Robert L Selman
Biographic Data
| ID | 4369799 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert L Selman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert L |
| FAMILY NAME | Selman |
| SIGNATURE | SELMAN R L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0182-2869 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 155 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Romantic Transfer from Thermodynamic Theories to Personal Theories of Social Control
The transfer of learning is arguably the most enduring goal of education. The history of science reveals that although numerous theories have been transferred from the natural sciences to the socio-political realm, educational practitioners have often deemed such transfers romantic and rhetorical. We conducted an experiment that randomly assigned a sample of 292 college freshmen in China to two groups to learn different thermodynamic theories: en…
Bystanders’ responsibilities in a situation of teasing
Romantic Relationship Advice From Anonymous Online Helpers
This empirical study investigates adolescents' responses to peers' personal accounts of romantic relationship difficulties posted to an online forum. We analyze 440 anonymous responses to personal accounts of four romantic relationship issues: controlling partners, break-ups, trust issues, and partner cruelty. Responses were categorized, in order of prevalence, as judgment, recommendation, words of kindness, personal experience, and probing quest…
Compliant, Cynical, or Critical
This article explores how school-aged Chinese youth make meaning of the civic roles of citizens in the context of a society with a powerful one-party government. We examined how 16 focus groups ( N = 64) of adolescents from urban and rural schools in Shanghai and Nantong talked about the causes and solutions of social problems facing China. Our analysis revealed a broad range of explanations of social problems, framed by contrasting narratives ab…
Did I Cross the Line
Academic stress in Chinese schools and a proposed preventive intervention program
While American educators fret about the mediocre educational performance of American students in international contests (e.g. the Program for International Student Assessment) and wonder why the Chinese education system produces such high-achieving students, educators, journalists, and public officials in China want to know what causes and how to prevent the high levels of academic stress that Chinese students, their families, and their school sy…
Acts of Social Perspective Taking
To understand and assess how early adolescents use their social perspective taking (SPT) skills in their consideration of social problems, we conducted two studies. In study 1, we administered a hypothetical SPT scenario to 359 fourth to eighth graders. Study 2 tested the validity of an expanded instrument, the Social Perspective Taking Acts Measure, with 459 fourth to eighth graders. We confirmed the structure of the construct with a fully satur…
How to Cope With Digital Stress
There is considerable interest in ways to support adolescents in their digital lives, particularly related to the relational challenges they face. While researchers have explored coping with cyberbullying, the scope of relevant digital issues is considerably broader. Through the lens of online peer responses to personal accounts posted by adolescents, this study explores recommended strategies for coping with different experiences of socio-digita…
Digital stress
Based on a thematic content analysis of 2000 anonymous posts to the website AThinLine.org , this article explores adolescents’ personal accounts of digital stress. Six kinds of digital stressors that engender two distinctive types of digital stress are identified. Type 1 stressors—“mean and harassing personal attacks,” “public shaming and humiliation,” and “impersonation”—reflect the migration of common forms of relational hostility onto the onli…
Academic Discussions
This article describes the structure of academic discussions during the implementation of a literacy curriculum in the upper elementary grades. The authors examine the quality of academic discussion, using existing discourse analysis frameworks designed to evaluate varying attributes of classroom discourse. To integrate the overlapping qualities of these models with researchers’ descriptions of effective discussion into a single instrument, the a…
A Tobit Regression Analysis of the Covariation Between Middle School Students' Perceived School Climate and Behavioral Problems
This study uses an ecological framework to examine how adolescents' perceptions of school climate in 6th grade covary with the probability and frequency of their engagement in problem behaviors in 7th and 8th grades. Tobit analysis was used to address the issue of having a highly skewed outcome variable with many zeros and yet account for censoring. The 677 participating students from 8 schools were followed from 6(th) through 8(th) grade. The pr…
Contents Vol. 51, 2008
Through Thick and Thin
Teachers as Builders of Respectful School Climates
Risk and prevention
Doing research in the context of programs designed to promote the psychological competence of children and adolescents is an important road to understanding the fundamental anatomy of social development
A Developmental Method to Analyze the Personal Meaning Adolescents Make of Risk and Relationship
