Selman

What is social cognition

It is the role of thinking with our interactions/ behaviours with other

What was Selman’s theory of perspective taking

Selman believed that psychological perspective taking is very important to social cognition rather than physical perspective taking of egocentrism.

Psychological perspective taking is the idea that you can take on someone else's perspective to think or feel how they may be feeling and this develops to become more mature which increases social cognition

What was Selman’s stages into perspective taking

Selman created his stages based on Dilemas which assessed the perspective taking of children and found that the perspective taking ability correlated with ages so he created his stages

1. STAGE 0 (3-6) - EGOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVE TAKING - egocentric view

2. STAGE 1 (6-8) - SOCIAL INFORMATIONAL PERSPECTIVE TAKING - can differentiate between their perspectives and others but only focus on 2

3. STAGE 2 (8-10) - SELF REFLECTIVE PERSPECTIVE TAKING - can take on another persons perspective

4. STAGE 3 (10-12) - MUTUAL PERSPECTIVE TAKING - can understand the perspectives of both them and another’s feelings based on a 3rd person objectively

5. STAGE 4 (12-15) - SOCIETAL PERSPECTIVE TAKING - They make decisions based on their perspectives, others and societies conventions and act on it

Give the evaluation for Selman’s social cognition

1. The research has application in schools and prisons

• schools - They can introduce more perspective taking tasks eg. role play

• prisons - because a lot of prisoners have a lack of care or remorse towards their crimes social skills training can help with PT

2. Selman’s own research supports - huge sample - 225 ps ages 4.5-32 and after a year none regressed in PT = evidence supporting ages and linear development

He also found that poor PT = less likely to form relationships - but not causational

2. Fitzgerald and white found a correlation between less aggression and prosocial beh and PT high