[4] The second is the research of John H. Flavell (1968),[8] which studied children's growing abilities to judge other people's conceptual and perceptual perspectives.
[4] The final source of influence comes from Selman's own previous research where he assessed children's ability to describe the different perspectives of characters in a story.
Holly is the only one amongst her friends who can climb trees well enough to save Shawn's kitten, who may fall at any moment, but she remembers the promise she made with her father.
But if he knew why she did it, he would realize that she had a good reason,” not recognizing that the father may still be angry, regardless of her wanting to save the kitten, because of his own values, such as his concern for his daughter's safety.
Holly’s father knew that Holly had been told not to climb trees, but he couldn’t have known about [the kitten].”[1] At level 4 (ages 12–15+, roughly), the adolescent now considers others’ perspectives with reference to the social environment and culture the other person comes from, assuming that the other person will believe and act in accord to their society's norms and values.
[1] Three studies have been conducted to assess Selman's theory, all of which having shown support for his developmental outline of role-taking ability progression.
Results implied a stage progression of role taking ability as a function of age, as theorized by Selman.
[4] Children were required to discuss the perspectives of different characters in each dilemma, and results again showed that role taking ability progressed through stages as a function of age.
[1] In addition, Piaget argued that good solutions to interpersonal conflicts involve compromise which arises out of our ability to consider the points of view of others.
The first is empirical evidence that children's ability to role take is correlated to their IQ and performance on Piagetian tests.
Selman has argued this same point, also noting that the growth of role-taking ability is brought on by the child's decreased egocentrism as he/she ages.
[3] He found that the development of role taking, within this age range, related to the progression into Kohlberg's conventional moral stage.
A retest a year later confirmed Kohlberg's argument, and in general, it was shown that higher moral development at the conventional stage requires children's achieved ability at this age to reciprocally deal with their own and others’ perspectives.
[3] Mason and Gibbs (1993) found that moral judgment development, as measured by Kohlberg's theory, consistently related to role taking opportunities experienced after childhood in adolescence and adulthood.
[13] This finding supported Kohlberg's view that moral progress beyond his third stage necessitates contact with other perspectives, namely those of entire cultures or political groups, which individuals are likely to encounter as they become adolescents and adults and thus meet many different people in school and the workplace.
[15] Similarly, Paolitto's attempts to stimulate moral development worked only for subjects who already attained the corresponding role taking stage.
[14] Further support came from the study's demonstration that a short role playing treatment stimulated progress in moral reasoning in a 6-week follow-up retest.
[19] Based on these results, researchers have suggested that moral education programs underlain by Kohlberg's theory must first ensure that the prerequisite cognitive and role taking abilities have developed.
Underwood and Moore (1982), for instance, have found that perceptual, affective, and cognitive perspective-taking are positively correlated with prosocial behaviour.
[1][23] Overall, the picture is clear: prosocial behaviour is related to role taking ability development and social deviance is linked to egocentrism.
[2] Finally, many theorists, including Mead, Piaget, Asch, Heider, Deutsch, Madsen, and Kohlberg have theorized a relationship between cooperation and role taking ability.
[2] In one study, children's predisposition to cooperate was shown to strongly correlate with their affective role taking ability.
For instance, researchers found that children poor in role-taking ability had greater difficulty in forming and sustaining social relationships, as well as receiving lower peer nominations.
[32] Many other researchers have also found that role taking ability development positively affects interpersonal problem solving skills.
[1] Moreover, the use of role reversal in interpersonal problem situations has been found to stimulate cooperation, help participants better understand each other and each other's arguments and position, elicit new interpretations of the situation, change attitudes about the problem, and improve perceptions about the other person's efforts at solving the issue, willingness to compromise and cooperate, and trustworthiness.
[41] Given these results, it has been suggested that children with ADHD be trained on role taking to improve their social skills, including their often comorbid oppositional and conduct problems.
[24] In turn, one-third of the delinquent boys in this study were assigned to a treatment program designed to improve role taking skills.
[45][46][47] Several researchers have argued that the deficits in the social lives, communication ability, and imagination of autistic children are a result of their deficiencies in role taking.
[51] In particular, the autistic children in the study could not focus concurrently on different cognitions required for successful role taking and proficient social interaction.