In his research, Robert Selman read a story to children of different ages and asked them to answer questions about that story. According to his theory, by age 9, a child would understand:

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Question restatement: The prompt asks about Robert Selman's theory and what a child around age 9 would understand after being told a story and answering questions.
Option A: 'Comparisons made between self, other, and a “generalized other” (what “most people” might do in a specific situation).' This option describes a stage where a child considers self, another person, and the generalized other as a framework for social thinking, which aligns with Selman’s later stages (a broader, more generalized sense of others’ roles). However, by age 9, the emphasis is typically on more concrete perspective taking rather than solely focusing on generalized expectations of what most people would do, so this option captures part of the developmental trajectory but not the central 9-year milestone.
Option B: 'That two other people can have different perspectives and motivations, and able to think about those different perspectives as a third party observer.' This choice reflects the idea of mutual or third-person perspective taking, where a child recognizes that different people can hold distinct viewpoints and can reflect on those viewpoints from an observer’s stance. This aligns with Selman’s stages around late childhood (roughly 7–12 years), where children increasingly understand multiple perspectives and the motivations behind them, including considering how others think about each other.
Option C: 'People can have different perspectives of an event if they have different information about that event.' While true in many contexts, this option narrows perspective differences to information gaps and does not fully capture the social-cognitive advancement Selman describes at age 9, which involves motivations and social viewpoints beyond mere information discrepancy.
Option D: 'Very little about whether and how different people perceive an event.' This statement contradicts Selman’s core idea that children become more attuned to others’ viewpoints over time. At age 9, children are expected to be more aware, not less, of differing perceptions, so this option is inaccurate.

Key distinctions: A emphasizes a generalized other framework, which is a broader abstraction and not the most specific marker for age 9. C narrows to information-based differences rather than motivational and perspectival differences among multiple people. D flatly denies developing social perspective-taking, which runs counter to Selman’s progression.

Putting it together, the option that best matches the age-appropriate level of perspective-taking described by Selman around age 9 is the one that highlights that two other people can hold different perspectives and motivations and that a child can think about those perspectives as an observer. This captures the expected advance in social-cognitive processing at this stage, including recognizing multiple viewpoints and evaluating them from a third-person vantage point.

PSYC20008_2025_SM1 Exam: Developmental Psychology (PSYC20008_2025_SM1)- Requires Respondus LockDown Browser

In his research, Robert Selman read a story to children of different ages and asked them to answer questions about that story. According to his theory, by age 9, a child would understand:

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