The Development of Role-Taking as Reflected by Behavior of Bright, Average, and Retarded Children in a Social Guessing Game

DEVRIES, RHETA. The Development of Role-taking as Reflected by Behavior of Bright, Average, and Retarded Children in a Social Guessing Game. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1970, 41, 759-770. 3 studies explored the performance of young bright, average, and retarded children in a binary-choice, social guessing game. Results suggested a 5-stage sequence of development from a total lack of recognition of the need for secrecy and deceptiveness in the first stage to the fifth stage in which the child was competitive and attempted to outwit the opponent by utilizing an irregular, shifting strategy. Stage changes were viewed in terms of increased role-taking ability. The development of competitive and deceptive hiding prior to competitive and deceptive guessing suggested that the child is able to take account of the other's perspective before he is able to take account of the-other's-taking-account-of the child's perspective. Psychometric ability seems to be a more crucial factor than age in the development of role taking at the lower end of the psychometric range, and chronological age seems to be a more crucial factor than psychometric ability at the average or above range.