Cognition And Development - Selman’s Levels Of Perspective Evaluation Flashcards
What is one strength of selmans LOP (upporting evidence)
Perspective taking improves with age -> supporting evidence for this
Cross sectional studies
Eg Selman (1971)
Significant positive correlation between age and the ability to take different perspective scenarios like that of holly and kitten
Evidence shows social cognitive abilities improve with age
Not just result of individual differences in social cognitive ability in children
What is another strength of selmans level of perspective (application to atypical development)
children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and those on the autistic spectrum have problems with perspective taking.
Marton et al. (2009) compared 50 8- 12-year olds with a diagnosis of ADHD with a control group on performance on perspective-taking tasks.
Those with ADHD -> worse
On understanding the scenarios,
identifying the feelings of each person involved + evaluating the consequences of actions
Shows Selman’s -> useful applications to understanding atypical development in social cognition
What is a limitation of selmans levels of perspective (overly cognitive)
• This explanation of perspective taking could be seen as ‘overly cognitive’.
Selman’s approach does not consider other factors such as the development of empathy, family climate and opportunities to learn from peer interaction.
There is more to children’s social development than their developing cognitive abilities and this is not considered.
What is another limitation of selmans level of perspective ( importance of perspective taking and pro social behaviour )
Previous research shows that perspective taking is important in developing pro social ( nice behaviour ).
However Gasser and Keller (2009) found that bullies -> had no difficulties in perspective taking
Problem - selmans approach may not be important factor in developing socially desirable behaviour
Selmans approach suffers from mixed evidence
