Role-taking Tasks Research Articles

A cross-cultural study: Empathy and role-taking in Brazilian and American children

Previous studies have showed development in perspective-taking abilities and empathy along childhood, and suggested the existence of relationships between these variables and aspects of culture. The study presented here investigated the relationship between empathy and role-taking in a sample composed by American and Brazilian children 6-13- year-olds. The method involved the administration of the Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescent – IECA (Bryant, 1982) and one Role-taking task. Results showed that American children scored higher in Role-taking than Brazilian participants. On the other hand, Brazilian children scored higher in empathy than American participants. Results are discussed considering previous cross-cultural studies on social and cognitive development.

Referential communication abilities in children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Purpose: This study describes the performance on a perspective- and role-taking task in 27 children, ages 6–13 years, with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). A cross-cultural design comparing Dutch- and English-speaking children with 22q11.2DS explored the possibility of cultural differences.Method: Chronologically age-matched and younger typically developing (TD) children matched for receptive vocabulary served as control groups to identify challenges in referential communication.Results: The utterances of children with 22q11.2DS were characterised as short and simple in lexical and grammatical terms. However, from a language use perspective, their utterances were verbose, ambiguous and irrelevant given the pictured scenes. They tended to elaborate on visual details and conveyed off-topic, extraneous information when participating in a barrier-game procedure. Both types of aberrant utterances forced a listener to consistently infer the intended message. Moreover, children with 22q11.2DS demonstrated difficulty selecting correct speech acts in accordance with contextual cues during a role-taking task.Conclusion: Both English- and Dutch-speaking children with 22q11.2DS showed impoverished information transfer and an increased number of elaborations, suggesting a cross-cultural syndrome-specific feature.

Intensive exposure to narrative in story books as a possibly effective treatment of social perspective-taking in schoolchildren with autism

One of the major characteristics of autism is impairment of communication and socialization. While such impairment per se has been well documented, research into effective interventions for children with this developmental disorder is still limited. Here we present preliminary evidence for the possibility of improvement of the capability of social perspective-taking in schoolchildren with autism by having intensive experience with narrative, in which they were exposed to narrative in story books read by their parents over a consecutive 5- to 6-day-period. When their capability was evaluated on the basis of a conventional role-taking task, the mean score tended to increase after the exposure as compared to before the exposure, whereas such a change was not recorded in children who did not experience such exposure. These effects were confirmed when the children were retested 4 months later. Although preliminary, the current study represents a step toward the development of more effective social perspective-taking interventions for children with autism.

Narrative Role-Taking in Autism

Are children with autism able to adopt, and shift among, the psychological perspectives of different people? Fifteen children with autism and 15 without autism, matched for chronological age and verbal ability, were given Feffer's (1970) role-taking task in which they were asked to tell and then re-tell stories from different protagonists' perspectives. The children with autism understood the task, adjusted narratives according to alternative viewpoints, and were similar to control participants in their use of mental state terms. Despite this, the children with autism achieved significantly lower scores for adopting different figures' perspectives, and for shifting among complementary viewpoints. The results illustrate aspects of social-cognitive impairment that extend beyond the children's limitations in 'theory of mind' understanding.

Perspective-taking deficits in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a prospective investigation

This study examined data from a Danish prospective longitudinal project in attempt to address the state/trait controversy regarding theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia. Deficits in perspective-taking--a component of theory of mind--were investigated prospectively among children who developed schizophrenia spectrum disorders as adults in comparison to children who did not develop schizophrenia spectrum disorders. A total of 265 high risk and control subjects were studied in 1972. At the time of initial assessment, the Role-Taking Task (RTT) was administered. Two hundred and forty-two of these children were evaluated in 1992 during follow-up examinations. Sixteen developed schizophrenia, 10 developed a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, 70 had outcomes of other psychopathology, and 146 did not develop a mental illness. Children who later developed schizophrenia or a schizophrenia spectrum disorder had lower RTT scores, controlling for verbal IQ and age, compared to those who did not develop any mental illness. Although in the expected direction, RTT scores for those with schizophrenia spectrum disorders were not significantly different from those who developed a non-psychotic disorder. Deficits in perspective-taking among children who later developed schizophrenia spectrum disorders suggest that a facet of theory of mind is impaired prior to development of schizophrenia. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis that theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia are trait markers of the disorder.

Social-cognitive abilities in children with lesser variants of autism: skill deficits or failure to apply skills?

The present study re-examined the ability of children with lesser variants of autism (classified as PDD-NOS) to infer emotions of other people and to describe others in terms of inner, psychological characteristics. It also explores the hypothesis that these children may have the skill to infer mental states of other people, but fail to use these skills spontaneously. Children with lesser variants of autism and normal control children matched for age, sex and intelligence were given three structured emotional role-taking tasks and asked to give two spontaneous descriptions of peers. The results showed that both groups did not differ with respect to their ability to infer other people's emotions in the structured role-taking tasks. In contrast, significant differences were found on the free person descriptions: the children with PDD-NOS used fewer inner, psychological characteristics to describe peers.

