The effects of age,gender,and gender role ideology on adolescents’ social perspective-taking ability and tendency in friendships

Abstract

Social perspective taking (SPT; i.e., the social-cognitive process of inferring another person’s thoughts and feelings) is commonly thought to be essential for successful social relationships, yet the bulk of past work on the development of SPT does not consider youths’ tendency to engage in SPT in the context of their close relationships. The current study of adolescents (ages 12–17, N = 158) helps move the field forward by distinguishing between adolescents’ SPT ability (i.e., whether they are developmentally capable of SPT) and their tendency to apply this ability in their actual social relationships, namely, friendships, and considering the roles of gender and age. Results indicate that SPT ability and SPT tendency are distinct, suggesting that youths do not always put to use the SPT skills that they possess. Girls scored higher than boys on both SPT ability and SPT tendency. Boys and girls had significant gains in SPT ability across adolescence. Surprisingly, however, boys’ SPT tendency decreased from early to later adolescence, indicating that older boys tend to engage in less SPT in their friendships despite increasing ability to do so. This is worrisome given the importance of SPT in promoting high-quality relationships. Importantly, gender role ideology predicted this tendency in boys, such that boys with more stereotypical gender beliefs tended to engage in less SPT with their friends. Thus, the current findings point to the importance of going beyond mean-level gender differences to consider gendered beliefs and suggest that interventions aimed at promoting egalitarian views may help foster SPT and successful friendships among boys.

Keywords

Adolescence friendship gender gender role ideology social cognition social development social perspective taking

The importance of friendships and their developmental significance can hardly be overstated (Hartup, 1996), especially in adolescence (Bukowski, Newcomb, & Hartup, 1996). Social perspective taking (SPT; i.e., the social-cognitive process of inferring and understanding others’ viewpoints) is a key factor in developing and maintaining friendships (Selman, 1980; Smith & Rose, 2011). Although Selman (1980) described the development of SPT as extending beyond childhood and into adolescence, SPT has received little attention in the adolescent literature. As such, little is known about adolescents’ SPT in their friendships. In addition, developmental changes in adolescents’ SPT and factors that may influence these changes, such as the adolescent’s gender and beliefs about gender roles, are not well understood. The current study aims to address these gaps by examining multiple dimensions of adolescents’ SPT (ability and tendency in friendships), testing gender differences and gender-specific age differences in SPT, and examining relations of girls’ and boys’ gender role ideology (GRI) with SPT.

The importance of SPT for social relationships

SPT is a social-cognitive construct that involves understanding other people’s thoughts and feelings (Selman, 1980). Most studies investigating the implications of SPT for relationships have been conducted among children (often in terms of theory of mind and emotion recognition, e.g., Eggum et al., 2011; see Hughes & Leekam, 2004 for a review) and adults (especially in the marital or intimate relationship literature, e.g., Franzoi, Davis, & Young, 1985; Nickerson, 1999; Verhofstadt, Buysse, Ickes, Davis, & Devoldre, 2008), and there is a gap in knowledge about the implications of SPT for adolescent social functioning. Studies that have assessed adolescent SPT, however, have indicated that SPT is essential for adolescents’ functioning in social relationships. For example, adolescents’ SPT has been found to be associated with higher social competence with peers (Bosacki & Astington, 1999), lower levels of self-reported loneliness and peer rejection (Devine & Hughes, 2013), and better conflict and interpersonal negotiation strategies (Bengtsson & Arvidsson, 1977; Selman, Beardslee, Schultz, Krupa, & Podorefsky, 1986). Notably, these studies have not considered adolescents’ SPT in close relationships such as friendships. In fact, only a single study (Smith & Rose, 2011) has investigated SPT specifically in adolescents’ friendships. This study found that adolescents’ tendency to take the perspective of their friend was associated with greater positive friendship quality, providing support for the theorized importance of SPT for friendships (Selman, 1980).

Distinguishing ability from tendency

The majority of past theoretical and empirical work on youths’ SPT has focused exclusively on the developmental ability to take the perspective of others or capacity for SPT. This ability typically is assessed by asking participants about characters described in stories (Bosacki & Astington, 1999; White, Hill, Happé, & Frith, 2009), or shown in videos (Devine & Hughes, 2013; Gehlbach, Brinkworth, & Wang, 2012), and coding their responses for understanding of others’ thoughts and emotions. Another common technique is to use the interpersonal negotiation strategies interview (Schultz, Yeates, & Selman, 1989), which assesses participants’ skill in recognizing and coordinating social perspectives (Bengtsson & Arvidsson, 1977; Burack et al., 2006). These techniques commonly utilize scenarios involving hypothetical unknown people. Although such assessments have proven useful for measuring youths’ SPT ability, they do not measure youths’ proclivity to engage in SPT in their real-life personal relationships (such as with peers, parents, or teachers) and as such capture only one dimension of the multidimensional construct SPT.

