development of a child's understanding of others Flashcards
what is perspective taking ?
involves an understanding that another person has a different perspective from one’s own.
who came up with the concept of perspective taking ?
Selman (1980)
what experiment did Selman conduct ?
studied children’s perspective taking ability by analysing their responses to stories presenting dilemmas, children would answer according to their age. Selman created a 5 stage theory.
stage 0 ?
undifferentiated (3-6 years) - children can distinguish between self an others but are governed by their own opinions
stage 1 ?
social informational (6-8 years)children are aware of perspectives that are different from their own but assume that it is because others have different information.
stage 2 ?
self reflective (8-10 years )- children are aware and understand that 2 people with the same information may form a different view, however they cannot consider 2 views at the same time.
stage 3?
mutual (10-12 years)- children develop the ability to take the perspective of a third impartial person who’s viewing an interaction between other people.
stage 4 ?
societal (12-15+years)- personal decisions are now made with reference to social and cultural values.
support for the theory ?
keller and Ederstein - longitudinal study of 121 participants aged 7-15 using dilemmas based on friendship. PPT’s responses reflected their stage of perspective taking.
Selman- found a direct link between the stage of perspective taking and the negotiations children used with friends.
weaknesses?.
the theory places too much emphasis on perspective taking as a determinant of social interactions , motivation is not mentioned.
the theory is individualist, it does not consider individual differences.
IDA?
Real world application - social skills training (SST). role taking skills in schools and prisons.
