The development of perceptual, cognitive, and affective perspective taking and empathy was investigated in 96 kindergarten through third-grade children. Cognitive perspective taking was found to increase between second and third grades. Affective perspective taking, in situations controlling for the likelihood of the subjects' projecting their own affective responses to story characters, decreased with grade level. Perceptual perspective taking showed no grade changes, and empathy was curvilinearly related to grade level. Males were found to be better perceptual and affective perspective takers than females. Task intercorrelations were low and nonsignificant, supporting the view that perspective taking and empathy are multidimensional social-cognitive constructs. (Author/BRT)