Smith and Rose (2011) postulated a conceptual distinction between an adolescent’s developmental capacity to take the perspective of others (referred to here as SPT ability) and their proclivity to apply this ability in their personal relationships such as friendships (referred to here as SPT tendency). An individual simply having the capacity to take the perspective of others does not necessarily mean that the individual is inclined to actively make attempts at understanding others’ points of view or actually tends to do so in everyday social interactions. This distinction is similar to the one made by Cronbach (1970) between “maximum” versus “typical” performance, a distinction that has received much attention in the industrial–organizational psychology literature. According to this research, typical performance is what a person generally does on a day-to-day basis, whereas maximum performance refers to the best possible performance level of which a person is capable (Sackett, Zedeck, & Fogli, 1988). Maximum and typical job performance were not highly correlated (Sackett et al., 1988), suggesting that a person’s typical behavior may not always be in accordance with the highest standards to which they are capable. It stands to reason, therefore, that a person’s developmental SPT ability may or may not be reflected in what the person typically does in social relationships.

As such, it is important to consider the propensity or tendency to engage in SPT. Most studies of children and adolescents examine ability rather than tendency with the exception of a few. Smith and Rose (2011) assessed adolescents’ tendency to engage in SPT within a specific friendship, and Van der Graaff and colleagues (2014) assessed adolescents’ SPT tendency with others in general (rather than in a specified relationship). Both of these studies used items from the Perspective-Taking subscale of Davis’ (1980) IRI measure, which assesses the degree to which participants typically engage in SPT in their everyday social interactions. Importantly, though, these studies did not also assess SPT ability.

A recent study of empathy by Van der Graaff and colleagues (2015) provided some insight into this distinction. This study examined associations of SPT tendency with state cognitive empathy, which was measured using a video response method similar to those used in studies of SPT ability described earlier wherein participants had to identify happy and sad emotions in the protagonist as well as explain their own feelings of sympathy for the protagonist. SPT tendency was inconsistently related to state cognitive empathy (i.e., only in response to protagonists’ sadness but not happiness). A separate study by Gehlbach and colleagues (2012) explicitly differentiated SPT ability from SPT tendency. A small but significant positive correlation was found, indicating that SPT ability and SPT tendency were related but not redundant. However, the sample was small (13 high school students and 18 adults) and selected based on teacher reference or employment in jobs requiring high levels of SPT. The current study tests the relation between SPT ability and SPT tendency among a larger, more representative sample of adolescents with no such selection criteria. Following the distinction made between maximum and typical performance (Sackett et al., 1988) and evidence from the previous studies (Gehlbach et al., 2012; Van der Graaff et al., 2015), we hypothesized that SPT ability and SPT tendency would be distinct.

Gender differences in SPT

Gender development theories support the prediction that gender differences favoring girls would be expected to emerge for SPT ability and SPT tendency. Socialization theory, for instance, posits that gender differences in social behaviors have been socially constructed, are learned across development, and are encouraged by both parents and peers (Leaper & Farkas, 2015; Maccoby, 1998). This may lead to higher levels of SPT in females, as, for example, parents have been found to talk to girls about emotions more than boys, especially concerning sadness and fear (e.g., Adams, Kuebli, Boyle, & Fivush, 1995; Fivush, Brotman, Buckner, & Goodman, 2000). In addition, girls are more likely to spend time with their friends in dyads (Rose & Rudolph, 2006), which Devine and Hughes (2013) suggest is more conducive to developing SPT than spending time in groups. Cognitive theories of gender development, such as gender schema theory (Bem, 1981; Martin & Halverson, 1981), state that children cognitively categorize objects and behaviors as either “for girls” or “for boys” as they develop a sense of their own gender and then base their behavior on these formed gender categories. Given that SPT is considered stereotypically feminine (Bosacki, 2007; Jansz, 2000), children may conceptualize SPT as for girls and behave accordingly.

These theories suggest that females should have greater SPT compared with males, and this is supported by empirical research. There are consistent findings in the literature that females have more advanced SPT ability than males from childhood through adulthood (Bosacki, 2007; Bosacki & Astington, 1999; Devine & Hughes, 2013; Diazgranados, Selman, & Dionne, 2015; Franzoi et al., 1985; Garmon, Basinger, Gregg, & Gibbs, 1996 ; Lennon & Eisenberg, 1987; Selman et al., 1986; Van der Graaff et al., 2015). Girls also have greater SPT tendency compared with boys (Hawk et al., 2013; Lennon & Eisenberg, 1987; Smith & Rose, 2011; Van der Graaff et al., 2014, 2015).

