Selman's Theory (AQA A Level Psychology)

Perspective-taking

• Selman’s (1971) research on perspective-taking is based on the idea that children develop the understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings, viewpoints and attitudes that are different to their own 

• Perspective-taking develops via a range of  mechanisms and at specific stages of a child’s development, according to Selman

• Unlike Piaget’s theory, which states that children develop both cognitive and social perspective-taking synchronously, Selman believed that social perspective-taking develops separately from cognitive perspective-taking 

• Perspective-taking is similar to Piaget’s ideas about a child’s egocentrism e.g. an egocentric view limits the ability of the child to take on another person’s perspective

• Selman argues that as cognitive ability in general develops, this in turn leads to the child being able to better understand the world around them

• To test his theory Selman (1971) asked children aged four to six years old to explain how various different people might feel in specific scenarios e.g. ‘How will Holly/her dad/Holly’s friend feel if Holly climbs the tree to rescue the kitten?’

• Selman (1971) found (based on the above scenario) that the younger children (e.g. four year-olds) used egocentric thinking to understand how other people might feel e.g. they used information that they themselves were aware of but which other characters in the scenario could not have been aware of e.g. Holly’s dad will not know that she has climbed the tree to rescue the kitten

• Selman concluded from the above results that the younger the child the less they were able to take on another person’s perspective

It’s not just young children who struggle with perspective-taking…

Selman's stages of development

• Selman’s stages of development emerged from the findings of research as described above

• The stages at which different levels of perspective-taking develop (according to Selman) are as follows:

Research which investigates Selman’s theory

• Gurucharri & Selman (1982) conducted longitudinal research for over five years consisting of interviews in which they explored two interpersonal dilemmas surrounding friendship and peer group relations: the researchers found that the children developed perspective taking ability in line with and predicted by Selman’s levels

• Epley et al. (2004) - Children aged 4-12 years old were tested alongside adults to investigate the egocentric perspective: results showed that younger children demonstrated egocentric bias more than older children and adults

Strengths

• The role of perspective-taking is a key factor in understanding atypical development as seen in disorders such as ADHD and autism: children with these disorders find it very difficult to take another person’s perspective

• There is good application to this theory as it could be used to design educational plans for children with special needs 

Weaknesses

• Perspective-taking is just one aspect of development generally: it cannot account (on its own) for the array of factors that influence a child’s development e.g. genetic, social, emotional

• Variables such as perspective-taking, social competence, empathy etc. are very difficult to operationalise and measure which means that the theory may lack reliability

Link to Issues & Debates:

Selman’s theory may be deterministic as it assumes that children will develop according to predetermined stages linked to specific cognitive skills (even though Selman’s stages do overlap to some extent). Free will would argue that children develop according to their own internal and external prompts and milestones and that trying to impose a timeline on their development is limiting and inflexible.