The development of social cognition:
Selman’s level of perspective taking
What is social cognition?
Social cognition is thinking about people what they do and should do and how
they feel
Everyday life relies on the ability to predict how people might behave
(we spend a great deal of our time and energy analysing other people, trying to
understand and predict what our friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, people at work,
college will do)
This is based partially on the ability to mentally put ourselves in other people’s
shoes
Why is this important?
Selman argued that the ability to take other people’s perspectives into account
was important for many social activities such as group problem-solving and
persuading others
, Selman’s level of perspective taking
Robert Selman developed a theory based on social perspective taking (role-
taking)
Selman investigated children’s abilities to see the world from other people’s
points of view by devising scenarios of social situations
Selman’s perspective-taking dilemmas
What did this involve?
Each scenario involved a number of people enabling the child to
consider the issues from a range of multiple perspectives e.g., Holly and
the kitten
After the child has listened to the scenario, they were asked a series of
open-ended questions about how a particular person might respond
For example:
o If Holly climbs the tree, should she be punished?
o Will her father understand if she climbs the tree?
o Will Sean understand is Holly refuses?
Selman’s level of perspective taking
What is social cognition?
Social cognition is thinking about people what they do and should do and how
they feel
Everyday life relies on the ability to predict how people might behave
(we spend a great deal of our time and energy analysing other people, trying to
understand and predict what our friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, people at work,
college will do)
This is based partially on the ability to mentally put ourselves in other people’s
shoes
Why is this important?
Selman argued that the ability to take other people’s perspectives into account
was important for many social activities such as group problem-solving and
persuading others
, Selman’s level of perspective taking
Robert Selman developed a theory based on social perspective taking (role-
taking)
Selman investigated children’s abilities to see the world from other people’s
points of view by devising scenarios of social situations
Selman’s perspective-taking dilemmas
What did this involve?
Each scenario involved a number of people enabling the child to
consider the issues from a range of multiple perspectives e.g., Holly and
the kitten
After the child has listened to the scenario, they were asked a series of
open-ended questions about how a particular person might respond
For example:
o If Holly climbs the tree, should she be punished?
o Will her father understand if she climbs the tree?
o Will Sean understand is Holly refuses?