In the current study, gender differences in SPT ability and SPT tendency are examined. Based on the literature reviewed, we hypothesized that girls would score higher than boys on both SPT ability and SPT tendency.

Age differences in SPT

In his original theorizing about SPT, Selman (1980) suggested that this ability should increase throughout childhood and into adolescence. In addition, Van der Graaff et al. (2014) noted that adolescence coincides with Piaget’s formal operations stage of cognitive capacity, which affords growing understanding of others’ emotions. Past work has provided empirical evidence that SPT ability increases with age. A study conducted by Devine and Hughes (2013) found that this ability (referred to by the authors as theory of mind) increased significantly from middle childhood through late childhood. Burack and colleagues (2006) found evidence that adolescents demonstrated a greater ability in coordinating the perspectives of multiple people than did elementary school-aged children. Understanding of others increased from adolescence through early adulthood even after controlling for basic cognitive abilities in a study by Vetter and colleagues (Vetter, Leipold, Kliegel, Phillips, & Altgassen, 2013). In addition, Choudhury, Blakemore, and Charman (2006) found that perspective-taking abilities were more developed in adults than preadolescents.

Although it might be expected that SPT tendency also would increase across adolescence, recent studies have revealed a surprising developmental pattern that is gender specific. In Smith and Rose’s (2011) study of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students (ages 11–15), girls’ SPT tendency was similar in each grade. However, boys in the eighth grade had lower SPT tendency than boys in the sixth and seventh grades. Van der Graaff and colleagues (2014) found a similar developmental pattern. This study examined SPT tendency longitudinally from age 13 to 18. The results indicated that girls’ SPT tendency increased only slightly from age 13 to 15 and then stabilized. In contrast, boys’ SPT tendency decreased from early to middle adolescence. The findings from these studies provide evidence for a surprising gender-specific developmental pattern, such that boys were actually decreasing in this tendency from early to later adolescence.

The current study tests age differences in SPT ability and SPT tendency. Based on the reviewed literature, we hypothesized that SPT ability would increase across adolescence for boys and girls. In contrast, gender-specific age differences were expected in SPT tendency, such that girls’ SPT tendency would remain stable across adolescence, but boys’ SPT tendency would decrease from early to later adolescence.

GRI

To help shed light on the surprising decrease in boys’ SPT tendency across adolescence, it may be beneficial to consider youths’ attitudes regarding gender stereotypes. Smith and Rose (2011) suggested that adolescents’ gender attitudes may impact their SPT tendency. GRIs are the attitudes that individuals hold concerning the appropriate roles and behaviors of males and females (McHugh & Frieze, 1997). Individuals who hold a stereotypical GRI endorse the idea that there are certain roles and behaviors that are inappropriate for either males or females to engage in according to societal stereotypes, whereas those who hold a more egalitarian GRI believe that it is equally acceptable for males and females to engage in these behaviors or enact those roles in society.

The current study examines girls’ and boys’ GRI and provides an important test of the idea that GRI may influence SPT tendency. In line with the socialization and gender schema theories of gender development, GRI may develop as individuals experience different events, cognitively process these experiences, and begin to develop beliefs about the roles of males and females. In turn, the GRI that a person holds is likely to influence the person’s behavior to be in line with this ideology (Bem, 1975). As such, individuals who hold a more stereotypical GRI are more likely to adhere to behaviors and adopt characteristics that are stereotypic for their gender (Bem, 1975). For instance, adolescents’ gender role self-concepts were found to significantly predict engagement in gender-typed activities, above and beyond gender alone (Athenstaedt, Mikula, & Bredt, 2009; Bartini, 2006), and were associated with gender-typed communication patterns when in groups of same-sex peers (Athenstaedt, Haas, & Schwab, 2004). Thus, boys who hold a highly stereotypical GRI would be expected to adopt stereotypically male behaviors while avoiding stereotypically female behaviors. Conversely, girls who hold a highly stereotypical GRI would be expected to adopt stereotypically female behaviors while avoiding stereotypically male behaviors.

In western cultures, SPT is considered stereotypically feminine (Bosacki, 2007; Jansz, 2000) and has been linked with high levels of femininity (Karniol, Gabay, Ochion, & Harari, 1998). This conception may be especially pronounced in the context of friendships as, in general, girls are more highly invested in friendships compared with boys (Rose & Rudolph, 2006; Roy, Benenson, & Lilly, 2000). Accordingly, we hypothesized that boys who hold a more stereotypical GRI would engage in lower levels of SPT within their friendships compared to boys who hold a less stereotypical GRI. Conversely, girls who hold a highly stereotypical GRI were expected to engage in SPT in their friendships more than girls with less stereotypical GRIs.