The goal of this article is to demonstrate the application of a psychosocial developmental framework-and interpretive method of analysis-to data gathered through in-depth interviews. The article applies this analysis in the context of a case comparative design, drawing on interviews with two 15-year-old Icelandic boys who drank alcohol frequently, but in different ways and with different consequences. This article describes the utility of a devel…
I feel I have received a new vision
The Psychosocial Foundations of Early Adolescents' High-Risk Behavior
Recent research indicates that adolescents' own risk-taking behavior is one of the greatest threats to their social, physical, and emotional development. A conceptual developmental model is proposed to help explain why factual knowledge of health and educational risks alone, or even in conjunction with social skills competence, does not appear to protect adequately adolescents from certain high-risk behavior. The goal of the proposed model is to …
Level of social-cognitive development, adaptive functioning, and DSM-III diagnoses in adolescent offspring of parents with affective disorders
This study examines the relation between the developmental social-cognitive capacity for interpersonal negotiation and both parental-risk and adolescent-outcome variables in 172 adolescents 11 to 19 years of age. The sample was divided into two groups: those at risk because of affective disorder in one or both of their parents and a comparison group whose parents have never experienced affective illness. Adolescents' interpersonal negotiation str…
Assessing adolescent interpersonal negotiation strategies
Peer conflict in pair therapy
Clinical intervention (pair therapy) with a primary focus on interpersonal conflict is a rich context for the developmental study of psychological growth (or regression) in troubled children
A naturalistic study of children's social understanding
This study examines developmental aspects of social understanding in three related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. Six middle-class girls, homogeneous with respect to grade (second and third vs. fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview) were assigned to each of four small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks…
The development of interpersonal competence
A developmental analysis of intrapsychic understanding
Child therapists must familiarize themselves with the semantics as well as the syntax of the communication between themselves and their young patients
Interpersonal awareness in children
This paper postulates a five-stage developmental sequence of awareness of interpersonal issues such as trust in friendship and loyalty in peer group relations. Results of research comparing the impersonal and interpersonal awareness of children with poor peer relations is presented in an attempt to clarify the function of social cognition in clinical contexts
Assessing adolescent interpersonal negotiation strategies
Level of social-cognitive development, adaptive functioning, and DSM-III diagnoses in adolescent offspring of parents with affective disorders
This study examines the relation between the developmental social-cognitive capacity for interpersonal negotiation and both parental-risk and adolescent-outcome variables in 172 adolescents 11 to 19 years of age. The sample was divided into two groups: those at risk because of affective disorder in one or both of their parents and a comparison group whose parents have never experienced affective illness. Adolescents' interpersonal negotiation str…
Teachers as Builders of Respectful School Climates
A Tobit Regression Analysis of the Covariation Between Middle School Students' Perceived School Climate and Behavioral Problems
This study uses an ecological framework to examine how adolescents' perceptions of school climate in 6th grade covary with the probability and frequency of their engagement in problem behaviors in 7th and 8th grades. Tobit analysis was used to address the issue of having a highly skewed outcome variable with many zeros and yet account for censoring. The 677 participating students from 8 schools were followed from 6(th) through 8(th) grade. The pr…
A naturalistic study of children's social understanding
This study examines developmental aspects of social understanding in three related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. Six middle-class girls, homogeneous with respect to grade (second and third vs. fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview) were assigned to each of four small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks…
Digital stress
Based on a thematic content analysis of 2000 anonymous posts to the website AThinLine.org , this article explores adolescents’ personal accounts of digital stress. Six kinds of digital stressors that engender two distinctive types of digital stress are identified. Type 1 stressors—“mean and harassing personal attacks,” “public shaming and humiliation,” and “impersonation”—reflect the migration of common forms of relational hostility onto the onli…
A Structural-Developmental Model of Social Cognition; Implications for Intervention Research
I feel I have received a new vision
The Psychosocial Foundations of Early Adolescents' High-Risk Behavior
