title: Advanced social role-taking and cognitive development in gifted adults.
abstract: Examined the possible parallelism between social role-taking and cognition in forty-four gifted adults. The men and women, aged twenty-one to fifty-five were white and middle class. They were administered measured of advanced role-taking levels formulated for this study and measures of formal operations and of post-formal operational development based on category theory. The three hypotheses were: (1) role-taking levels termed "interactive effect" and "interactive empathy" would form and invariant sequence; (2) measures of formal operations and of post-formal operational levels would form an invariant sequence; and (3) the formal operations and post-formal operational levels would provide the necessary cognitive prerequisites for role-taking levels of interactive effect and interactive empathy, respectively. The findings supported all three hypotheses. Age was correlated significantly with role-taking behavior. In the discussion, category theory was suggested as one way to define post-formal operational thinking.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003071:Cognition; D003210:Concept Formation; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011577:Psychodrama; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012381:Role Playing