Emotional Role‐Taking Abilities of Children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified

Seven to 12-year-old children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) were compared with normal, healthy children of the same age and sex on three different emotional role-taking tasks. In these tasks, children had to use person-specific information to make an inference about another child's emotional reaction and behaviour, Significant differences were found between the PDDNOS group and control group: PDDNOS children performed worse on all three role-taking tasks. However, the differences on one of these tasks could be completely explained by intelligence differences between the two groups. On the other tasks, differences could not or be partially explained by intelligence differences. The results of this study led to the formulation of a more specific hypothesis, namely that PDDNOS children might have problems interpreting social information when affectively charged background information has to be used.

Role-Taking Ability and Social Behavior in Deaf School Children

This study assessed the relationship between role-taking skill and social-emotional adjustment in deaf children. Twenty-three prelingually deafened boys and girls between 7 and 14 years of age were administered a role-taking task, surreptitious behavioral measures of helping and altruism, and a measure of nonverbal intelligence. In addition, two professionals experienced in working with deaf children rated the social and emotional adjustment, language/communication skills and role-taking ability of the participants. Performance on the role-taking task correlated positively with ratings of emotional adjustment, self-image, communicative effectiveness and role-taking skill. Role-taking performance, however, was not reliably related to any of the measures of social behavior. The study also considered several factors which may account for the apparent independence of role-taking and social behavior.

Role taking and social competence in autism and mental retardation.

Recent data suggest that individuals with autism show deficits in social cognitive abilities when compared with nonautistic persons matched for mental age. These deficits have been proposed as a basis for the social interaction difficulties seen in autistic persons. In the present study, autistic youth were compared with a matched group of nonautistic mentally retarded youth on three role-taking tasks and three measures of social competence. Results indicated that the autistic group was relatively deficient on each of the social competence measures and on one of the role-taking measures. The role-taking measure on which the groups differed also correlated significantly with each of the social competence measures. Results were discussed in terms of the interplay between social cognitive abilities and social interaction.

Interrelations of empathy, cognition, and moral reasoning with dimensions of juvenile delinquency.

The interrelations of a variety of indices of sociocognitive development (empathy, role-taking, logical cognition, and moral reasoning) were studied in delinquent and nondelinquent adolescents. Delinquent males (grouped into psychopathic, neurotic, and subcultural subgroups) and a matched nondelinquent comparison group were administered individually two empathy scales (the Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Mehrabian and Epstein Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy), an adaptation of Byrne's and Flavell's role-taking tasks, two Piagetian cognitive tasks, and two of Kohlberg's structured moral dilemmas. Delinquents as a group displayed significantly more immature modes of role-taking, logical cognition, and moral reasoning than did nondelinquents. The delinquent subgroups, however, did not significantly differ from one another on these dimensions. Role-taking, logical cognition, and moral reasoning were significantly related to one another. Anticipated differences in level of empathy between the delinquent and nondelinquent adolescents failed to occur. A number of interpretations for this unexpected finding are offered.

The Relationships Between Ethnic Attitude and Egocentrism Measures

Abstract Important methodological problems exist in the measurement of children's ethnic attitudes. Specifically, little information has been generated regarding both the convergent and discriminant validity of the ethnic attitude measures used in this area of research. The present study explores these aspects of validity by examining: (a) the relationships among three measures of ethnic attitude (the Doll Choice, the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure II, and the Katz-Zalk Projective Prejudice Test), and (b) the relationships between these measures and two measures of a second construct, egocentrism (the Role-Taking Task and the Perspective-Taking Task). Results indicated that only one of the three ethnic attitude measures revealed a pattern of correlations suggestive of both convergent and discriminant validity. The findings are interpreted as indicating the possibility that various ethnic attitude measures may be tapping different aspects of the same construct. In addition, the possibility is raised tha...

The Measurement of Role Taking in Young Adults

Sociometry is presented as an alternative way of measuring role taking, specifically, an alternative to an often used projective measure, the Role-Taking Task (RTT). Study 1 assesses role taking in 161 college students. In this study, a sociometric measure, the Peer Role-Taking Questionnaire (PRTQ) was shown to correlate with class year, group status, social choice, and friendship. In contrast, the RTT correlated weakly with grade point average and some personality test measures. In Study 2, the PRTQ, and not the RIT, was associated with interaction skills in a sample of 39 college nursing students. The PRTQ and RTT did not correlate with each other in either study. The validity and reliability of these two role-taking measures are discussed. It is suggested that researchers need to examine the adequacy of the role-taking measures they use.

Early childhood autism and the question of egocentrism.

An individual's social competence is often considered in terms of his role-taking abilities. In the light of studies by Piaget, it has been supposed that a child's developing capacity to appreciate the viewpoints of others in a social context is reflected in his ability to recognize points of view in a visuospatial setting. If this is valid, then visuospatial role-taking tasks may afford a measure of some relatively "cognitive" component of the capacity to engage in social behavior. Tasks in which subjects were required to make judgments about different and yet related views of a three-dimensional scene or object, together with tests of operational thinking, were presented to normal children and to subjects with the diagnosis of infantile autism. The results indicate that autistic children are not more impaired in their recognition of visuospatial perspectives than are normal children of comparable intellectual level in tests of operational thinking. A further, more limited study yielded suggestive evidence that over this series of tasks, autistic children perform as well as subjects with Down's syndrome who have a similar verbal mental age. These findings render it improbable that autistic children are especially "egocentric" in their appreciation of visuospatial perspectives.

