cognition and development - selman

Question 1

what is perspective taking

Answer 1

our ability to appreciate something from the perspective of other people

Question 2

what is social cognition

Answer 2

the mental process where we become aware of our own and others mental states

Question 3

what did Piaget say about development

Answer 3

social and physical perspective taking develops together (domain general approach)

Question 4

what did Selman say about development

Answer 4

social perspective-taking develops separately from other cognitive development (domain specific) based on maturity and social environment

Question 5

Selman 1971 - aim

Answer 5

investigated changes with age that took place in children response to scenarios

Question 6

Selman 1971 - procedure

Answer 6

30 boys and 30 girls
20 aged 4, 20 aged 5 and 20 aged 6
each child asked to take the role of others and explain how each person felt in various scenarios

Question 7

Selman 1971 - findings

Answer 7

a number of distinct levels of role taking were identified, positive correlation between age and perspective taking

Question 8

stage 0

Answer 8

socially egocentric - 3 to 6 years
a child cannot distinguish between their own emotions and those of others nor explain the emotional state of others

Question 9

stage 1

Answer 9

social information role taking - 6 to 8 years
a child can distinguish between their own point of view and that of others, but can only focus on one perspective at a time

Question 10

stage 2

Answer 10

self-reflective role taking - 8 to 10 years
a child can explain the position of another person and appreciate their perspective, but can still only appreciate one view at a time

Question 11

stage 3

Answer 11

mutual role-taking - 10 to 12 years
a child is now able to consider their own point of view and that of another at the same time

Question 12

stage 4

Answer 12

social and conventional system role-taking - 12+
a child recognises that understanding others viewpoints is not enough to allow people to reach agreement, social conventions are needed to keep order

Question 13

evaluation - strengths

Answer 13

Selmans study

Gurucharri and selmans study

Question 14

evaluation - limitations

Answer 14

much of the research is correlation, for example just because perspective taking skills and age are correlated does not mean that it develops due to maturity, may be accidentally correlated, this means there is a lot we still don’t know about perspective taking

Question 15

further research to support

Answer 15

Wu and Keysar (2007)
found that young Chinese adults participants did significantly better in perspective taking than matched Americans. This indicates that the development of perspective taking is influenced by socio-cultural inputs and not just maturity, this supports selmans assumptions that both maturity and the social environment contribute to perspective taking

Question 16

real world application

Answer 16

people in prison lack empathy so are more willing to harm others, social skills training programmes encourage prisoners to learn perspective taking skills, this means they can increase their empathic concern and hopefully this will stop them reoffending