Interpersonal and Objective Decentering as a Function of Age and Social Class

Sullivan, Edmund V.; Hunt, David E.

doi:10.1080/00221325.1967.10533732

Cited by 28 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Supporting this conten tion Elkind and Scott (1962) studied decentering in young children and found that the ability to decenter -perceiving different forms from ambiguous pic tures -increased with articulation of pictures, and intelligence. Others (Stuart, 1967;Sullivan and Hunt, 1967) have confirmed their results.…”

Section: Cognitive Theory Egocentrism and Decentrationsupporting

confidence: 72%

Empathy: Historic and Current Conceptualizations, Measurement, and a Cognitive Theoretical Perspective

Deutsch

Madle²

1975

Human Development

172

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A selective review of various conceptual positions within a historic framework is used to address four issues: whether an empathic response is an understanding or sharing of affect; whether an empathic response is a response to an object, another’s affect, and/or circumstance; which mechanisms explain empathy, and is self-other differentiation required by various definitions. This discussion is related to an examination of representative, predictive and situational measures. Comments are made regarding the reliability and construct validity of certain measures. The implications of this evidence for the use and the development of measures are advanced. A cognitive theoretical perspective is applied, in which variables that influence empathic learning are discussed with several applications of data, to assist in our understanding of empathy.

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Section: Cognitive Theory Egocentrism and Decentrationsupporting

confidence: 72%

Empathy: Historic and Current Conceptualizations, Measurement, and a Cognitive Theoretical Perspective

Deutsch

Madle²

1975

Human Development

172

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Confirming the results of Elkind and Scott (1962), success in decentering has been shown to correlate positively with age (Houssiadas & Brown, 1967;Stuart, 1967;Sullivan & Hunt, 1967) and intelligence level (Stuart, 1967;Sullivan & Hunt, 1967). Other positivé relation ships with decentering ability have been found with these variables: the ability to make mature moral and causal judgments (Stuart, 1967); social class (Sullivan & Hunt, 1967); categori zation ability (Weinberg, 1959(Weinberg, , 1963. Houssiadas and Brown (1967) found that the developmental sequence for centeringdecentering found in normal children also exists in mentally retarded children (mean IQ = 55j ages 8 to 1^ years).…”

Section: The Concept Of Egocentrismmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…The studies just discussed gave support to this notion. However, one bit of dissonant evidence came from a study by Sullivan and Hunt (1967). They found that scores on the RTT and a modification of Piaget's "three mountain problem" correlated only ,26 for their seven-year-old sample, .03 at the nine-year-old level, and .4-1 for subjects aged 11.…”

Section: The Concept Of Egocentrismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Egocentrism and Social Interaction in Young and Old Adults

Looft

Charles

1971

Aging and Human Development

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“…The question may be raised as to what processes in conservation are basic to advances in motivational perception. The notion of decentering may play a significant role, since it looms large in Piaget's analysis of the changes occurring in the shift from preoperational to concrete modes of thought (5, 22,23). Thus in the achievement of quantity conservation, for example, decentering may be reflected in the child's ability to integrate several perceptual dimensions (e.g., length and compactness or density to form an underlying construct).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Children's Conceptions of Psychological Causality as Related to Subjective Responsibility, Conservation, and Language

Whiteman

1976

The Journal of Genetic Psychology

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Conceptions of psychological causality refer to the child's grasp of the other's motives and intentions as causes of behavior. The problems studied were (a) age differences in grasp of psychological causality during middle childhood, (b) the exploration of possible mediating abilities of a physicallogical nature accounting for such age differences and (c) relations between cognition of psychological causality and intentionality in moral judgment. The Ss were 175 children (88 boys, 87 girls), aged 6-12. Age and measures derived from conservation and verbal conceptualization items showed independent relations (all atp < .01) to a Motivation Index derived from responses to stories representing rudimentary analogues of defense mechanisms. The Motivation Index was also related to greater use of intentionality in moral judgment (p < .01). Girls scored significantly higher on the Motivation Index (p < .05). Higher motivation scores were obtained by higher scholastic achievers (p < .01). The results were discussed both in terms of cognitive processes common to the motivational and physical-logical test content and in terms of some degree of independence between these two types of cognitive content.There has been a marked research emphasis on the child's conceptions of physical causality (e.g., 3, 11, 15,19,20). By contrast there has been a more limited focus on the child's grasp of psychological causality: i.e., his interpretation of others' motives and intentions as causes of behavior [but see (1,4, 7, 8,25, 26)].The above consideration has stimulated the exploration of several problems.1. There is first a developmental problem. A question is whether performance differences in grasp of psychological causality arise in the ages between six and 1 1. During this age interval, according to Piaget (22), the child emerges from the preoperational period, moves into the concrete operational stage, and begins the formal operational stage. Are such profound developments in the grasp of physical reality accompanied by growth in the cognition of motive?2. There is a mediational problem. Aside from the raw association between age and performance on conceptions of psychological causality, are there mediating abilities of a relatively general nature which may account for the relations? Research bearing on such a mediational function might focus on (a) whether these abilities relate to motivational perception independently of age, and (b) whether control on such abilities renders nonsignificant the relation between age and motivational perception. Two kinds of ability might be candidates for such a mediational role.The first is conservation achievement, which relates to a concrete operational mode of thought. The latter for Piaget renders possible the child's grasp of the dispositional quality of the physical world: e.g., its conserved properties of mass and quantity. Would evidence of operational thought, as reflected in conservation performance, help to account for the developing child's grasp of psychological dispositions (e.g., th...

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Interpersonal and Objective Decentering as a Function of Age and Social Class

Cited by 28 publications

References 7 publications

Empathy: Historic and Current Conceptualizations, Measurement, and a Cognitive Theoretical Perspective

Empathy: Historic and Current Conceptualizations, Measurement, and a Cognitive Theoretical Perspective

Egocentrism and Social Interaction in Young and Old Adults

Children's Conceptions of Psychological Causality as Related to Subjective Responsibility, Conservation, and Language

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