Developmental Changes in the Contribution of Shared Experience to Social Role-Taking Competence

The contribution of shared experience to the social role-taking competence of 120 preschool, second- and fifth-grade children was evaluated under experimental conditions which did or did not provide subjects the opportunity to previously occupy the perspective of those whose points of view they were later required to assume. It was demonstrated that the youngest subjects regularly failed in their role-taking efforts with or without such backgrounds of shared experience, that the 11-year-olds succeeded in either case, and that the success of the 7-year-olds was a direct function of whether or not they shared common background experiences with those whose roles they attempted to assume. These results indicate that social role-taking competence in early and middle childhood is a joint function of both cognitive ability level and the actual degree of overlap which exists between the experiences of subjects and their role-taking partners.