Variables in Social Cognitive Development: Moral Judgment, Role-taking, Cognitive Processes, and Self-concept in Delinquents and Nondelinquents

The purpose of the present project was to replicate past research showing delinquents lagging behind nondelinquents on moral judgment, role-taking, and logical cognitive tasks, and to provide instructions on moral judgment and role-taking tasks to stimulate delinquents' performance. The instructions were intended to investigate whether delinquents' inferior social cognitive performances may be due to a structural deficit, or whether they do not evoke skills they possess or not utilize skills they have the capacity to possess. Finally, since self-concept could play a role in monitoring cognitive activity, a self-concept as a learner questionnaire was administered to assess any differences between groups. Delinquents displayed poorer performances than nondelinquents on moral reasoning and logical cognitive abilities, but not on role-taking. Instructions to enhance moral reasoning improved all participants' scores. However, the overall inferior performance by delinquents on moral reasoning appeared to be due to structural deficit. Delinquents' self-concept as a learner scores were similar to nondelinquents despite their lower performance on other measures, suggesting they may not be as aware of their cognitive capabilities.

Role-Taking, Empathy, and Resistance to Deviation in Children

Summary Eighty-one third graders who previously had been tested with two role-taking tasks and an empathy questionnaire were administered a standard resistance-to-temptation task after exposure to one of four prohibitions: simple; explicit person-oriented; inexplicit person-oriented; and object-oriented. The explicit person-oriented and simple prohibitions were more effective at reducing deviation than was the object-oriented rationale. Role-taking skills influenced susceptibility to inexplicit person-oriented rationales. Regardless of rationale condition, children who scored high on empathy (p < .05) and role-taking (p <. 10) tended to deviate less than the other children. The data are compared with prior research, and implications for the study of moral development are reviewed.

A Comparison of Spatial Role-Taking in Monolingual and Bilingual Children

Abstract Twenty bilingual first-grade children (10 Vietnamese-English) and 10 Spanish-English) were compared with 20 monolingual children on the WISC-R Block Design and on spatial role-taking tasks of increasing complexity. It was hypothesized that the cognitive flexibility of bilinguals would lead to significantly higher scores than the control groups on both types of tasks. A 2 × 2 analysis of variance on the WISC-R Block Design yielded main effects (ps < .05) for bilingualism and for culture; no significant interaction was found. For all spatial role-taking tasks no significant main effects were found. Significant interactions were found for the two most complex spatial role-taking tasks (p < .05).

役割取得能力の発達に影響する社会的経験の検討

The relationship between two types of role-taking ability and social experiences in children was investigated in terms of two types of role-taking opportunities. Subjects were interviewed for two role-taking tasks (Flavell, Selman) and were given questionnaires on strategies which mothers use in controlling their children when they deviate and on contact with peers. The results were as follows: (a) In accordance with the hypothesis, the control strategy for the children to feel for others was positively correlated with the Selman-task, and the degree of contact with peers with the Flavell-task for kindergartners; (b) for second graders the relationships among the above variables were partially verified; and (c) for fourth graders the influence of social experiences on the role-taking abilities was not verified.

Role-taking ability of paranoids.

Relative to nonparanoid psychotics, 10 paranoids displayed a deficit in the ability to take roles on a role-taking task. Results are attributed to 10 paranoids' deficient coordination of decentering in social perception.

Moral and cognitive development in delinquent and nondelinquent children and adolescents.

Moral and cognitive development of delinquents and nondelinquents were investigated--96 boys and girls at three ages: 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15-16 years. Moral judgment was assessed via the Defining Issues Test, and moral conduct by a resistance to temptation task. General cognitive development was explored with Piagetian-like tasks: two concrete operational tasks, two formal tasks, and a role-taking task. With the exception of role-taking, the delinquents were found generally to lag behind nondelinquents in terms of moral and cognitive development. With increasing age, disparate performances between the two groups were consistently shown, with delinquents always lower than nondelinquents. The delinquents were also less likely to resist temptation than the nondelinquents, though no age differences were noted.

Role-Taking Deficits in Learning Disabled Children

This study compared the cognitive, affective, and perceptual role-taking skills of 38 learning disabled children ranging in age from 5 to 8 years with those of a control group of normal children within the same age range. The results demonstrated a role-taking deficit in the learning disabled children who scored significantly lower on the tasks than their normal peers. The normal children reached almost perfect performance by the age of eight, while the 8-year-old learning disabled children scored with only 82% accuracy. Twenty additional learning disabled children ranging in age from 9 to 11 years were tested to determine whether they would exhibit improved performance with age. It was found that the 10-year-old learning disabled children performed no better on the role-taking tasks than those who were tested at 8 years old.