My way or your way? Perspective taking during social problem solving

Abstract

The current study investigated contributors to social perspective taking during social problem solving in younger (M = 8.20, n = 111) and older (M = 12.05, n = 112) school-aged children. Results indicated a developmental progression in social perspective taking for different aspects of social problem solving. The findings suggest that social perspective taking is more difficult for some aspects of social problem solving than others. Moreover, syntactic language is important for social perspective taking during middle childhood. The results also highlight that flexibility in considering the self and other perspective is important for social problem solving.