Recent research indicates that adolescents' own risk-taking behavior is one of the greatest threats to their social, physical, and emotional development. A conceptual developmental model is proposed to help explain why factual knowledge of health and educational risks alone, or even in conjunction with social skills competence, does not appear to protect adequately adolescents from certain high-risk behavior. The goal of the proposed model is to …
How to Cope With Digital Stress
There is considerable interest in ways to support adolescents in their digital lives, particularly related to the relational challenges they face. While researchers have explored coping with cyberbullying, the scope of relevant digital issues is considerably broader. Through the lens of online peer responses to personal accounts posted by adolescents, this study explores recommended strategies for coping with different experiences of socio-digita…
Academic Discussions
This article describes the structure of academic discussions during the implementation of a literacy curriculum in the upper elementary grades. The authors examine the quality of academic discussion, using existing discourse analysis frameworks designed to evaluate varying attributes of classroom discourse. To integrate the overlapping qualities of these models with researchers’ descriptions of effective discussion into a single instrument, the a…
Romantic Relationship Advice From Anonymous Online Helpers
This empirical study investigates adolescents' responses to peers' personal accounts of romantic relationship difficulties posted to an online forum. We analyze 440 anonymous responses to personal accounts of four romantic relationship issues: controlling partners, break-ups, trust issues, and partner cruelty. Responses were categorized, in order of prevalence, as judgment, recommendation, words of kindness, personal experience, and probing quest…
Did I Cross the Line
Compliant, Cynical, or Critical
This article explores how school-aged Chinese youth make meaning of the civic roles of citizens in the context of a society with a powerful one-party government. We examined how 16 focus groups ( N = 64) of adolescents from urban and rural schools in Shanghai and Nantong talked about the causes and solutions of social problems facing China. Our analysis revealed a broad range of explanations of social problems, framed by contrasting narratives ab…
Acts of Social Perspective Taking
To understand and assess how early adolescents use their social perspective taking (SPT) skills in their consideration of social problems, we conducted two studies. In study 1, we administered a hypothetical SPT scenario to 359 fourth to eighth graders. Study 2 tested the validity of an expanded instrument, the Social Perspective Taking Acts Measure, with 459 fourth to eighth graders. We confirmed the structure of the construct with a fully satur…
Interpersonal awareness in children
This paper postulates a five-stage developmental sequence of awareness of interpersonal issues such as trust in friendship and loyalty in peer group relations. Results of research comparing the impersonal and interpersonal awareness of children with poor peer relations is presented in an attempt to clarify the function of social cognition in clinical contexts
A Structural-Developmental Model of Social Cognition; Implications for Intervention Research
A developmental analysis of intrapsychic understanding
Child therapists must familiarize themselves with the semantics as well as the syntax of the communication between themselves and their young patients
The development of interpersonal competence
A naturalistic study of children's social understanding
This study examines developmental aspects of social understanding in three related contexts: a one-to-one interview, a real-life activity group, and related group discussions. Six middle-class girls, homogeneous with respect to grade (second and third vs. fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (as expressed in the interview) were assigned to each of four small activity groups. Each group met for 12 consecutive school weeks…
Peer conflict in pair therapy
Clinical intervention (pair therapy) with a primary focus on interpersonal conflict is a rich context for the developmental study of psychological growth (or regression) in troubled children
Assessing adolescent interpersonal negotiation strategies
Level of social-cognitive development, adaptive functioning, and DSM-III diagnoses in adolescent offspring of parents with affective disorders
This study examines the relation between the developmental social-cognitive capacity for interpersonal negotiation and both parental-risk and adolescent-outcome variables in 172 adolescents 11 to 19 years of age. The sample was divided into two groups: those at risk because of affective disorder in one or both of their parents and a comparison group whose parents have never experienced affective illness. Adolescents' interpersonal negotiation str…
The Psychosocial Foundations of Early Adolescents' High-Risk Behavior
Recent research indicates that adolescents' own risk-taking behavior is one of the greatest threats to their social, physical, and emotional development. A conceptual developmental model is proposed to help explain why factual knowledge of health and educational risks alone, or even in conjunction with social skills competence, does not appear to protect adequately adolescents from certain high-risk behavior. The goal of the proposed model is to …
