The Journal of Psychology
ISSN: 0022-3980 (Print) 1940-1019 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjrl20
Social Decentering and Locus of Control in Children Robert E. Deysach , Harold R. Keller , A. William Ross & Thomas G. Hiers To cite this article: Robert E. Deysach , Harold R. Keller , A. William Ross & Thomas G. Hiers (1975) Social Decentering and Locus of Control in Children, The Journal of Psychology, 90:2, 229-235, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.1975.9915780 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1975.9915780
Published online: 02 Jul 2010.
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Citing articles: 6 View citing articles
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Date: 06 November 2015, At: 09:08
Published as a separate and in The Journal of Psychology, 1975, 90, 229-235.
SOCIAL DECENTERING AND LOCUS OF CONTROL I N CHILDWN*
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
University of South Carolina and South Carolina Department of Mental Health
ROBERTE. DEYSACH,' HAROLD R. JSELLER, A. WILLIAMRoss, AND THOMAS G. HIERS SUMMARY
Relationships between social decentering, personality variables, and social competence were investigated for children attending a seven-week therapeutic summer camp. Ss were 23 males and females ranging in age from 10 to 13 years who had been referred to the camp because they lacked age-appropriate social skills. Feffer's Role Taking Task was used to measure social decentering, and counselor ratings of camper adjustment were measures of social competence. Predicted positive relationships between decentering and competence were found. Striking sex differences were found, however, when comparisons were made between social decentering and two personality variables-the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale and the Kiddie Mach. Predicted negative correlations were found between Role Taking Task scores and externality and machiavellianism for females, but not for males. Implications concerning age by sex interactions in the study of personality correlates of social decentering were discussed.
A. INTRODUCTION Decentering, according to Piaget and Inhelder (19), is the process by which an individual shifts his attention to include other than the perceptually most dominant aspects of an object or situation. The construct has been used to account for a wide range of perceptual, cognitive, and social activities. As decentering has been used to account for broader ranges of behavior (12), attempts have been made to interrelate various methods of measurement of the construct (2 1). The resdt has been to delineate further the definition of the construct sought by Piaget (18). --._._ f
* Received in the Editorial Office on A p d 16, 1975, h d published immediately at Provincetown, Massachusetts. Copyright by The Journal Press. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support, in terms of facilities and children, of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. Re uests for reprints should be directed to the first author at the address shown at the end of %is arhcle. 229
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Within a social context, decentering has been defined as the ability of an individual to accommodate the point of view of others as well as his own perspective. The concept of decentering in relation to social interaction has received most empirical study by Feffer and his associates. Operating within a developmental framework, Feffer (6) has studied role taking behavior in children as measured by their ability to narrate individual stories from the perspective of several of the characters. Performance on the Role Taking Task (RTT) has been related to scores on a number of other tasks-. g., WISC vocabulary (8),communication problems (lo), sociometric ratings ( 2 ) , and social effectiveness ( l l b w i t h a wide range of subject-age populations: elementary school age children ( 2 , 8), college students (lo), normal adults (9), retarded (7), and emotionally disturbed (1, 11) children. In addition, performance on the RTT has been found to parallel performance on Piagetian perceptual and cognitive tasks (8). Further validational support of the relationship between similar perceptual and social responses can be found outside the developmental literature (e. g., 13). A recent study (5) has attempted to explore the interrelationships between perceptual decentering and several personality variables. Included among the latter was Rotter’s (20) Locus of Control (IE) Scale, which was found to relate significantly to perceptual decentering. As predicted by the authors, adolescent male Ss who were able to adopt the perspective of another were more likely to report a belief in an individual’s ability to control his own circumstances, while Ss whose perceptual field was limited to their own private frame of reference were likely to adopt a passive orientation to the events of their environment. While previous studies have not attempted to relate role taking measures of decentering (6) and locus of control, it has been assumed that parallel relationships should exist at both the perceptual and social levels of measurement and, further, that the relationships should be identifiable early in the development of the individual. By exploring the relationships between RT T and I E scale performance, the present study has attempted further to anchor the concept of decentering in other articulated theories of personality. B.
METHOD
1. Subjects Twenty-three children, 15 boys and eight girls, ranging in age from 10 to 13 years and participating in a seven-week summer camp, served as Ss.
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
R. E. DEYSACH, H. R. KELLER, A.
w.
