The development of interpersonal competence: The role of understanding in conduct*1

Contemporary research on social-cognitive development from a structural perspective, including the author's analysis of levels of interpersonal understanding, has focused predominantly on universals in social knowledge. Primarily using interview procedures, it has consisted, in the main, of formal descriptions of the qualitative aspects of social concept development, and of their sequential progression with age for individuals within the species (ontogenesis). It is suggested that the developmental study of interpersonal competence requires a broader view than is provided by a structural-developmental framework alone, but a view which, nevertheless, makes use of this orientation as its foundation. Using the more inclusive orthogenetic approach and data drawn from observations of real-life interactions in field and clinical settings, five strategy levels in interpersonal negotiations are described. Several working hypotheses about the relation between levels of interpersonal understanding and interpersonal negotiation strategies are spelled out. The construct of Coordination of Social Perspectives is used as an analytic tool to integrate these two components of the model within a single theoretical framework.