I feel I have received a new vision
A Developmental Method to Analyze the Personal Meaning Adolescents Make of Risk and Relationship
The goal of this article is to demonstrate the application of a psychosocial developmental framework-and interpretive method of analysis-to data gathered through in-depth interviews. The article applies this analysis in the context of a case comparative design, drawing on interviews with two 15-year-old Icelandic boys who drank alcohol frequently, but in different ways and with different consequences. This article describes the utility of a devel…
Risk and prevention
Doing research in the context of programs designed to promote the psychological competence of children and adolescents is an important road to understanding the fundamental anatomy of social development
Contents Vol. 51, 2008
Through Thick and Thin
Teachers as Builders of Respectful School Climates
A Tobit Regression Analysis of the Covariation Between Middle School Students' Perceived School Climate and Behavioral Problems
This study uses an ecological framework to examine how adolescents' perceptions of school climate in 6th grade covary with the probability and frequency of their engagement in problem behaviors in 7th and 8th grades. Tobit analysis was used to address the issue of having a highly skewed outcome variable with many zeros and yet account for censoring. The 677 participating students from 8 schools were followed from 6(th) through 8(th) grade. The pr…
Academic Discussions
This article describes the structure of academic discussions during the implementation of a literacy curriculum in the upper elementary grades. The authors examine the quality of academic discussion, using existing discourse analysis frameworks designed to evaluate varying attributes of classroom discourse. To integrate the overlapping qualities of these models with researchers’ descriptions of effective discussion into a single instrument, the a…
Digital stress
Based on a thematic content analysis of 2000 anonymous posts to the website AThinLine.org , this article explores adolescents’ personal accounts of digital stress. Six kinds of digital stressors that engender two distinctive types of digital stress are identified. Type 1 stressors—“mean and harassing personal attacks,” “public shaming and humiliation,” and “impersonation”—reflect the migration of common forms of relational hostility onto the onli…
Academic stress in Chinese schools and a proposed preventive intervention program
While American educators fret about the mediocre educational performance of American students in international contests (e.g. the Program for International Student Assessment) and wonder why the Chinese education system produces such high-achieving students, educators, journalists, and public officials in China want to know what causes and how to prevent the high levels of academic stress that Chinese students, their families, and their school sy…
Acts of Social Perspective Taking
To understand and assess how early adolescents use their social perspective taking (SPT) skills in their consideration of social problems, we conducted two studies. In study 1, we administered a hypothetical SPT scenario to 359 fourth to eighth graders. Study 2 tested the validity of an expanded instrument, the Social Perspective Taking Acts Measure, with 459 fourth to eighth graders. We confirmed the structure of the construct with a fully satur…
How to Cope With Digital Stress
There is considerable interest in ways to support adolescents in their digital lives, particularly related to the relational challenges they face. While researchers have explored coping with cyberbullying, the scope of relevant digital issues is considerably broader. Through the lens of online peer responses to personal accounts posted by adolescents, this study explores recommended strategies for coping with different experiences of socio-digita…
Did I Cross the Line
Romantic Relationship Advice From Anonymous Online Helpers
This empirical study investigates adolescents' responses to peers' personal accounts of romantic relationship difficulties posted to an online forum. We analyze 440 anonymous responses to personal accounts of four romantic relationship issues: controlling partners, break-ups, trust issues, and partner cruelty. Responses were categorized, in order of prevalence, as judgment, recommendation, words of kindness, personal experience, and probing quest…
Compliant, Cynical, or Critical
This article explores how school-aged Chinese youth make meaning of the civic roles of citizens in the context of a society with a powerful one-party government. We examined how 16 focus groups ( N = 64) of adolescents from urban and rural schools in Shanghai and Nantong talked about the causes and solutions of social problems facing China. Our analysis revealed a broad range of explanations of social problems, framed by contrasting narratives ab…
Bystanders’ responsibilities in a situation of teasing
Psychology (26 works) · Developmental psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (10 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Clinical Psychology (6 works) · Clinical Psychology (6 works) · Educational and Psychological Assessments (6 works)