The GRIs that adolescents hold might also add insight into the different age patterns found for boys and girls in SPT tendency. Past research among adolescent boys has found that adherence to gender roles increases across adolescence (Way et al., 2014). Moreover, there is evidence among both genders that social behaviors within same-sex peer contexts become more gender specific into adolescence (e.g., Rose, 2002; Smith & Rose, 2011; Zarbatany, McDougall, & Hymel, 2000), suggesting that adolescents become more aware of the expectations of their same-sex peers. If the stereotypes that adolescents hold influence their tendency to engage in SPT with a friend, and adolescents become more stereotyped from early to later adolescence as the past evidence implies, then this may help to explain why boys might decrease in SPT tendency at precisely the same time that they are becoming more strict in their stereotypical beliefs.

The current study will offer an important test of age differences in boys’ and girls’ GRI. We hypothesized that girls and boys would increase in their stereotypical beliefs across adolescence. We also hypothesized that GRI would be associated with adolescents’ SPT tendency.

Summary of aims and hypotheses

In summary, the current study aims to test: (i) the association between SPT ability and SPT tendency in adolescence, with the hypothesis that SPT ability and SPT tendency are related, but distinct constructs; (ii) the effect of gender on SPT ability, and SPT tendency, with the hypothesis that girls will score significantly higher than boys for both; and (iii) age differences in boys’ and girls’ SPT and GRI, with the hypothesis that (a) both girls and boys will increase in their SPT ability; (b) girls will remain stable in their SPT tendency with friends, while boys will decrease; and (c) older adolescents will hold more stereotypical GRIs than younger adolescents; and (iv) relations between GRI and SPT tendency in friendships, with the hypothesis that a more stereotypical GRI will predict greater SPT tendency in girls, but less SPT tendency in boys.

Method

Participants

Participants were teens recruited via announcements in local schools and through flyers posted in local businesses and online as part of a larger study. The participants were recruited from a rural area near a University in the northeast United States with a relatively high socioeconomic status; about 35.6% of people in the county over the age of 25 had a Bachelor’s degree or higher, and the median reported income was US$80,333, with 6.7% of people living below the poverty level (United States Census Bureau, 2012).

Teens between the ages of 12 and 18 who were interested in participating contacted the researchers. Due to the focus of the larger study, teens selected a same-age and same-gender friend to participate with them. A time was scheduled for the pair of friends to come to a University lab together, and signed parental consent and participant assent were obtained for all participants under the age of 18. Participants who were 18 years old were able to provide their own consent; however, in the current study, we omitted the data from 18 year olds, as there were only five and their data contained outliers. The University’s Institutional Review Board approved all study procedures. Research materials are available from the authors upon request.

The final sample consisted of 158 participants (in 79 dyads) with ages ranging from 12 to 17 years (M = 14.53, SD = 1.62). Ninety (57%) participants were female, and 125 (79.1%) identified themselves as White, 14 (8.9%) as Hispanic, 7 (4.4%) as Black or African American, 2 (1.3%) as Asian, 9 (5.7%) as multiracial, and 1 (0.6%) did not provide a response.

Procedure

Youth completed questionnaires assessing GRI and SPT tendency. The participants were asked to fill out the questionnaires in separate rooms and not talk to each other about their responses. Then participants completed the SPT ability measure (Bosacki & Astington, 1999) on the computer, and upon completion were paid US$40 for their participation. The entire visit usually lasted between 2 and 2.5 hrs.

Measures

GRI

Beliefs about gender roles were measured with a 56-item questionnaire developed for the current study that included items adapted from Emihovich and Gaier’s (1983) 22-item measure. All participants responded to items assessing the degree to which they held stereotypic beliefs about gender roles and behaviors. Example items include “I think it is more important for a boy to be good at sports than in school” and “I think it is ok for a boy to have a girl as a good friend.” Different versions were provided for boys and girls. In these separate versions, participants responded to three items about each behavior that referenced a stereotype applicable to their own gender (14 base items, totaling 42 items). The three items asked participants to indicate whether they thought the behavior was okay for other youth of their gender, whether it was okay for themselves, and whether it was something they would actually do. For example, boys responded to the three items “I think it is all right for most boys to talk about their feelings with other boys,” “I think it is all right for me to talk about my feelings with other boys,” and “Talking about my feelings with other boys is something I would do.” In contrast, participants responded to 14 items that referenced a stereotype applicable to the other gender, totaling 56 items across all scales. For example, girls responded to the single item “I think it is all right for boys to talk about their feelings with other boys.” Participants rated each item in terms of how much they agreed using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Scores were averaged across the measure, reverse scoring items as appropriate. High scores indicated more stereotypical ideologies and lower scores reflected more egalitarian beliefs. The items formed a single reliable scale for both the girl version (Cronbach’s α = .91) and the boy version (Cronbach’s α = .93).