ROSS, AND T. G. HERS
231
Approximately two thirds of the children were white, and the remaining one third were black. All children, along with their counselors, resided at the camp throughout the camping period. All Ss had been referred by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health and had been identified as lacking age-appropriate social skills. Because social skill development was an area of central importance for these children, they were selected for the present study. Aggressiveness, withdrawal, immaturity, as well as attendant special symptoms, were included among the complaints presented by the children. While some campers had previous psychiatric hospitalizations, children labeled psychotic or mentally retarded had been typically excluded from the camp program. Although the camp was rather flexible in terms of daily schedule and activities, intensive socialization training was a consistent feature of the therapeutic program. The progress of all campers was monitored throughout the camp period, and individualized judgments of social competence were provided for all campers by their counselors at the end of camp and were analyzed, together with the decentering and personality variables available at the end of camp. 2 . Instruments For purposes of the present study, both personality measures taken at the end of camp, together with decentering scores and end-of-camp ratings of social competence, were used in the subsequent analysis. a. Decentwing task. The decentering task selected was Feffer’s (6) Role Taking Task (RTT), employing four cards from the Children’s Apperception Test, Human Figures (CAT). The four cards, each depicting three human characters, were #2, #4, #5, and #6. The order of presentation paralleled procedures used previously (2, 22). All stories were taperecorded for later transcription. Each card was presented initially with standard CAT instructions. Mter the initial story was completed, each card was presented an additional three times in succession. Each time the child was asked to retell the original story from the viewpoint of his characters. Two characters selected were those who had been given a role-reciprocal relationship (e. g., givingtaking, dominant-submissive)or who had been given socially defined roles and reciprocals (e. g., father-son, boy-girl). Beginning with the character developed last in the initial story, the child attempted to “make believe that 9, you are the and tell the story again as if you are the This request was repeated in turn for the second member of the pair and finally for the third figure in the picture.
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Each story on the RTT was scored according to Schnall and Feffer’s (22) manual. A detailed explanation of scoring procedures can be found elsewhere (11). In general, the child’s score was a measure of the extent to which S changed his or her characterization of each actor as a function of changes in the actor through whose mouth he or she was speaking and made these changes in a consistent and balanced manner. Two independent raters scored a random sample of stories, and an interrater reliability coefficient of .86 was obtained. 6. Locus of control. The Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (16) was used to measure an individual’s belief in the extent to which his or her environment is in general under personal control. The scale was selected because it was believed to provide a reliable and valid measure of the dimensions of locus of control as defined by Rotter (20). The 20-item scale, derived from a somewhat larger measure, was constructed specifically for use with children in grades one through six. The questions were administered to each S orally, and the child privately checked “yes” or “no” to the items, which covered a variety of interpersonal areas. Testretest reliability for the present sample before and after camp (r = .76) paralleled those found by Nowicki and Strickland (16) within unselected grade school populations. c. Machiavellianism. In an effort to extend study of the relationship between decentering and personality correlates, a scale designed to measure “machiavellianism” in children was included. The Kiddie Mach (14) was used to measure manipulativeness in interpersonal relationships. The Kiddie Mach was described by Christie (4) as providing a useful measure of machiavellianism as he defined it. The 20-item scale was administered to each S orally, and the child privately circled “yes” or “no” for each item. Originally designed for sixth-grade students, the scale was found to yield a test-retest reliability of r = .SO over six weeks for the present sample, approximating the reliabilities found elsewhere in the literature (3). C. RESULTS Pearson product-moment correlations were run interrelating the three levels of variables-social decentering, personality scale scores, and judgments of social competence--for both male and female Ss. It was predicted that social decentering ability as measured by the Role Taking Task (RTT) would correlate positively with social competence as judged independently by camp counselors. In general, predicted relationships did occur, appearing somewhat stronger for males (r = .62, p < .05) than females (r = .40,ns).
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
R. E. DEYSACH, H. R. KELLER, A.
w.
ROSS, AND T. G. HIERS
233
Inspection of the correlations separately for male Ss shows that relationships between I-E and Kiddie Mach scale scores (r = -.05) and between these scale scores and social decentering (r = -.02 and -.01, respectively) were low and statistically insignificant. In addition, neither the I-E nor Kiddie Mach (r = -.11 and -.06, respectively) was found to correlate significantly with social competence. For female Ss, the findings were strikingly different. The two personality variables appeared strongly related to each other (r = .85, p < .01) such that females who scored high in external locus of control were likely to score high on the Kiddie Mach. At the same time, RTT scores were found to be negatively correlated with externality (r = -.69, p C .05) and machiavellianism (r = -.41, ns). Similar relationships were found between social competence and external locus of control (r = -.75, p < .05) and Kiddie Mach scores (r = -.65, .05 C p < .lo).
