Decentering and Social Interaction

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Abstract
The present study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that children who interact effectively with their peers are better able to decenter (i.e., take the point of view of another) in interpersonal areas than children who do not interact effectively with their peers. Forty-eight children participated in the study involving a 2 (grade level—third and sixth) × 2 (sex) × 2 (effective and ineffective social interaction based upon popular and unpopular sociometric ratings, respectively) factorial design. Feffer's Role Taking Task and Piaget's mountain task were used as measures of decentering in interpersonal and impersonal areas, respectively. Sixth graders performed significantly better than third graders on the Role Taking Task, and third graders rated as poor social interactors scored significantly lower on the Role Taking Task than the other groups. There were no significant differences among groups on the Piagetian mountain task, and no sex differences on either task. Correlations between scores on the two tasks revealed a significant positive relationship for the unpopular third graders only.

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