Development of Role-Taking Ability

Understanding the development of role-taking requires exploration of children’s socialization experience rather neglected in the Piagetian research tradition. 67 seventh-graders were given Feffer’s Role-Taking Task. Measures of child’s perception of parent behavior, IQ, Marburg Education Scales and educational attainment were collected. Perceived supportiveness and severity of mother and father were found to relate to social-cognitive ability in the expected positive or negative direction. However, these relationships also vary with sex of parent and role-taking task. Role-taking ability is seen as crucial for social interaction. The school representing a most consequential social setting for children, relationships between role-taking and educational attainment were studied. While no social-class effects on role-taking were found, selection for lower or higher track in a graded school system was better predicted by role-taking ability than by IQ.