D. DISCUSSION Two striking sets of findings appear to emerge from the present study when considered within the context of previous research on decentering. The first concerns the apparent viability of the construct. It appears that decentering, whether measured through tasks of perceptual or social nature, is valuable in predicting a variety of events in markedly differing contexts across a wide age range. That is, being able to assume someone else’s perspective, attitudes, or mood was empirically linked to a variety of personality traits and social responses at a number of levels in the developmental sequence. Long a cornerstone of cognitive developmental psychology (17), the construct of decentering may assume a central position in the convergence of several theoretical frames of reference. While the continuity found here with past literature involving decentering remains noteworthy, the sex differences observed in the present study were unexpected. In general, research on decentering has tended to minimize sex differences (2, 12), and, when reported, differences appear small (2). Even within the present study, where sex differences were generally marked, similarities in performance between males and females were found when the relationship between decentering and social competence was focused upon. Sex differences that did emerge appeared to implicate the two personality variables most directly. Both the NowickiStrickland Locus of Control Scale and the Kiddie Mach are downward extensions of extensively studied adult scales. While relationships to their parent scales have been demonstrated with some success (4, 16), age by sex
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interactions have also been found to occur (e. g., 15). The sex differences noted for children in the present study highlight the necessity for continued attention to such differences in further study of personality correlates of social functioning. While females did perform as predicted, explanations for these findings must remain highly speculative. With the literature on the use of the locus of control and machiavellian scales for children being limited, hypotheses must be extrapolated in large part from work with adults. With adults, the positive relationship between external locus of control and machiavellianism has been explained as indicating that “manipulation of others may result not from a feeling of power but from a feeling of powerlessness and dependency” (23, p. 1080). Christie (3) alternatively suggested a link between externality and the “disbelief in people” as measured within the machiavellianism scales rather than the “tactic or duplicity” aspects of the latter. The present study su’ggests that, for females, individual differences in reports of powerlessness and manipulation or trust in people may occur together with egocentrism, or the inability to shift perspectives to accom.modate another’s point of view. In addition, evidence was provided that these cognitive orientations might be translated behaviorally by adults as a lack of social competence. It is suggested that for females perceived social success may be more intimately related to interpersonal skill development than is the case for males, for whom there may be increased tolerance as a function of their gender role.
REFERENCES 1.
2.
3. 4. 5. 6.
CHANDLER, M. J., GREENSPAN,S., & BARENBOIM, C. Assessment and training of role-taking and referential communication skills in institutionalized emotionally disturbed children. Devel. Psychol., 1974, 10, 546-553. CHAPLIN,M. V., & KELLER,H. R. Decentering and social interaction. J . Genet. Psychol., 1974, 124, 269-275. CHRISTIE,R. Relationships between machiavellianism and measures of ability, opinion, and personality. In R. Christie & F. Geis (Eds.), Studies in MachiaveUianism. New York Academic Press, 1970. Pp. 35-52. . Social correlates of machiavellianism. In R. Christie & F. Geis (Eds.),Studies in Machiavellianism. New York Academic Press, 1970. Pp. 314-338. COHEN,A., & FARLEY,F. An exploratory study of individual differences in perceptual centering and decentering. J . of Psychol., 1973, 84, 133-136. FEFFER,M. The cognitive implications of role taking behavior. J . Personal., 1959, 27, 152-168.
R. E. DEYSACH, H. R. KELLER, A. 7. 8. 9.
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10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
23.
