A study was made to investigate the hypothesis that the ability to determine, on a map, where one is located and in which direction one is headed, requires an understanding of the ways in which views change from different locations and orientations. Approximately 200 kindergarten through second-grade children were first tested individually for…

Argumentation courses, which emphasize the theories of argumentation, and debate courses, which teach competitive debate, can effectively teach critical thinking, training students to see situations from a variety of perspectives and then to evaluate those perspectives for their relative merit. William G. Perry maps out nine stages by which…

When handled well, description can give poetry and prose a quality of immediacy and accessibility by creating a dramatic context in which the writer's ideas and feelings can be shared by the reader. The use of perception stimulation can aid the student in producing effective images that lead to this dramatic context. To begin this learning…

In order to determine whether egocentrism can be conceptualized as a unitary construct, 100 children (51 four-year-olds, 37 five-year-olds, and 12 six-year-olds) were administered a visual/spatial perspective task, a cognitive/communicative task, and an affective task. All tasks were designed to measure different facets of egocentrism. The 50…

This paper describes a simulation experience to help people understand the feelings of the elderly through a program conducted by the Jewish Center for Aged in Chesterfield, MO. The four-hour program is divided into four sections: (1) a true-false test is given to assess participants' concepts of the aged; (2) inhibitors are applied to limit…

The effects of self-oriented and other-oriented questions on moral reasoning scores for two moral dilemmas involving stealing and school cheating were investigated. The reasoning scores of elementary school-aged children increased on other-oriented questions by the fifth grade. Females' scores showed consistent reasoning on self-oriented and…

Perspectives on the profession of guidance and counseling during the 1970's are discussed and reviewed. Major topics focus on licensure, government relations, counselor renewal, collective bargaining and counselor competence. Also included is a survey of the 1980's, focusing on testing programs and their potential future, emerging sex roles, and…

A total of 123 upper-level and graduate students in journalism completed a questionnaire on beliefs about newspaper work. Most of the students were in advanced writing and editing courses, while 32 were in magazine courses. Questions in the survey dealt with beliefs related to James Grunig's theory of information systems. Factor analysis suggested…

This paper presents the theory that altruistic motives develop out of the synthesis of empathic distress and the child's increasingly sophisticated cognitive development, especially his level of self-other differentiation. An examination of empathy and the sense of other is included, followed by a discussion of empathic distress, various forms of…

This paper describes a one-year longitudinal follow up study of the long term effects of role taking training procedures (in which children assumed a number of perspectives) on children's social and cognitive behaviors. Longitudinal and cross-sectional age effects were also analyzed. In an earlier study the effect of two types of role-taking…

Using a cross-sectional sample of 60 Caucasian adolescents, a study was designed to test the hypothesis that the observed changes in adolescent future-time perspective are due to the emergence of formal-operations reasoning. Data obtained through individual interviews provide only limited support for a cognitive hypothesis. (Author/LMO)

This study showed that both role-play and structured discussion are effective methods to use to help primary grade children develop positive justice reasoning and perspective-taking skills. (Author/RM)

Examines kindergarten, second-, and fourth-grade children's use of the presence or absence of extrinsic rewards to make inferences about the intrinsic motivation of another person. Results are discussed in terms of parameters of the attributional effects, the possible mechanism responsible for the phenomena, and significance for other…

Evaluates fourth-to seventh-grade children on two aspects of social cognition: interpersonal understanding and means-ends problem-solving ability. Relates the two variables to sex, age, IQ, social class, and multiple dimensions of competence. Both variables significantly correlated with I.Q. while interpersonal understanding also correlated with…

Identifies limitations of culturalist perspective often advocated by Latino mental health workers outlines folk healing practices they favor. Notes that culturalist perspective suffers from ahistorical/asocial/static conceptualization, and lacks analysis of class/sex/structural dimensions of so-called cultural expressions. Calls for recognition of…