Early peer-group interaction and role-taking skills: an investigation of Israeli children.

This study extends the investigation begun by Hollos and Cowan (1973) into the effects of early social experience on the development of role-taking skills. It is argued that their threshold of verbal stimulation hypothesis was not adequately tested by their design because it did not provide more than 2 levels of early peer interaction, the factor stressed by Piaget as crucial for development. This limitation is addressed here by comparing the role-taking performance of 108 Israeli boys from kibbutz, moshav, and city settings. The results, indicating no differences in skill, support the conclusion of Hollos and Cowan that a basic amount of early social experience is necessary for development in this area, but that further experience of this type does not relate to differential skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]