Selman's levels of perspective taking

Perspective taking definition AO1

• The understanding that people have other thoughts, feelings & viewpoints that are different to their own

• Develops through 5 stages as a GRADUAL PROCESS through using dilemmas (eg Holly and the kitten scenario) to assess children’s responses in perspective-taking ability.

Stage 0 (egocentric) AO1

• 3-6 years

• Children cannot distinguish between their own viewpoint and that of others.

• They tend to assume that everyone sees, thinks, and feels the same as they do

Stage 1 (social-info role taking) AO1

• 6-8 years

• Can distinguish between their own viewpoints & others but only for one perspective at a time

Stage 2 (self-reflective role taking) AO1

• 8-10 years

• Children can take on another person’s perspective and compare it to their own perspective.

Stage 3 (mutual role taking) AO1

• 10-12 years

• Children can step outside their own viewpoint and understand that different people have different views. Can appreciate that other people can understand their belief even if their beliefs aren’t the same

Stage 4 (social & conventional system role taking) AO1

• 12+ years

• Understand that outside influences can influence viewpoints eg morals, law, religion, social norms

• Recognise that different viewpoints can cause conflict & systems are needed to keep order eg law

Strengths AO3

• P - practical applications

• E - has helped psychologists better understand the social difficulties associated with autism, particularly the challenges with perspective taking that many children with ASD face. By outlining how perspective taking develops in stages, the theory allows professionals to identify delays or differences in social cognition, providing a clearer framework for understanding autistic behaviour. This has led to the development of targeted interventions where educators and therapists can design strategies such as social stories, role-play, modelling, and structured peer interactions to explicitly teach perspective-taking skills. These approaches can improve communication, empathy, and relationship formation, ultimately supporting better social adjustment.

• T - the theory demonstrates real-world practical value, showing the importance of understanding levels of perspective taking and strengthening Selman’s overall contribution to developmental psychology.

Limitations AO3

• P - culturally biased

• T - the stages were primarily developed using Western children, where independence and expressing individual viewpoints are strongly encouraged. However, research suggests that children from collectivist cultures, such as China, often perform better on perspective-taking tasks at an earlier age. This may be because these cultures emphasise social harmony, cooperation, and sensitivity to others’ feelings, giving children more opportunities to practise understanding different viewpoints. This suggests that perspective-taking ability is not determined solely by age-related cognitive development, as Selman proposed, but is also shaped by cultural and social experiences.

• T - Therefore, the theory could be ethnocentric as it attempts to inappropriately generalise these stages of social cognition. It also lacks generalisability as the fixed stages may not apply universally across cultures, therefore weakening the validity of Selman’s explanation of social development.

• P - mixed evidence for the importance of perspective taking

• E - in their study, Gasser & Keller found that some children bullies showed no difficulties with perspective taking; in fact, some bullies displayed advanced cognitive perspective-taking skills, allowing them to anticipate how others would react. This indicates that being able to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings does not necessarily lead to prosocial behaviour, and that factors such as empathy and moral reasoning may play a greater role in guiding social behaviour.

• T - Selman may overestimate the role of perspective taking in social behaviour as it may infact be influenced by multiple interacting factors. This reduces the validity of Selman’s theory, suggesting that it is an incomplete explanation.

• P - stage model may be too rigid.

• E - Selman proposed that children progress through five distinct, age-related stages of perspective taking in a fixed sequence, but research suggests that development is often more gradual and flexible. For example, children may demonstrate reasoning from multiple stages depending on the context, type of social situation, or the relationship with the people involved, rather than neatly fitting into a single stage. This indicates that perspective-taking ability is not as fixed or invariant as the theory suggests, and children’s social cognition may develop unevenly across different situations.

• T - As a result, the theory may oversimplify the complexity of social development, reducing its explanatory power and limiting its ability to account for the nuanced ways in which children understand and respond to other people’s thoughts and feelings in real-life social interactions.