A naturalistic study of children's social understanding.

Abstract

This study examines developmental aspects of social understanding in three related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. Six middle-class girls, homogeneous with respect to grade (second and third vs. fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview) were assigned to each of four small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks in adult-supervi sed after-school cooperative group activities and group discussions about group functioning. Discussions from each group meeting were coded for instances of verbally expressed communicative competencies. Results suggested a relation between level of social understanding, reflectively expressed, and frequency of competent communications expressed in the course of the group discussions. Children's strategies for task-related negotiation were also coded. The number of developmentally advanced strategies was significantly lower for the group of young children with lowlevel reflective social understanding as compared to the other three groups. Results are discussed in the context of the problems with assessing developmental levels of social understanding in natural settings. The social development of human beings is unique among species. Relatively early in development the child discovers that individuals have the capacity to conceptually coordinate social perspectives, both within the self and between the self and another. Selman and his colleagues (Cooney & Selman, 1978; Selman, 1976, 1980; Selman & Jaquette, 1978) have developed a sequence of developmental levels in the process of understanding how the psychological and social perspectives of self and other are coordinated within four domains of social understanding: self, friendship, peer relationships, and parent-child relationships. From an initially confused and syncretic understanding, there emerges at roughly 3 to The first three authors share equally in the primary authorship of this article. The research was supported by a grant from the Foundation for Child Development, and preparation of this report was facilitated by a Research Scientist Development Award (No. K07MH00156) to Robert L. Selman from the National Institute of Mental Health. The cooperation of the children, parents, teachers, and principals of two Watertown, Massachusetts, public schools is gratefully acknowledged, as are the comments