Robert L. Selman

Taking another's perspective: Role-taking development in early childhood.

SELMAN, ROBERT L. Taking Anothers Perspective: Role-taking Development in Early Childhood. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 1721-1734. 60 middle-class subjects (10 boys and 10 girls each of ages 4, 5, and 6) were administered a role-taking task specifically designed to enable the S (role taker) to make and explain predictions about a peers responses in a situation in which S has information not available to the peer. Results suggested a 4-level progression in role-taking skill across the age range examined. The significant correlation between the role-taking levels and both chronological age and another age-related role-taking measure supported the hypothesis that conceptual role taking is an age-related social-cognitive skill and implied the possible existence of an ontogenetic sequence of roletaking stages.

The development of interpersonal competence: The role of understanding in conduct

Abstract Contemporary research on social-cognitive development from a structural perspective, including the authors analysis of levels of interpersonal understanding, has focused predominantly on universals in social knowledge. Primarily using interview procedures, it has consisted, in the main, of formal descriptions of the qualitative aspects of social concept development, and of their sequential progression with age for individuals within the species (ontogenesis). It is suggested that the developmental study of interpersonal competence requires a broader view than is provided by a structural-developmental framework alone, but a view which, nevertheless, makes use of this orientation as its foundation. Using the more inclusive orthogenetic approach and data drawn from observations of real-life interactions in field and clinical settings, five strategy levels in interpersonal negotiations are described. Several working hypotheses about the relation between levels of interpersonal understanding and interpersonal negotiation strategies are spelled out. The construct of Coordination of Social Perspectives is used as an analytic tool to integrate these two components of the model within a single theoretical framework.

Social competence in the schools: Toward an integrative developmental model for intervention

Abstract The promotion of social problem-solving skills in school-age children has been only partially successful in improving their social adjustment. The design and evaluation of training programs has been hindered by the inadequacies of most current models of social competence and its relation to social cognition. In this paper, we delineate the necessary components of a coherent model and review the shortcomings of previous approaches. We then describe a model of the development of a specific form of social competence—namely, interpersonal negotiation strategies (INS)—and its social-cognitive underpinnings. The INS model embodies several conceptual advances compared to previous models linking social cognition to social behavior: It integrates functional (information-processing) and structural (cognitive-developmental) approaches, specifies a linkage between social cognition and action within a particular domain of social interaction, and provides for developmental, individual, and contextual variations in the expression of behavior in that domain. The implications of the INS model for social problem-solving training in the schools are reviewed, together with an example of the implementation of the model in a specific educational context. The INS model may help provide a more coherent basis for the school-based delivery of developmentally appropriate interventions designed to foster childrens social skills.

The Value of a Developmental Approach to Evaluating Character Development Programmes: An outcome study of Facing History and Ourselves

An outcome study of the Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) programme is used to illustrate a developmental evaluation methodology developed by the Group for the Study of Interpersonal Development (GSID). The GSID approach to programme evaluation of character development programmes embeds the evaluation into a theoretical framework consonant with the theoretical underpinnings of the programme, using measures sharing the same theoretical assumptions as the practice. The subjects in this study were students in eighth-grade social studies and language arts classes in public schools located in suburban and urban communities in the United States. The sample included 346 subjects in 14 FHAO classes (212 FH AO students) and eight comparison classes (134 comparison students). A 10-week Facing History and Ourselves curriculum was taught in the FH AO classrooms either in late winter or spring. The study demonstrated that eighth-grade students in Facing History classrooms showed increases across the school year in relationship maturity and decreases in racist attitudes and self-reported fighting behaviour relative to comparison students, although these findings were complicated by interaction effects with gender. The gains Facing History students made in moral reasoning and in civic attitudes and participation were not significantly greater than the comparison students, although there was a significant difference between the groups on the civic measure at post-test. The study highlights the benefits of using a developmental measure of social competence to evaluate character development programmes that are based on similar assumptions.

Fostering friendship : pair therapy for treatment and prevention

A great number of children and adolescents face a world of violence and isolation. In this book, the members of the Group for the Study of Interpersonal Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Judge Baker Childrens Center in Boston describe in detail an innovative intervention and prevention method, pair therapy, that is designed to address these issues by helping children develop healthy interpersonal relationships. Pair therapy is a relationship-oriented treatment modality that addresses the social context of the difficulties encountered in growing up in todays world. This approach has been developed not only as a therapeutic intervention in day and residential treatment centers but also as a prevention method that can be used in public schools, day care centers, and other contexts. This practical volume meets the demand for an accessible, hands-on guide to the pair method. The theoretical foundations of the approach are also presented in an accessible fashion here. The techniques described in this book model a relationship-building process between an adult professional and two children. This process replicates the social relations that happen naturally in healthy and happy interactions and long-term relationships among well-cared-for children in safe and secure communities. This book will be useful for a number of disciplines that deal with younger children and adolescents: social work, education, school and group therapy, and human development. It offers educators, therapists, and other practitioners in a wide variety of settings the opportunity to learn how to develop a pair therapy program. It will also be an indispensable tool in the libraries of mental health practitioners who counsel youth beyond ordinary clinical treatment.

