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• 1. [Article] Affective perspective-taking and sympathy in young children

  The present study focused upon both behavioral and cognitive aspects of sympathetic responses in preschool children. Subjects, 36 boys and girls aged 33-75 months, were seen at their regular day care center. ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Affective perspective-taking and sympathy in young children Author: Leinbach, Mary Driver Year: 1981 The present study focused upon both behavioral and cognitive aspects of sympathetic responses in preschool children. Subjects, 36 boys and girls aged 33-75 months, were seen at their regular day care center. An attempt was made to promote comforting behavior through the use of a peer model both alone and accompanied by an adult's inductive statement regarding the consequences of a sympathetic response; a six year-old girl served as the sympathetic model and as an apparently injured victim in need of comforting. In addition, age- and sex-related relationships for the measures of social cognition, affective perspective-taking and knowledge of strategies for intervening when another person's plight invites sympathetic concern, were examined. The former measure employed a commonly used task presenting children with picture stories in which a target character's facial expression is not congruent with information provided by the story situation. Such stimuli have been thought to assess the ability to assume the emotional point of view of a particular person (empathic judgment), as opposed to the egocentric projection of one's own perspective onto another (projective judgment). Capacities for recognizing and explaining situationally consistent emotions (social comprehension and explanation of affect) and explaining the incongruent facial and situational cues (awareness of discrepancy) were also evaluated. The psychometric properties of these measures were a major concern; consequently, internal consistency reliability as well as age- and sex-related differences among item means, which were presumed to reflect differences in item difficulty, were examined for each component of both measures. Finally, relationships among all measures were examined. Title: Affective perspective-taking and sympathy in young children Author: Leinbach, Mary Driver Year: 1981 The present study focused upon both behavioral and cognitive aspects of sympathetic responses in preschool children. Subjects, 36 boys and girls aged 33-75 months, were seen at their regular day care center. An attempt was made to promote comforting behavior through the use of a peer model both alone and accompanied by an adult's inductive statement regarding the consequences of a sympathetic response; a six year-old girl served as the sympathetic model and as an apparently injured victim in need of comforting. In addition, age- and sex-related relationships for the measures of social cognition, affective perspective-taking and knowledge of strategies for intervening when another person's plight invites sympathetic concern, were examined. The former measure employed a commonly used task presenting children with picture stories in which a target character's facial expression is not congruent with information provided by the story situation. Such stimuli have been thought to assess the ability to assume the emotional point of view of a particular person (empathic judgment), as opposed to the egocentric projection of one's own perspective onto another (projective judgment). Capacities for recognizing and explaining situationally consistent emotions (social comprehension and explanation of affect) and explaining the incongruent facial and situational cues (awareness of discrepancy) were also evaluated. The psychometric properties of these measures were a major concern; consequently, internal consistency reliability as well as age- and sex-related differences among item means, which were presumed to reflect differences in item difficulty, were examined for each component of both measures. Finally, relationships among all measures were examined. Close

• 2. [Article] Role-taking and behavior

  The present study examined the relationship between the cognitive skill of role-or perspective-taking and naturally occurring behavior of behaviorally disordered children. Twenty-six boys, aged five years, ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Role-taking and behavior Author: Uphoff, Jane Wynne Year: 1982 The present study examined the relationship between the cognitive skill of role-or perspective-taking and naturally occurring behavior of behaviorally disordered children. Twenty-six boys, aged five years, nine months to twelve years, two months were tested and observed at their treatment facility. It was predicted that children who could take the perspective of others would prefer peer to adult interaction, would more likely give positive attention to their peers and would be more likely to use effective language than their non perspective-taking peers. These and related hypotheses were examined by observing each participant's interactive behavior for 36 minutes distributed over three different settings, lunch, freetime and organized activity on six or more different days. To determine perspective-taking skill, two perspective taking instruments were administered in a separate room at the treatment site. One measure (the Chandler role-taking task) required a child to tell a story from a series of three cartoon pictures and then retell the story from the point of view of a late arriving bystander. The other task (the Friendship interview from the Selman Measure of Interpersonal Understanding) assessed role-taking on the basis of the child's responses to questions about a filmstrip story that depicted a common dilemma between close friends. The variety and frequency of effective words was assessed by counting the effective words used by the child when responding to the first role-taking task, the cartoon stories. A vocabulary test was administered at the same time as the other cognitive measures. Before data analysis began, such methodological concerns as reliability of the observational code, reliability of the judges' scoring of the role-taking tasks and internal consistency of the measures were addressed. Cognitive measures, use of effective language and behavioral categories were then correlated with each other. The vocabulary test was used to partial general verbal skill from the relationship of role-taking and effective language. In addition to examining relationships among the measures, the children were divided into perspective-taking and non perspective-taking groups and compared on the various behavioral and language measures. Title: Role-taking and behavior Author: Uphoff, Jane Wynne Year: 1982 The present study examined the relationship between the cognitive skill of role-or perspective-taking and naturally occurring behavior of behaviorally disordered children. Twenty-six boys, aged five years, nine months to twelve years, two months were tested and observed at their treatment facility. It was predicted that children who could take the perspective of others would prefer peer to adult interaction, would more likely give positive attention to their peers and would be more likely to use effective language than their non perspective-taking peers. These and related hypotheses were examined by observing each participant's interactive behavior for 36 minutes distributed over three different settings, lunch, freetime and organized activity on six or more different days. To determine perspective-taking skill, two perspective taking instruments were administered in a separate room at the treatment site. One measure (the Chandler role-taking task) required a child to tell a story from a series of three cartoon pictures and then retell the story from the point of view of a late arriving bystander. The other task (the Friendship interview from the Selman Measure of Interpersonal Understanding) assessed role-taking on the basis of the child's responses to questions about a filmstrip story that depicted a common dilemma between close friends. The variety and frequency of effective words was assessed by counting the effective words used by the child when responding to the first role-taking task, the cartoon stories. A vocabulary test was administered at the same time as the other cognitive measures. Before data analysis began, such methodological concerns as reliability of the observational code, reliability of the judges' scoring of the role-taking tasks and internal consistency of the measures were addressed. Cognitive measures, use of effective language and behavioral categories were then correlated with each other. The vocabulary test was used to partial general verbal skill from the relationship of role-taking and effective language. In addition to examining relationships among the measures, the children were divided into perspective-taking and non perspective-taking groups and compared on the various behavioral and language measures. Close