Selman's level of perspective-taking Flashcards
What is social cognition?
- The mental processes we use when engaging in social interaction
What is perspective-taking?
- Our ability to appreciate a social situation from the perspective of other people
What did Selman do?
- Concerned with how children develop perspective-taking (+social)
- Took a domain-specific apprach (development of social perspective as a seperate process vs domain-general= physical and social develop together)
What did Selman’s aim to do?
- Looked at changes that occur with age in children’s responses to scenarios, in which they were asked to take on the role of different people in social situations
What was Selman’s procedure?
- 30 boys and 30 girls (20 4 yr olds, 20 5 yr olds, 20 6 yr olds)
- Individually given a task, measuring perspective-taking ability
- Involved being asked how each person felt in various scenarios
- E.g: Holly promised her dad she won’t climb trees anymore, but she sees her friend’s kitten stuck up a tree
- Children asked to describe and explain how each person (Holly, her dad, her friend) would feel if she did/did not climb the tree and rescue the kitten
What did Selman find?
- Identified distinct levels of perspective-taking
- Found level of perspective-taking correlates with age
What are the stages of development, as according to Selman?
- 0= Egocentric
- 1= Social-informational
- 2= Self-reflective
- 3= Mutual
- 4= Social and conventional system
What is the egocentric stage?
- Stage 0
- 3-6 years old
- Children cannot reliably distinguish between their own emotions and those of others
- Can identify emotional states in others, but do not understand what social behaviour caused this
What is the social-informational stage?
- Stage 1
- 6-8 years old
- Children can tell the difference between their own POV and that of others, but usually only focus on one of these perspectives
What is the self-reflective stage?
- Stage 2
- 8-10 years old
- Children put themselves in the position of others and fully appreciate their perspective
- Only take on board one perspective at a time
What is the mutual stage?
- Stage 3
- 10-12 years old
- Children can look to a situation from their own and another’s perspective at the same time
What is the social and conventional system stage?
- Stage 4
- 12+ years old
- Children are able to see that sometimes, understanding other people’s perspectives is not enough to allow people to reach agreement- social conventions are needed to keep order
What did Schultz et al say?
- Proposed 3 aspects of social development
- 1) Interpersonal understanding= if we can take on different roles, we can understand social situations
- 2) Interpersonal negotiation strategies= we must develop skills to respond to what others think in social situations (i.e. manage conflict/assert power)
- 3) Awareness of personal meaning of relationships= social development requires ability to reflect on social behaviour in the context of different relationships (e.g: gang member may have advanced social understanding but chooses simple approach to conflict)
Strength-
I- Research support for stages
D- Selman tested 60 children using scenarios (i.e. Holly and the kitten). Found significant positive correlations between age and ability to take on different perspectives. Cross-sectional research has been supported by longitudinal studies (Gurucharri and Selman)- followed children, records improvements in perspective- taking ability= good validity as controls for individual differences
E- Means there is solid support for Selman’s basic idea
Strength-
I- Research support for perspective-taking
D- Buijzen and Valkenburg observed interactions in shops including those in which parents refused to buy children what they wanted. Noted any coerceive behaviour in children (i.e. being forceful) as unhealthy social behaviour. Found negative correlations between coercive behaviour and both age and perspective-taking
E- Suggests there is a relationship between perspective-taking ability and healthy social behaviour
Limitation-
I- Counter-evidece against perspective-taking
D- Gasser and Keller assessed perspective-taking in bullies, victims, and non-participants. Found that bullies displayed no difficulties in perspective-taking
E- Suggests that perspective-taking may not be a key element in healthy social development
Limitation-
I- Too cognitive
D- Perspective-taking is a cognitive ability. There is far more to child development than increasing cognitive abilities. Selman’s approach fails to take into account the full range of other factors that impact children’s social development. Internal factors include: development of empathy, emotional self regulation. External factors include: parenting-style, family climate, opportunities to learn from peer interaction
E- Means Selman’s approach is too narrow
Evaluation extra-
I- Nature vs nurture
D- Wu and Keysar compared American and Chinese children, and found Chinese children were significantly more advanced. Suggests cultural influences may be important, so suggests that nurture is key. However, Selman believed his stages were based on cognitive maturity, so are universal (Vassallo), thus taking a nature approach
E- Suggests Selman downplayed the interaction between nature and nurture