A naturalistic study of children's social understanding.

This study examines developmental aspects of social understanding in three related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. Six middle-class girls, homogeneous with respect to grade (second and third vs. fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview) were assigned to each of four small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks in adult-supervi sed after-school cooperative group activities and group discussions about group functioning. Discussions from each group meeting were coded for instances of verbally expressed communicative competencies. Results suggested a relation between level of social understanding, reflectively expressed, and frequency of competent communications expressed in the course of the group discussions. Childrens strategies for task-related negotiation were also coded. The number of developmentally advanced strategies was significantly lower for the group of young children with lowlevel reflective social understanding as compared to the other three groups. Results are discussed in the context of the problems with assessing developmental levels of social understanding in natural settings. The social development of human beings is unique among species. Relatively early in development the child discovers that individuals have the capacity to conceptually coordinate social perspectives, both within the self and between the self and another. Selman and his colleagues (Cooney & Selman, 1978; Selman, 1976, 1980; Selman & Jaquette, 1978) have developed a sequence of developmental levels in the process of understanding how the psychological and social perspectives of self and other are coordinated within four domains of social understanding: self, friendship, peer relationships, and parent-child relationships. From an initially confused and syncretic understanding, there emerges at roughly 3 to The first three authors share equally in the primary authorship of this article. The research was supported by a grant from the Foundation for Child Development, and preparation of this report was facilitated by a Research Scientist Development Award (No. K07MH00156) to Robert L. Selman from the National Institute of Mental Health. The cooperation of the children, parents, teachers, and principals of two Watertown, Massachusetts, public schools is gratefully acknowledged, as are the comments

The Development of Interpersonal Understanding during Childhood, Preadolescence, and Adolescence: A Longitudinal Follow-Up Study.

GURUCHARmi, CARMEL, and SELMAN, ROBERT L. The Development of Interpersonal Understanding during Childhood, Preadolescence, and Adolescence: A Longitudinal Follow-Up Study. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 924-927. Of 48 male subjects in an initial 2-year-interval follow-up interview study of social perspective taking levels, 41 subjects were reinterviewed 3 years later with the same interview procedures. Results supported the hypothesized sequential order of developmental levels. In addition, children who advanced only one sublevel or less from time 1 to time 2 were more likely to advance 2 or more sublevels in the subsequent assessment. Followup gains for subjects who made larger initial gains were less predictable.

Bridging the gaps in child-clinical assessment: Toward the application of social-cognitive developmental theory☆

Abstract Child-clinical assessment has traditionally relied on a set of techniques that fail to specify the links between intellect, affect, and behavior, making their articulation dependent on the interpretive skill of the clinician. In this paper, we attempt to illustrate how assessment approaches derived from the study of social-cognitive development and its relation to social behavior may help to bridge these gaps in a more direct fashion. We begin by sketching a conceptual model of the development of a particular form of social behavior—namely, interpersonal negotiation strategies (INS)—and its social-cognitive underpinnings. The model has served as the theoretical foundation for both interview and rating scale assessment techniques, which evaluate INS development in thought and action, respectively. We describe these assessment techniques, present a summary of the evidence supporting their internal and external validity, and describe and illustrate the ways in which various profiles of performance on the measures may carry implications for clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Level of Social Perspective Taking and the Development of Empathy in Children: Speculations from a Social‐Cognitive Viewpoint

Abstract: A cognitive‐developmental approach to the phenomenon of empathy attempts to describe the age related (but not age specific) development of empathic understanding as a function of the development of basic social‐cognitive processes and concepts. Recent research indicates that there are developmental levels in the process by which the child comes to know how his own view of self and other relates to the view of other (social perspective‐taking) and related levels in conceptions of persons. Drawing upon our own research as well as the theory of J. M. Baldwin, G. H. Mead, and L. Kohlberg, we describe these developing processes and concepts and hypothesize as to the relation of social perspective‐taking to each level of developing forms of empathic understanding.

Academic Discussions An Analysis of Instructional Discourse and an Argument for an Integrative Assessment Framework

This article describes the structure of academic discussions during the implementation of a literacy curriculum in the upper elementary grades. The authors examine the quality of academic discussion, using existing discourse analysis frameworks designed to evaluate varying attributes of classroom discourse. To integrate the overlapping qualities of these models with researchers’ descriptions of effective discussion into a single instrument, the authors propose a matrix that (1) moves from a present/absent analytic tendency to a continuum-based model and (2) captures both social and cognitive facets of quality academic discourse. The authors conclude with a discussion of how this matrix could serve to align teachers’ and researchers’ identification of quality academic discussion and the process by which users could measure improvement in students’ discourse skills over time.