Research from Türkiye reveals that as preschool children grow older, their ability to understand others’ viewpoints influences social problem-solving through advances in working memory, highlighting the importance of integrated cognitive and emotional activities in early education.
A new study from Türkiye suggests that the way preschool children take another person’s point of view may matter for how they solve everyday social problems, but that relationship appears to work partly through working memory, the mental system that helps children hold and use information in mind. The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, found that the link strengthened as children got older, with the clearest indirect effects seen among 60- to 72-month-olds. That pattern fits a wider body of work showing that perspective-taking, executive function and social competence tend to develop together in early childhood.
The study followed 457 Turkish preschoolers aged 48 to 72 months in Bolu during the 2025-26 school year. Children completed tasks measuring cognitive, perceptual and affective perspective-taking, while mothers rated working memory at home. The researchers then modelled whether working memory mediated the link between perspective-taking and social problem-solving, and whether age changed that pathway. All three perspective-taking dimensions were positively associated with social problem-solving, but the indirect route through working memory was stronger in the older age group, suggesting that children may become increasingly able to turn perspective-taking skills into practical social responses as their cognitive resources expand.
The findings also add to earlier research showing that perspective-taking is not a single skill. A 2018 study in children aged eight to 12 found that different perspective-taking demands vary in difficulty during social problem-solving, and that language skills help children understand others’ viewpoints. The new preschool data point in the same general direction, but with a developmental focus: rather than treating perspective-taking as a direct predictor of social competence, the study suggests that working memory may help children organise what they know about another person and use it to choose a more effective response.
That interpretation is broadly consistent with other recent research on early childhood development. A study on teacher-child interaction found that positive classroom relationships can support both working memory and social-emotional behaviour in very young children, while developmental neuroscience research has shown that working memory capacity improves rapidly across the preschool years. In a separate 2024 paper, researchers found that working memory contributes in different ways to perspective-taking tasks in children and adults, again hinting that age shapes how these abilities work together.
The Turkish study has limits. It was cross-sectional, so it cannot show cause and effect, and the sample was drawn from one city rather than a nationally representative group. Even so, the results point to a practical lesson for parents, carers and early-years educators: social understanding may be strengthened most effectively when activities build both thinking skills and social-emotional awareness at the same time. In classrooms, that could mean combining role-play, guided discussion and memory-based games rather than treating social skills as separate from cognition.
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