Robert Selman

Robert Selman served as chair of the Human Development and Psychology area from 2000 to 2004. He is the founder within this area of the Prevention Science and Practice Program — in 1992 — and served as its first director through 1999. At the Harvard Medical School, he is professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, where he serves as senior associate at the Judge Baker Children's Center and at the Department of Psychiatry at Children's Hospital Boston. Selman has engaged in research and practice focused on how to help children develop social awareness and engagement competencies as a way to reduce risks to their health and to promote their social relationships as well as their academic performance. Currently, he does practice-based research, studying interpersonal and intergroup development across the age range from preschool through high school. His current work on the promotion of children's understanding of ways to get along with others from different backgrounds is conducted in the context of literacy and language arts curricula at the elementary level; in school-based programs designed to coordinate support and prevention services for students at the middle grade level in public schools; and in the social studies, literature, and history curricula at the high school level. Past work focused on the treatment of psychological disorders of youth in day school and residential treatment and the prevention of these disorders in children and adolescents placed at risk.

Research

The Triple E Initiative

Research on the curricular and instructional implementation of two Educator Resources developed for fictional young adult stories, The Giver and The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963, adapted for film) These resources integrate Education, Ethics, and Entertainment (Triple E + Engagement), both for families, and in ELA and social studies at the middle school level (with Walden Media/ The Weinstein Company).

Page to Script to Stage Project

With Watertown Children’s Theater (with D. Lane, Director, Board of Trustees) Performances of young adult story narratives through the dramatic arts.

CCDD Lab

(Word Generation, with C. Snow) Outreach to public schools in Massachusetts and Baltimore on discipline centered (social studies and history) reading for understanding (deep comprehension). Focus on educators’ skills to promote social perspective taking skills in their students. The development of tools for the assessment and evaluation of social competencies.

Social Media Lab

A Prevention Science and Practice Partnership with MIT Media Lab (Joiche Ito, Director) and MTv/Viacom to understand the stressors and stresses of the digital world inhabited by youth today and tomorrow.

Spencer Foundation-funded New Civic Early Career Scholars Program

Support for doctoral students doing research on social media, resilience of youth at risk, civic engagement and education, civic disengagement, and bullying.

The China Youth Lab

Research on Youth Civic Consciousness, Moral Development and Culture in China. Organization of an international conference, Cultivating Civic Consciousness in China, Harvard Shanghai Center, or December 2014 (with Helen Haste and Xu Zhao).

Current Research

Selman's research builds upon the developmental and cultural antecedents of our human capacity to form and maintain positive social relationships, and the application of these capacities to the prevention of negative psychological, social, and health outcomes for youth. Selman’s research into the development of social awareness is related to educational achievement, ethical development, and youth participation in old and new media.

Awards

• Russell Sage Fellow,(1999)
• Fulbright Fellow,(1997)
• Fulbright Fellow,(1993)
• Fellow, American Psychological Society,(1990)
• Fellow, Child and Youth Services, American Psychological Association,(1980)
• Fellow, Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association,(1974)

Publications

Selman published The Growth of Interpersonal Understanding: Developmental and Clinical Analyses in 1980. This text introduced Selman’s general framework and empirical background for theories for his social perspective taking theory, and served as the precursor for his future works. In 1997, Selman co-edited Fostering Friendship: Pair Therapy for Treatment and Prevention with Lynn Hickey Shultz a professor of psychology at Harvard University and Caroline Watts a lecturer and researcher at Harvard University. Fostering Friendship introduces “pair-therapy” as a therapeutic intervention method designed to help children develop healthy interpersonal relationships. The method is suggested by physicians for clinical settings. This approach, which involves developing a nurturing relationship between an adult and two children, is also used outside of clinical settings as a prevention method used by counselors and teachers in public schools, daycare centers, and other youth development settings.

In The Promotion of Social Awareness: Powerful Lessons from the Partnership of Developmental Theory and Classroom Practice, published in 2003, Selman shifted his theoretical frame from one-on-one interventions to considering cultural themes. This text demonstrates the evolution of Selman's work as it that draws from his earlier clinical work and connects it to school-based practice. The book is based on his studies of the way young people growing up under difficult life circumstances (such as dysfunctional families, neighborhood poverty, and social prejudice) learn how to relate to others. Selman describes "social competence” as the ability to coordinate one's own perspective with that of others, through mutual understanding and negotiation. In The Promotion of Social Awareness, Selman combines his work on developmental psychology, ethnography, and extensive practical experience of implementing initiatives in schools to promote children's ability to form good social relations with others. In 2005, Selman's The Promotion of Social Awareness was awarded the Outstanding Book Award by the American Educational Research Association Section on Moral Development and Education.