The cognitive implications of role taking behavior1,2

Abstract

Within the developmental framework of Piaget and Wemer, a number of concepts have been advanced with the goal of clarifying the nature of those cognitive processes whereby knowledge is gained and organized One such concept, decentenng activity, has stemmed primarily from Piaget's investigations of the child's cognitive structuring of the inanimate, physical world In the present study the concept of decentenng activity has been extended to an analysis of the cognitive structuring of social content as revealed in role taking activity The particular way in which this concept has been extended IS embodied m the structure and scoring criteria of a projective technique in which role taking behavior is manifested in fantasy productions This technique has been termed the Role Taking Task (RTT) The description, rationale, and initial evaluation of the RTT constitute the subject matter of the present paperThe RTT is a projective task initially based upon Schneidman's Make a Picture Story (MAPS) The test material selected from the MAPS consists of a series of background scenes picturing various locales-a livingroom, school room, street corner, etc-and a variety of figures of men, women, and children which may be placed in the scene For the purposes of this study, the materials have been altered to eliminate unusual, grotesque, and highly suggestive backgrounds and figures which might tend to limit assigned roles Sevinvestigation was supported by the Dementia Praecox Research Project, Worcester State Hospital, and a research grant (M-1284) from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service ' The investigator is indebted to a number of persons for their contributions Dr J Lane read the present paper and made many helpful suggestions The admimstration of the tests was earned out by Mrs V Grourevitch, Dr D Broverman, Mr P Havener, and Mr B D'Agosbno In addition, Mr B iyAgostino served as a judge in sconng the Role Takmg protocols Subjects were obtamed through the help of Rev T Gapp

Assessment of spatial egocentrism through expectancy violation

“…The waning of egocentrism in childhood has been viewed by Piaget (piaget & lnhelder, 1956;Piaget, 1967) and others (Feffer, 1959;Feffer & Suchotliff, 1966;Cowan, 1966) as a central cognitive and social development. In Piaget's words, "The important point is that ... the child of seven years begins to be Iiberated from his social and in tellectual egocentricity and becomes capable of new coordinations which will be of the utmost importance in the development of intelligence and affectivity [1967, p.…”

A pessoa inteligente no mundo social

“…Esta abordagem da empatia apresentada por Dymond e por Kerr-Speroff parecem coincidir aceitavelmente com a "compreensão de outros" de Thorndike, mas a versão de insight de DymondAllport, que enfatizava a compreensão de uma pessoa de si própria em relação a como os outros a percebem, cria uma outra perspectiva explícita sobre o conceito de Thorndike. O interesse em conceitos similares, particularmente na capacidade de assumir papéis aparece exemplificado na teoria e na pesquisa sobre desenvolvimento cognitivo. Apesar de Piaget (1950) ter priorizado os estudos sobre o desenvolvimento de capacidades intelectuais no ambiente não social, tanto Feffer (1959) quanto Flavell e seus colegas (1968) investigaram o curso do desenvolvimento cognitivo em termos de objetos humanos no ambiente interpessoal. Feffer e Suchotliff(1966) propuseram que o conceito de descentralização de Piaget, isto é, a mudança do foco de uma parte do campo perceptual para outra pessoa, pode ser estendido ao conceito interpessoal.…”

Affect Judgment and Field Dependence

“…Both of these operations are essentially cognitive in nature and thus consistent with the FI people's competencies. The possibility of a relation between field independence and social perspectivism has, in fact, been examined, using a task devised by Feffer (1959) to evaluate social perspectivism. In the Feffer task the subject makes up a story and is then asked to retell it, successively, from the vantage point of each character in the story.…”