Cognition + development - social cognition - perspective taking

Question 1

What are Selman’s levels of perspective taking?

not the actual levels but a description

Answer 1

The ability to see a social situation from another’s perspective.
He believed this was a social development (nurture) not just a biologically-driven cognitive one.
Much of our social functioning relies on this ability.

Question 2

How did Selman propose that the ability to take other’s perspective develops?

Answer 2

He proposed that the ability to take other’s perspectives develops through 5 levels.
The levels show an age-related shift from egocentric view to a broader cultural/moral understanding of other people’s points of view.

Question 3

How did Selman research perspective-taking?

Answer 3

Used a sample of 225 participants aged 4.5 to 32 years of age.
Level of perspective-taking correlated with age.
This was a cross-sectional study (snapshot).

Question 4

What are the 5 levels of perspective taking?

Answer 4

• Egocentric
• Social-informational
• Self-reflective
• Mutual
• Societal

Question 5

What are the characteristics of the egocentric level of perspective taking?

Answer 5

• 3-6 years

- Children may recognise that the self and others can have different points of view, but frequently confuse the two

Question 6

What are the characteristics of the social-informational level of perspective taking?

Answer 6

• 6-8 years
• Children understand that different perspectives may result because people have access to different information
• Will not understand differences in opinion if information is the same, so not truly able to imagine a different point of view

Question 7

What are the characteristics of the self-reflective level of perspective taking?

Answer 7

• 8-10 years
• Child can now view things from someone else’s perspective in addition to their own and understands others are able to do this too
• But they will only be able to consider one point of view at a time

Question 8

What are the characteristics of the mutual level of perspective taking?

Answer 8

• 10-12 years

- Child can consider two people’s points of view at the same time

Question 9

What are the characteristics of the societal level of perspective taking?

Answer 9

• 12+ years
• Individuals understand that decisions are now made with reference to social conventions (norms) as understanding another’s point of view may not be enough to ensure agreement

Question 10

How did Selman test children’s perspective-taking?

Answer 10

Selman used dilemmas based on scenarios to test children’s perspective-taking.
A dilemma is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is unambiguously preferable.
One of the scenarios he used is the Holly Dilemma.
From this research he identified 5 distinct levels of perspective-taking.
He found that these correlate with age; higher levels enable better social functioning.

Question 11

What is the Holly Dilemma?

Answer 11

Holly loves to climb trees
One day she falls but does not hurt herself
Her father is upset and asks her to promise never to climb another tree
Holly promises
Later, her friend’s kitten is caught up in a tree
Something needs to be done right away or the kitten may fall
Holly is the only one who can climb trees well enough
She remembers her promise to her father

Will her father understand why she climbed the tree?
Should she be punished?

Question 12

How did egocentric children answer the Holly Dilemma?

Answer 12

“He will understand because he loves kittens too, he’ll be happy”.
If the child loves kittens, they think everyone will love kittens.

Question 13

How did social-informational children answer the Holly Dilemma?

Answer 13

“If Holly showed him the kitten he might change his mind”.

Will not understand differences in opinion when information is the same.

Question 14

How did self-reflective children answer the Holly Dilemma?

Answer 14

“He will understand because he can put himself in her shoes and understand how she feels so won’t punish her”.
Can understand Holly’s perspective, but not more than one, and so they don’t understand the father can have a different view to Holly.

Question 15

How did mutual children answer the Holly Dilemma?

Answer 15

“He may feel differently to Holly, because she knows by climbing she is putting herself in danger and he is worried about her. He will think she shouldn’t have broken her promise but maybe should have gone for help. Holly will still think she has done the right thing”.
The child can now see both Holly’s and her father’s perspective.

Question 16

How did societal people answer the Holly Dilemma?

Answer 16

“Her father will think that the right thing to do is to save the animal’s life because all lives, even animal ones, have value. He therefore won’t punish her”.
Understanding another’s point of view may not be enough to ensure agreement.

Question 17

What did Selman believe perspective-taking was vitally important for?

Answer 17

All social behaviour, particularly pro-social behaviour.

Children with poor perspective-taking skills had more difficulty with relationships and were less popular.
Positive correlation: between perspective-taking skills and pro-social behaviour
Negative correlation: between perspective-taking skills and aggression

Question 18

What support is there for the progressive nature of Selman’s levels?

Answer 18

2 years after Selman’s original study 48 boys were re-interviewed: 40 had made gains in their level of perspective-taking; none had regressed.
3 years after that 41 boys were re-interviewed: most had made gains in their level of perspective-taking; none had regressed or skipped a stage.
These findings support Selman’s theory that children pass through a series of levels of perspective-taking as they mature.

Question 19

What support is there for experience being an essential part of the process?

Answer 19

Study looked at the development of perspective-taking skills in relation to parental style.
Children whose parents encouraged them to take the perspective of the victim, showed higher levels of perspective-taking.
If it was just a biological process, parental style wouldn’t speed it up. Parents who encouraged perspective-taking had children who had accelerated their own perspective-taking, suggesting this parenting allowed this to happen.

Question 20

What more evidence is there that shows perspective-taking skills is not just a biological process?

Answer 20

Study compared Chinese adults with American adults and the Chinese adults did significantly better than their matched American partners in perspective-taking exercises.
This shows it is not just a biological process because the Chinese and American young people are biologically extremely similar, but their cultures are very different.
In particular, Chinese culture is collectivist and emphases other people, whereas the US is individualist and emphases the self over others.

Question 21

Why is application a strength of perspective-taking research?

Answer 21

If perspective-taking can be developed by experienced then there are applications for schools and prisons.
Social skills training programmes are used in therapeutic and prison settings to help develop perspective-taking and improve people’s social skills and ultimately their quality of life.
Prisoners could meet with victim’s families “restorative justice” to understand how they were affected and seeing their perspective of the crime.

Question 22

Why may Selman’s theory be incomplete?

Answer 22

Not all research shows that having perspective-taking skills is associated with pro-social behaviour; research in 2009 with bullies found that they showed no impairments in their perspective-taking.
This suggests that Selman may not be right all the time, or their may be unknown non-cognitive factors involved in determining pro-social behaviour such as empathy and emotion which he ignored.

Question 23

Why is the fact that Selman’s research has low temporal validity a limitation?

Answer 23

The explanation does not take account of children’s complex social worlds in modern society eg. family, nursery, step-families, cultural differences which are very different from when he did his studies 50 years ago.
Social role-taking may be different now because children have much more complex social interactions from a young age.
Therefore modern children may progress more quickly through the levels.