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235
. Role taking behavior in the mentally retarded. Unpublished manuscript, Progress Report (Office of Education Grant 422-029), Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, 1969. FEFFER,M., & GOUREVITCH, V. Cognitive aspects of role-taking in children. J . Personal., 1960, 28, 383-396. FEFFER, M., & JAHELKA, M. Implications of the decentering concept for the structuring of projective content. J. Consult. 6. Clin. Psychol., 1968, 32, 434-441. FEFFER,M., & SUCHOTLIFF,L. Decentering implications of social interaction. J. Personal. 6. SOC.Psychol., 1966, 4, 415-423. KELLER, H. R., DEYSACH,R. E., HIERS, T. G., Ross, A. W., & MOORE., L. L. Interrelationships among decentering and behavioral ratings in a therapeuhc camp setting. J . Genet. Psychol., 1976, in press. LOOFT,W. R. Egocentrism and social interaction across the life span. Psychol. Bull., 1972, 78, 73-92. MARTIN,P., & TOOMEY, T. Perceptual orientation and empathy. J . Consult. 6.Clin. Psychol., 1973, 41, 313. NACHAMIE, S. Machiavellianism in children: The children’s Mach scale and the bluffing game. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York, New York, 1969. NOWICKI, S., & ROUNDTREE,J. Correlates in locus of control in a secondaly school population. Devel. Psychol., 1971, 4, 477-478. NOWICKI, S., & STRICKLAND, B. A locus of control scale for children. J . Consult. 6. Cljn. Psychol., 1973, 40, 148-154. PIAGET,J. The Construction of Reality in the Child. New York Basic Books, 1954. . Comments on Vygotsky’s critical remarks concerning The Lunguage and Thought of the Child and Judgment and Reasoning in the Child. Attachment to L. S. Vygotsky, Thought and Language. Cambridge, Mass.: M. I. T. Press, 1962. PIAGET,J., & INHELDER, B. The Child’s Conception of Space. New York Norton, 1956. ROTTER,J. B. Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychol. Monog., 1966, 80 (l),Whole No. 609. RUBIN, K. H. Egocentrism in childhood A unitary construct? Child Devel., 1973, 44, 102-110. SCHNALL,M., & FEFFER, M. Role-taking task scoring criteria. Unpublished manuscript, Document No. 5844, Microfiche Publications, New York, New York, 1958. SOLAR, D., 81 BRUEHL,D. Machiavellianism and locus of control: Two conceptions of interpersonal power. Psychol. Rep., 1971, 29, 1079-1082.
Department of Psychology University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208
ISSN: 0022-3980 (Print) 1940-1019 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjrl20
Social Decentering and Locus of Control in Children Robert E. Deysach , Harold R. Keller , A. William Ross & Thomas G. Hiers To cite this article: Robert E. Deysach , Harold R. Keller , A. William Ross & Thomas G. Hiers (1975) Social Decentering and Locus of Control in Children, The Journal of Psychology, 90:2, 229-235, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.1975.9915780 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1975.9915780
Published online: 02 Jul 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 6
View related articles
Citing articles: 6 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjrl20 Download by: [York University Libraries]
Date: 06 November 2015, At: 09:08
Published as a separate and in The Journal of Psychology, 1975, 90, 229-235.
SOCIAL DECENTERING AND LOCUS OF CONTROL I N CHILDWN*
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
University of South Carolina and South Carolina Department of Mental Health
ROBERTE. DEYSACH,' HAROLD R. JSELLER, A. WILLIAMRoss, AND THOMAS G. HIERS SUMMARY
Relationships between social decentering, personality variables, and social competence were investigated for children attending a seven-week therapeutic summer camp. Ss were 23 males and females ranging in age from 10 to 13 years who had been referred to the camp because they lacked age-appropriate social skills. Feffer's Role Taking Task was used to measure social decentering, and counselor ratings of camper adjustment were measures of social competence. Predicted positive relationships between decentering and competence were found. Striking sex differences were found, however, when comparisons were made between social decentering and two personality variables-the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale and the Kiddie Mach. Predicted negative correlations were found between Role Taking Task scores and externality and machiavellianism for females, but not for males. Implications concerning age by sex interactions in the study of personality correlates of social decentering were discussed.
