The present research addressed three major role-taking issues: (1) its developmental nature; (2) its underlying variables; and (3) its status within social cognition. Children between 6 and 11 years were tested. Study 1 examined the development of 3 role-taking tasks. Study 2 compared role taking to nonsocial word-pair comparison to determine whether the self's involvement demanded additional skills. Using original tasks, Studies 3 and 4 related role taking and comparison to referential communication. Study 4 also examined (a) the effects on these behaviours of a direct attentional decentration manipulation and (b) their relation to integration as measured by a modified Gergen-Morse Perceived Self-Consistency Scale. Major results indicated that: most children developed role taking around age 6 and mastered it by 11; nonsocial decentration (comparison) was related to role taking, with comparison developing first; and integration related to role taking but not to comparison. Finally, comparison and role taking were necessary but insufficient for referential communication; integration was also related to communication. The implications of these findings for a theory of role taking were discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.71818 |
| Date | January 1982 |
| Creators | Skerry, Shelagh Anne. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000158224, proquestno: AAINK64464, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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