SPT ability

A measure developed by Bosacki and Astington (1999) was used to assess the participants’ ability to take the perspective of others. This measure and its coding scheme are comparable to the hypothetical vignette assessments and coding scheme that Selman used to assess SPT ability (Selman, 1980). For this measure, participants were presented with two brief vignettes depicting ambiguous social situations. The first vignette featured three girls interacting on a playground and the second vignette depicted three boys in the context of choosing members for a sports team. Following each vignette were two comprehension questions (which all participants completed correctly and which were not used to create ability scores) and seven open-ended questions. The questions concerned the feelings and actions of the characters and assessed participants’ abilities on four aspects of SPT: conceptual role taking (the ability to assign mental states to other people and take into account multiple perspectives), empathetic sensitivity (the ability to understand emotions), person perception (the ability to describe a person in terms of personality and psychological traits), and presenting alternative explanations of the characters’ motives and behaviors.

The responses to the 14 open-ended items were coded on a scale from 0 to 3, with higher scores reflecting more complexity in the ability to think about other people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations (Bosacki, 2000; Bosacki & Astington, 1999). Responses that included multiple references to mental states and demonstrated the ability to coordinate the perspectives of multiple characters (e.g., “Because they thought that Margie was lonely being the new girl, and they wanted to make her feel better by asking her to play with them”) were assigned a score of 3. A score of 2 was assigned if responses referred to the mental state of one character but did not integrate these thoughts or feelings with any other characters in the story. Responses that contained few references to the characters’ thoughts and feelings were assigned a score of 1. A score of 0 would be given if the participant did not answer the question or responded with “I don’t know.” Slightly over 20% (N = 36, 22.8%) of the questionnaires were double coded by the first author and a research assistant, both blind to the age and gender of the participant, and interrater reliability was high (ICC [2,1] = .92). Any disagreements were discussed and a final score was agreed upon.

Consistent with Bosacki and Astington (1999) and Bosacki (2000), a composite score was created collapsing across all items. For the current sample, the composite score was the mean of all items. A factor analysis of the items indicated a single-factor solution, with the largest drop in eigenvalues apparent in the change from a single factor to two factors (from 2.85 to 1.49 for girls and from 3.55 to 1.62 for boys). Visual inspection of the scree plots also suggested a single factor solution. The internal reliability for the items was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .73) and was consistent with the internal reliability scores from the original study in which this measure was developed (Cronbach’s α ranged from .67 to .69, Bosacki & Astington, 1999).

SPT tendency in friendships

SPT tendency in youths’ friendships was measured using a revised version of Smith and Rose’s 22-item Social Perspective-Taking questionnaire (Smith & Rose, 2011; adapted from Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004 and Davis, 1980). Youth rated their tendency to take the perspective of the specific friend with whom they participated. Four items that referred to being “good at” SPT were dropped due to potential conceptual overlap with SPT ability. Examples of the retained items include “I try to see things from my friend’s point of view,” “I sometimes try to understand my friend better by imagining how things look from his/her perspective,” and “I can usually appreciate my friend’s viewpoint, even if I don’t agree with it.”

Participants indicated how well each item described them using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from does not describe me at all (0) to describes me very well (4). Average scores were calculated across items. The items formed a reliable single scale (Cronbach’s α = .86) which was consistent with previous research with adolescents (Cronbach’s α = .88; Smith & Rose, 2011).

Results

First, analyses were conducted to test the hypothesis that SPT ability and SPT tendency would be distinct. The bivariate correlation between SPT ability and SPT tendency was positive but not significant (r = .12, p = .13). As in previous research (Calmes & Roberts, 2008), a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine whether the constructs were distinct. Specifically, the fit of two models were compared: one model contained two distinct, but correlated latent factors, whereas the other constrained the correlation equal to one, essentially creating a single latent factor of SPT. A χ² difference test revealed that the two-factor solution fit the data better (Δχ²(1) = 283.39, p < .001). Taken together, these results lend support for our hypothesis that SPT ability and SPT tendency are distinct and not redundant constructs.