A. INTRODUCTION Decentering, according to Piaget and Inhelder (19), is the process by which an individual shifts his attention to include other than the perceptually most dominant aspects of an object or situation. The construct has been used to account for a wide range of perceptual, cognitive, and social activities. As decentering has been used to account for broader ranges of behavior (12), attempts have been made to interrelate various methods of measurement of the construct (2 1). The resdt has been to delineate further the definition of the construct sought by Piaget (18). --._._ f
* Received in the Editorial Office on A p d 16, 1975, h d published immediately at Provincetown, Massachusetts. Copyright by The Journal Press. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support, in terms of facilities and children, of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. Re uests for reprints should be directed to the first author at the address shown at the end of %is arhcle. 229
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
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Within a social context, decentering has been defined as the ability of an individual to accommodate the point of view of others as well as his own perspective. The concept of decentering in relation to social interaction has received most empirical study by Feffer and his associates. Operating within a developmental framework, Feffer (6) has studied role taking behavior in children as measured by their ability to narrate individual stories from the perspective of several of the characters. Performance on the Role Taking Task (RTT) has been related to scores on a number of other tasks-. g., WISC vocabulary (8),communication problems (lo), sociometric ratings ( 2 ) , and social effectiveness ( l l b w i t h a wide range of subject-age populations: elementary school age children ( 2 , 8), college students (lo), normal adults (9), retarded (7), and emotionally disturbed (1, 11) children. In addition, performance on the RTT has been found to parallel performance on Piagetian perceptual and cognitive tasks (8). Further validational support of the relationship between similar perceptual and social responses can be found outside the developmental literature (e. g., 13). A recent study (5) has attempted to explore the interrelationships between perceptual decentering and several personality variables. Included among the latter was Rotter’s (20) Locus of Control (IE) Scale, which was found to relate significantly to perceptual decentering. As predicted by the authors, adolescent male Ss who were able to adopt the perspective of another were more likely to report a belief in an individual’s ability to control his own circumstances, while Ss whose perceptual field was limited to their own private frame of reference were likely to adopt a passive orientation to the events of their environment. While previous studies have not attempted to relate role taking measures of decentering (6) and locus of control, it has been assumed that parallel relationships should exist at both the perceptual and social levels of measurement and, further, that the relationships should be identifiable early in the development of the individual. By exploring the relationships between RT T and I E scale performance, the present study has attempted further to anchor the concept of decentering in other articulated theories of personality. B.
METHOD
1. Subjects Twenty-three children, 15 boys and eight girls, ranging in age from 10 to 13 years and participating in a seven-week summer camp, served as Ss.
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
R. E. DEYSACH, H. R. KELLER, A.
w.
ROSS, AND T. G. HERS
231
Approximately two thirds of the children were white, and the remaining one third were black. All children, along with their counselors, resided at the camp throughout the camping period. All Ss had been referred by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health and had been identified as lacking age-appropriate social skills. Because social skill development was an area of central importance for these children, they were selected for the present study. Aggressiveness, withdrawal, immaturity, as well as attendant special symptoms, were included among the complaints presented by the children. While some campers had previous psychiatric hospitalizations, children labeled psychotic or mentally retarded had been typically excluded from the camp program. Although the camp was rather flexible in terms of daily schedule and activities, intensive socialization training was a consistent feature of the therapeutic program. The progress of all campers was monitored throughout the camp period, and individualized judgments of social competence were provided for all campers by their counselors at the end of camp and were analyzed, together with the decentering and personality variables available at the end of camp. 2 . Instruments For purposes of the present study, both personality measures taken at the end of camp, together with decentering scores and end-of-camp ratings of social competence, were used in the subsequent analysis. a. Decentwing task. The decentering task selected was Feffer’s (6) Role Taking Task (RTT), employing four cards from the Children’s Apperception Test, Human Figures (CAT). The four cards, each depicting three human characters, were #2, #4, #5, and #6. The order of presentation paralleled procedures used previously (2, 22). All stories were taperecorded for later transcription. Each card was presented initially with standard CAT instructions. Mter the initial story was completed, each card was presented an additional three times in succession. Each time the child was asked to retell the original story from the viewpoint of his characters. Two characters selected were those who had been given a role-reciprocal relationship (e. g., givingtaking, dominant-submissive)or who had been given socially defined roles and reciprocals (e. g., father-son, boy-girl). Beginning with the character developed last in the initial story, the child attempted to “make believe that 9, you are the and tell the story again as if you are the This request was repeated in turn for the second member of the pair and finally for the third figure in the picture.
