Selman and perspective taking Flashcards
Perspective taking
Social cognitive ability to understand others have different viewpoints about different situations for different reasons, it involves role taking ability to put ourselves in others shoes and imagine their viewpoint and how it may influence their perspectives. Selman suggests this ability develops gradually in a set of stages during childhood
Perspective taking-egocentric stage
3-6 years-confuse their perspective with others and assume others have the same information and viewpoint as them
Social informational stage
6-8, consider others may have access to different levels of knowledge to them giving others a different viewpoint/perception of situations
Multi role taking stage
10-12 -develop the ability to consider multiple peoples viewpoints or perceptions about a situation at the same time objectively
Social role taking stage
11-15+-Consider how social norms and values influence peoples perception of a situation and their viewpoint.
Selmans research
His theory is based on his research involving giving interpersonal dillemas and asking them to interpret how a character in the dillema may act, he noticed children at similar ages gave similar answers, for example he gave children a dillema involving a girl whos dad said she cant climb trees climbing a tree to save a cat, they are asked how the dad would feel and childrens responses became more developed and they began to consider different levels of information as they aged,
Practical application-Selman and Walker-Conflict resolution
-Can be used to reduce agression by getting other people to consider others emotions and feelings about a situation
Limitation-generalisability
Its based on Western research so may be unable to tell us about how perspective taking ability develops in other cultures.
Self reflective role taking
8-10-children can put themselves into others shoes and imagine scenarios from their perspective but can only imagine one perspective at once.
