task involved hiding from a policeman, which is not a situation that young children are likely to have experienced. If it involved hiding from a parent, or another child, more children might have got the correct answers.