Perspective Taking In Preschool Children: Its Origins And Development

This thesis is about perspective taking, a concept which has assumed a high profile in developmental psychology in the last two or three decades. As a topic for detailed developmental research, perspective taking dates back only to the late 1960s. However, as a developmental construct its origins go back considerably further, and most clearly to the early writings of Piaget and G. H. Mead.The key Piagetian concept is that of egocentrism. The same phenomena which Piaget described in terms of the diminution of egocentrism, Mead described in terms of emerging self-awareness through role-taking. Later, many developmental researchers began to prefer the term perspective taking, while others began to focus their research on children's 'theory of mind'.In one case study, the researcher found that the child observed (aged 2-3 years old) can use a special logic in communicating with her mother. This kind of logic is absolutely differentiated with that which was found by Piaget.In another study, the researcher found that preschool children (aged 3-6 years old) have developed the ability of perspective taking, and children's use of language is in different relationships with different kinds of perspective taking, which means that the use of language plays a role depending on different tasks.The aim of this study is to find a way to make some seemingly contradictive concepts and findings to harmonize with each other. On the last part of the thesis, the author takes a deep look at the subject-object relationship in human cognitive development, presents a triangle relationship between the first subject, the second subject and the object. According to the innate relationships of the cognitive triangle, the author gives an all-included definition of perspective taking which harmonizes with the other related concepts as role-taking, egocentrism and theory of mind. Finally, the author tries to make an answer to the question that how and why children's ability of perspective taking is .acquired and in which way it develops.