The present study re-examined Salatas and Flavell's (1976), “Perspective taking: The development of two components of knowledge.” Twenty Kindergarten, 20 second, and 20 third grade children were tested on two components of knowledge concerning views, (a) one observer has one view and (b) different observers have different views. Our results are consistent with traditional descriptions of the development of perspective taking but do not support the conclusions reached by Salatas and Flavell regarding the two components of perspective-taking knowledge. Contrary to that report, our study suggests that the “different observers-different views” concept is acquired earlier than the “one observer-one view” concept.
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