The analyses presented in the following sections were conducted using a multilevel modeling approach in which the friends were nested into dyads (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006). Corrections were applied to p values following procedures outlined by Kenny et al. (2006).

Gender differences

The effect of gender on SPT ability and SPT tendency was examined in order to test the hypothesized gender differences in these two constructs. Because the GRI measure differed for boys and girls, it was not appropriate to test for a gender difference in GRI. However, the means for girls and boys are presented in Table 1. Consistent with our hypotheses, the results indicated that gender was a significant predictor of SPT ability and SPT tendency such that girls scored higher than boys on both. The results from these analyses and means by gender are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Means and standard deviations of study variables by gender.

	Girls (N = 90)		Boys (N = 68)
	M	SD	M	SD	β	d
Gender role ideology	2.02	.31	2.31	.35	–	–
SPT ability	2.13	.29	1.89	.40	–.24***	.47
SPT tendency	2.92	.47	2.57	.49	–.34***	.48

Note. The GRI measure was on a scale from 1 to 4, the SPT ability measure was on a scale from 0 to 3, and the SPT tendency measure was on a scale of 0 to 4. Girls were coded as 1, and boys as 2. β values are regression coefficients from dyadic multilevel models. d = Cohen’s effect size. SPT = social perspective taking.

***p < .001.

Age differences

We also hypothesized that age would influence each of the variables of interest. To test for the combined effects of age and gender, separate multilevel regression models were run for SPT ability and SPT tendency with age, gender, and the Age × Gender interaction entered as predictors. A parallel model was not run for GRI because the GRI measure differed for boys and girls. Instead, the main effect of age on GRI was tested separately for boys and girls. The Age × Gender interaction was not significant for SPT ability or SPT tendency. However, given the theoretical and empirical justification for expecting gender-specific age-related change in SPT tendency (Smith & Rose, 2011; Van der Graaff et al., 2014), the difficulty in detecting significant interactions for small effects in social psychological research (Judd, McClelland, & Culhane, 1995), and for comparison with the findings from the models involving GRI, we made the decision to test age differences in SPT separately by gender. Results from multilevel regression analyses conducted separately for boys and girls with age as the predictor variable are presented below.

GRI

For girls, age was a significant predictor of GRI (β = −.05, p = .02, d = .43), such that older girls were less stereotypical in their beliefs about gender than younger girls. The opposite pattern emerged for boys, however, such that age positively predicted GRI (β = .04, p = .03, d = .48), indicating that older adolescent boys were significantly more stereotypical in their GRI than younger adolescent boys. Thus, our hypothesis that GRI would become increasingly stereotyped across adolescence was supported only among boys.

SPT ability

As expected, age effects emerged for SPT ability and these effects were similar for girls and boys. Results of the regression analyses indicated that age was a significant predictor of SPT ability for both girls (β = .06, p = .002, d = .51) and boys (β = .09, p < .001, d = .67), such that older adolescents scored higher than younger adolescents. This finding was consistent with our hypothesis that the social-cognitive skill of SPT would increase across adolescence.

SPT tendency

As hypothesized, gender-specific age effects emerged for SPT tendency such that there were age differences in SPT tendency for boys only. Age was not a significant predictor of SPT tendency for girls (β = −.04, p = .22, d = .33). For boys, however, age was a marginally significant predictor of SPT (β = −.05, p = .06, d = .44), such that boys’ reported SPT tendency in their friendships decreased across adolescence. This finding was also consistent with our hypothesis that boys’ tendency to engage in SPT with their friends would decrease across adolescence, while girls’ tendency would remain constant. Boys’ mean SPT tendency scores at each age are presented in Figure 1 in conjunction with boys’ mean GRI scores to illustrate how boys’ mean scores for these constructs differed by age in relation to one another.

Relations of GRI with SPT tendency

The hypotheses that GRI would be positively associated with SPT tendency for girls but negatively associated with SPT tendency for boys were tested next. Multilevel regression models were conducted separately by gender. SPT tendency was predicted from GRI, age, and the interaction of GRI with age. All predictors were entered simultaneously.

Counter to our hypothesis, the model for girls indicated no significant effects of GRI (β = −.78, p = .33, d = .20), age (β = −.14, p = .30, d = .22), or the Age × GRI interaction (β = .05, p = .36, d = .18) on girls’ tendency to engage in SPT with their friend. For boys, however, there were significant effects of GRI (β = −2.48, p = .04, d = .45) and age (β = −.41, p = .03, d = .47). Consistent with our hypothesis, this finding indicates that boys with more stereotypical GRIs had lower SPT tendency with friends than did boys who held more egalitarian GRIs. A marginally significant Age × GRI interaction (β = .16, p = .051, d = .44) also emerged, such that the effect of GRI on SPT tendency was marginally stronger for younger adolescent boys than for older adolescent boys. The same pattern of results emerged when items referring to thoughts and feelings were omitted from the GRI scale in order to avoid any potential overlap with SPT.

