Current understanding of developmental changes in adolescent perspective taking

Abstract

Perspective taking is an essential skill for social development during adolescence and understanding its development could provide important insights into adolescent well-being. We review recent longitudinal and cross-sectional work that demonstrates continued refinement of perspective-taking abilities during adolescence, based on both self-report measures and (advanced) perspective-taking tasks. We discuss factors that contribute to individual differences in perspective-taking abilities, such as gender, parent and peer interactions, and the school environment. The reviewed studies highlight the need for further longitudinal studies, which identify factors that promote or hinder the development of perspective taking during the adolescent period and use developmentally appropriate measures, which can assess advanced perspective-taking abilities.

Keywords: Adolescence; Cognitive empathy; Development; Mentalizing; Perspective taking.