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
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Each story on the RTT was scored according to Schnall and Feffer’s (22) manual. A detailed explanation of scoring procedures can be found elsewhere (11). In general, the child’s score was a measure of the extent to which S changed his or her characterization of each actor as a function of changes in the actor through whose mouth he or she was speaking and made these changes in a consistent and balanced manner. Two independent raters scored a random sample of stories, and an interrater reliability coefficient of .86 was obtained. 6. Locus of control. The Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (16) was used to measure an individual’s belief in the extent to which his or her environment is in general under personal control. The scale was selected because it was believed to provide a reliable and valid measure of the dimensions of locus of control as defined by Rotter (20). The 20-item scale, derived from a somewhat larger measure, was constructed specifically for use with children in grades one through six. The questions were administered to each S orally, and the child privately checked “yes” or “no” to the items, which covered a variety of interpersonal areas. Testretest reliability for the present sample before and after camp (r = .76) paralleled those found by Nowicki and Strickland (16) within unselected grade school populations. c. Machiavellianism. In an effort to extend study of the relationship between decentering and personality correlates, a scale designed to measure “machiavellianism” in children was included. The Kiddie Mach (14) was used to measure manipulativeness in interpersonal relationships. The Kiddie Mach was described by Christie (4) as providing a useful measure of machiavellianism as he defined it. The 20-item scale was administered to each S orally, and the child privately circled “yes” or “no” for each item. Originally designed for sixth-grade students, the scale was found to yield a test-retest reliability of r = .SO over six weeks for the present sample, approximating the reliabilities found elsewhere in the literature (3). C. RESULTS Pearson product-moment correlations were run interrelating the three levels of variables-social decentering, personality scale scores, and judgments of social competence--for both male and female Ss. It was predicted that social decentering ability as measured by the Role Taking Task (RTT) would correlate positively with social competence as judged independently by camp counselors. In general, predicted relationships did occur, appearing somewhat stronger for males (r = .62, p < .05) than females (r = .40,ns).
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
R. E. DEYSACH, H. R. KELLER, A.
w.
ROSS, AND T. G. HIERS
233
Inspection of the correlations separately for male Ss shows that relationships between I-E and Kiddie Mach scale scores (r = -.05) and between these scale scores and social decentering (r = -.02 and -.01, respectively) were low and statistically insignificant. In addition, neither the I-E nor Kiddie Mach (r = -.11 and -.06, respectively) was found to correlate significantly with social competence. For female Ss, the findings were strikingly different. The two personality variables appeared strongly related to each other (r = .85, p < .01) such that females who scored high in external locus of control were likely to score high on the Kiddie Mach. At the same time, RTT scores were found to be negatively correlated with externality (r = -.69, p C .05) and machiavellianism (r = -.41, ns). Similar relationships were found between social competence and external locus of control (r = -.75, p < .05) and Kiddie Mach scores (r = -.65, .05 C p < .lo).
D. DISCUSSION Two striking sets of findings appear to emerge from the present study when considered within the context of previous research on decentering. The first concerns the apparent viability of the construct. It appears that decentering, whether measured through tasks of perceptual or social nature, is valuable in predicting a variety of events in markedly differing contexts across a wide age range. That is, being able to assume someone else’s perspective, attitudes, or mood was empirically linked to a variety of personality traits and social responses at a number of levels in the developmental sequence. Long a cornerstone of cognitive developmental psychology (17), the construct of decentering may assume a central position in the convergence of several theoretical frames of reference. While the continuity found here with past literature involving decentering remains noteworthy, the sex differences observed in the present study were unexpected. In general, research on decentering has tended to minimize sex differences (2, 12), and, when reported, differences appear small (2). Even within the present study, where sex differences were generally marked, similarities in performance between males and females were found when the relationship between decentering and social competence was focused upon. Sex differences that did emerge appeared to implicate the two personality variables most directly. Both the NowickiStrickland Locus of Control Scale and the Kiddie Mach are downward extensions of extensively studied adult scales. While relationships to their parent scales have been demonstrated with some success (4, 16), age by sex
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 09:08 06 November 2015
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interactions have also been found to occur (e. g., 15). The sex differences noted for children in the present study highlight the necessity for continued attention to such differences in further study of personality correlates of social functioning. While females did perform as predicted, explanations for these findings must remain highly speculative. With the literature on the use of the locus of control and machiavellian scales for children being limited, hypotheses must be extrapolated in large part from work with adults. With adults, the positive relationship between external locus of control and machiavellianism has been explained as indicating that “manipulation of others may result not from a feeling of power but from a feeling of powerlessness and dependency” (23, p. 1080). Christie (3) alternatively suggested a link between externality and the “disbelief in people” as measured within the machiavellianism scales rather than the “tactic or duplicity” aspects of the latter. The present study su’ggests that, for females, individual differences in reports of powerlessness and manipulation or trust in people may occur together with egocentrism, or the inability to shift perspectives to accom.modate another’s point of view. In addition, evidence was provided that these cognitive orientations might be translated behaviorally by adults as a lack of social competence. It is suggested that for females perceived social success may be more intimately related to interpersonal skill development than is the case for males, for whom there may be increased tolerance as a function of their gender role.
REFERENCES 1.
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Department of Psychology University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208