Discussion

The current study examined adolescents’ SPT and considered the roles of age, gender, and GRIs. We hypothesized and found that adolescents’ developmental ability to understand others’ thoughts and feelings (SPT ability) is distinct from their proclivity to apply this ability in their personal relationships (SPT tendency), namely, their friendships. Adolescents’ ability to take the perspective of others does not necessitate their propensity to do so in their friendships. Compared with boys, girls were not only better able to understand others’ perspectives but were also more inclined to put this ability to use by actively attempting to take their friend’s perspective. Moreover, boys became even less likely with age to make attempts at taking their friend’s perspective, despite increasing developmental ability to do so. Consideration of GRI helped to shed light on this surprising developmental pattern for boys in that their SPT tendency decreased at precisely the same time as their GRI became increasingly stereotypical, and GRI was predictive of SPT tendency, suggesting that holding more stereotypical gender attitudes may steer boys away from the stereotypically feminine (Bosacki, 2007; Jansz, 2000) tendency to engage in SPT.

Our finding regarding the distinction between SPT ability and SPT tendency is in line with previous proposals (Smith & Rose, 2011) and empirical findings (Gehlbach et al., 2008; Van der Graaff et al., 2015). Although we anticipated that these constructs would not be redundant, it is nevertheless surprising that the correlation was not significant. The magnitude of this relation may have been influenced by the difference in targets across the two measures. That is, the SPT ability measure assessed adolescents’ SPT toward a stranger, whereas the SPT tendency measure assessed SPT toward a friend. Researchers have noted that SPT likely differs based on the nature of the relationship with the interaction partner (Dunn, 1994; Smith & Rose, 2011), and adolescents may be differently motivated to take the perspective of a friend compared with a stranger. The degree of difference between SPT ability and SPT tendency may be smaller when the target of the SPT is the same. It is also possible that the adolescent’s perceptions of their own ability may be more strongly related to SPT tendency than actual ability. The recent study by Van der Graaff and colleagues (2015) found that while self-reported state and trait levels of empathy tended to be related, trait empathy was not related to the objectively measured motor empathy responses. Perhaps those adolescents who believe that they excel in SPT have a greater tendency to use it, regardless of their objectively measured ability. More generally, the distinction made in the current research between ability and tendency may be applicable to many other areas of relationship functioning. For example, an individual may be capable of producing multiple positive strategies for resolving relationship conflicts when asked to do so in a laboratory setting but may have a low tendency to actually apply those strategies in the midst of real-life conflicts with relationship partners. It will be beneficial for future research in other areas of relationship functioning to consider whether such a distinction is evident.

Results from this study provided support for our hypotheses that girls would score higher than boys on both SPT ability and SPT tendency, and these results are consistent with other studies in which girls outperformed boys when measuring SPT ability (Bosacki, 2007; Bosacki & Astington, 1999; Devine & Hughes, 2013; Selman et al., 1986) and SPT tendency (Smith & Rose, 2011; Van der Graaff et al., 2014). Gender differences also were apparent in the developmental trajectories evidenced in the constructs of interest. The age trends that were observed in SPT ability did not differ for boys and girls. Consistent with existing literature concerning the development of social cognition across adolescence (e.g., Burack et al., 2006; Choudhury et al., 2006; Vetter et al., 2013), both boys and girls improved in SPT ability with age. The current study also provided an important replication of previous unexpected findings for different developmental trajectories of SPT tendency for boys compared to girls (Smith & Rose, 2011; Van der Graaff et al., 2014). Consistent with the past findings, results from the current study indicated that girls’ SPT tendency remained stable across adolescence whereas boys’ SPT tendency decreased from early to later adolescence. Based on the current results, this decrease in SPT tendency may be due to boys’ GRIs, which were increasingly stereotypical across adolescence in the current study. Indeed, our findings revealed that boys who held highly stereotypical GRIs were less likely to engage in SPT in their friendships. These results provide empirical support for the proposal raised in previous work (Bosacki, 2007; Smith & Rose, 2011; Van der Graaff et al., 2014) that the gender stereotypes boys hold relate to their tendency to engage in SPT and point to the importance of going beyond mean-level gender differences to consider the role of gendered beliefs. The findings also add to the existing literature suggesting that egalitarian mindsets are beneficial in terms of mental health and personal relationships (Bem, 1975; Ickes & Barnes, 1978; cited in Bussey & Bandura, 1999).

