Selman's Theory (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

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

Selman's research

• To test his theory Selman (1971) asked 60 children aged four to six years old to explain how various 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 answers to 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 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

Selman's stages of development

• Selman's (1976) stages of development emerged from children's typical responses to the perspective-taking scenarios in his earlier research

• 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

Evaluation of Selman's Theory

Strengths

• Perspective-taking helps explain atypical development: Marton et al. (2009) compared 50 children aged 8–12 with a diagnosis of ADHD against controls on Selman's perspective-taking tasks

  • The ADHD group did worse at understanding scenarios and identifying the feelings and consequences of actions

    • This is a strength because it shows Selman's work is helpful in understanding atypical development

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

  • E.g., understanding that a child with ADHD may struggle to identify the feelings and consequences of actions (Marton et al., 2009) means that interventions can explicitly teach and practise perspective-taking skills, rather than assuming they will develop naturally with age

    • This gives Selman's theory real-world value beyond describing typical development

Limitations

• Selman's approach is overly cognitive: perspective-taking is a cognitive ability, but social development involves much more; internal factors such as empathy and emotional self-regulation, and external factors such as family climate and opportunities to learn from peer interaction

  • This suggests the theory explains only one aspect of a complex process

• Variables such as perspective-taking, social competence and empathy are very difficult to operationalise and measure, which makes the theory difficult to test scientifically

Issues & Debates

• Selman’s stage theory can be seen as deterministic, as it suggests that all children move through the same fixed stages of perspective-taking in a set sequence based on age and cognitive growth

  • This may underestimate individual differences and the influence of social and emotional factors, implying that development is more rigid than it might be in reality