Selman's Levels of Perspective-taking Flashcards
List Selman’s 5 levels of perspective taking in order from first to last.
1) Socially egocentric
2) . Social informational role-taking
3) . Self-reflective role-taking
4) . Mutual role-taking
5) . Social and conventional system role-taking.
Outline the socially egocentric stage.
3 - 6 years.
Child cannot distinguish between their own emotions and the emotions of others; they assume other’s feelings are the same as their own.
Outline the social informational role-taking stage.
6 - 8 years
Recognise different people have different information to each other.
They believe it is this information that influences behaviour.
Outline the self-reflective role-taking stage.
8 - 10 years
Children have developed to know people differ in social perception.
Child is now able to recognise two differing points of view.
Outline the mutual role-taking stage.
10-12 years
Children are able to view a situation in their own perspective and the perspective of another at the same time.
Outline the social and conventional system role-taking stage.
12+
Children are able to consider the perspective of others in relation to the social norms and cultural environment.
Give the three additions made by Selman to his incumbent 5 stages.
1) . Interpersonal understanding - being able to take different roles is evidence that we understand social situations.
2) . interpersonal negotiation strategies - develop skills in how to respond to the social situations
3) . Awareness of personal meaning of relationships - need to be able to reflect on social behaviour in the context of life history and the full range of relationships.
Give two advantages of Selman’s levels of perspective taking.
Advantages:
- High practical validity - Marton et al. - 8-12 year olds with ADHD performed worse on scenario understanding - ADHD group also performed worse on identifying the feelings of those in the social situation - research has identified a key social cognitive deficit - supporting the practical validity in the theory allowing for intervention to support those with atypical development - led to developments in our understanding of various illnesses.
- High practical validity with regards to conflict resolution - Walker and Selman used perspective-taking to reduce aggression levels by encouraging the pps to empathise with the other’s feelings - may have real life benefits regarding dispute resolution in divorce cases.
Give two disadvantages of Selman’s stages of perspective-taking.
Disadvantages:
- Mixed evidence to support the importance of perspective-taking - Buijzen and Valkenburg - negative correlation between age, perspective-taking and coercive behaviour - suggests it is important in developing pro-social behaviour - however, Gasser and Keller found bullies display no difficulties in perspective taking - cannot conclude that perspective-taking enables socially desirable behaviour.
- Research may be culturally biased - carried out mainly on androcentric, Western cultures - may not be applicable to children of other cultures - e.g. Quintana et al. criticised Selman’s work for not acknowledging the development of perspective-taking in sub-cultures - they may have different practices which cause perspective-taking to alter.
What is perspective-taking?
The ability to assume another’s perspective and understand their thoughts and feelings in a particular situation.
What did Selman and Byrne find?
Presented children aged 4-10 with two interpersonal dilemmas.
- Give interviews where they had to discuss the two dilemmas.
- Children aged 4-6 demonstrated greater egocentrism than older pps
- Children aged 8-10 were able to see things from the perspective of others
- Supports the idea that perspective taking is a skill acquired with age - also supports egocentrism according to Piaget - high concurrent validity.