The current finding that boys’ endorsement of stereotypic gender roles and behaviors increases from early to later adolescence is consistent with other research documenting boys’ increased adherence to gender roles across adolescence (Way et al., 2014). In contrast, older adolescent girls in the current study held significantly less stereotypical beliefs than younger adolescent girls. It is possible that these trends were observed due to boys and girls developing increased cognitive awareness that not only are there different stereotypes regarding appropriate behaviors and characteristics of girls and boys, there also are different values placed on each by society. Typical male characteristics, such as assertiveness, tend to be regarded as being of higher status and more desirable than typically female roles (Berscheid, 1993; Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Cuddy et al., 2015; Spence & Hahn, 1997), and thus girls are increasingly encouraged to adopt masculine traits.

Limitations and future directions

The current study has some limitations that point to directions for future study. Although the reliability coefficient for the SPT ability measure in the current study (.73) was similar to that found in the original study in which the measure was developed (.67 to .69; Bosacki & Astington, 1999), the internal reliability for the measure is lower than ideal. Development of a highly reliable SPT ability scale for adolescents will be an important goal for future research. When considering past findings that link language ability to measures of theory of mind and SPT ability (Bosacki, 2000; Hughes & Dunn, 1998), it is also possible that the language demands of this measure are inflating the difference found between SPT ability and SPT tendency, which was assessed using a survey measure that did not require written responses to open-ended questions. Future studies should make efforts to minimize the language demands of SPT ability measures. For example, it may be possible to adapt for use with adolescents the children’s measure created by Devine and Hughes (2013) that uses silent films. Particular strengths of this measure are that it does not rely as heavily on verbal ability, and contextual information must be inferred rather than explicitly provided in a written vignette.

Given that the current study only used correlational data, no conclusions can be drawn about causality of the GRI that adolescents hold. In addition, while we suggest that some of the age patterns found in the current study may unfold across adolescence, the study used a cross-sectional design. More longitudinal studies like that conducted by Van der Graaff and colleagues (2014) will be necessary to examine the developmental trajectories of these constructs over time.

Future research utilizing a longitudinal design should also aim extend this work into adulthood in order to better understand how GRI, SPT ability, and SPT tendency continue to develop and influence one another after adolescence. The current findings suggest that boys’ ideas about gender roles become increasingly stereotyped across adolescence. However, males’ beliefs surrounding gender roles may then become increasingly flexible as adolescents move into early adulthood (Marcell, Eftim, Sonenstein, & Pleck, 2011). College-age samples tend to be more open minded and egalitarian in their beliefs than older adults (McHugh & Frieze, 1997), and in general, attitudes toward gender roles can be malleable in adulthood (Lucier-Greer, Ketring, Adler-Baeder, & Smith, 2012). With these findings in mind, future research concerning how GRI affects social relationships should adopt a lifespan perspective.

Finally, although this study revealed that SPT ability and SPT tendency are distinct, further research will need to examine whether these forms of SPT differentially predict benefits for social relationships. Smith and Rose (2011) found that SPT tendency was associated with friendship quality, but whether SPT ability is similarly related to friendship quality remains to be tested. Additionally, the previous study by Smith and Rose (2011) and the current study both assess SPT tendency in terms of adolescents’ ratings of their own propensity to take the perspective of their friend. The single reporter design is a limitation of this research, and it will be important for future studies to assess how well the adolescent’s own rating of his/her SPT tendency matches the friend’s rating, and whether both are similarly predictive of friendship quality. It also would be interesting to assess how accurately adolescents are able to guess their friend’s thoughts and feelings and to test whether accuracy is associated with SPT tendency, SPT ability, or friendship quality.

The current findings have implications for fostering positive social relationships among youth. If youth do not always attempt to see things from the other person’s point of view even when they are capable of doing so, then working to build SPT abilities may not be enough to ensure successful relationships. Instead, efforts will need to be directed towards encouraging the application of youths’ abilities in their relationships. This may be especially important for boys as previous research indicates that adolescent boys have lower friendship quality than girls (e.g., Parker & Asher, 1993), and boys in the present study were less likely to apply their SPT ability in their friendships. In addition, if increasingly stereotyped gender ideologies across adolescence serve to discourage boys from engaging in SPT with their friends despite their growing ability to do so, then fostering egalitarian gender beliefs, including that SPT is important for both genders, may be a potential starting point for intervention programs aimed at promoting the use of SPT as a method of creating and maintaining successful relationships.

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

The participating adolescents and their schools and families are gratefully acknowledged.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by a University of Connecticut Faculty Large Grant awarded to Rhiannon L. Smith.

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