A great deal of psychological research has investigated the influence of perspective taking on individuals, indicating that perspective taking increases the extent to which people like, feel a sense of self-other overlap with, and help those whose perspective they take. However, previous investigations of the topic have been limited to the study of the perspective taker, rather than the individual whose perspective has been taken. The purpose of the current work is to begin to fill this large gap in the literature by examining the consequences of believing that another individual is taking one's perspective, a phenomenon we refer to as perceived perspective taking. Over a series of 6 experiments, we demonstrate that perceiving that one's perspective has been taken confers many of the same interpersonal benefits as taking another's perspective. Specifically, our data suggest that believing that another person has successfully taken one's perspective results in an increased liking for, a greater sense of self-other overlap with, and more help provided to that person. Consistent with predictions, we find that one's self-other overlap with the perspective taker and the amount of empathy one perceives the perspective taker to feel operate in tandem to mediate the link between perceived perspective taking and liking for the perspective taker. Further, a mediational path from perceived perspective taking to helping behavior through liking is supported. Future directions are discussed, along with implications for theory and application in domains such as intergroup relations, conflict resolution, and political campaigning.Keywords: perspective taking, self-other overlap, similarity, prosocial behavior, empathy You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit-the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us-the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town.-Barack Obama, 2006I feel your pain. -Bill Clinton, 1992 Although Barack Obama's victory over challenger Mitt Romney in the 2012 U.S. Presidential elections can be attributed to many causes, some pundits have cited the large "empathy gap" between the two candidates as one of the central reasons for a decisive Obama win (Ali, 2012;Birckhead, 2012). Consistent with this suggestion, polls from the contest showed that when voters were asked to consider which candidate was "more in touch with people like them" or "understood the economic problems of regular people," Obama won by a wide margin (Associated Press, 2012;Cillizza & Blake, 2012;Frommer, 2012). All savvy politicians try to persuade voters that they understand their circumstances, but none was more proficient at it than the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton. Particularly when he was on the road campaigning, Clinton was a master at peering deeply in...

Designing persuasive content is challenging, in part because people can be poor predictors of their actions. Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) activation during message exposure reliably predicts downstream behavior, but past work has been largely atheoretical. We replicated past results on this relationship and tested two additional framing effects known to alter message receptivity. First, we examined gain- vs. loss-framed reasons for a health behavior (sunscreen use). Consistent with predictions from prospect theory, we observed greater MPFC activity to gain- vs. loss-framed messages, and this activity was associated with behavior. This relationship was stronger for those who were not previously sunscreen users. Second, building on theories of action planning, we compared neural activity during messages regarding how vs. why to enact the behavior. We observed rostral inferior parietal lobule and posterior inferior frontal gyrus activity during action planning (“how” messages), and this activity was associated with behavior; this is in contrast to the relationship between MPFC activity during the “why” (i.e., gain and loss) messages and behavior. These results reinforce that persuasion occurs in part via self-value integration—seeing value and incorporating persuasive messages into one's self-concept—and extend this work to demonstrate how message framing and action planning may influence this process.

Self-report evidence suggests that consumers prefer green products (i.e., pro-environmental) to standard products, but this is not reflected in purchase behaviors. To understand this disconnect, we exposed participants in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to green and standard ads. After viewing each ad, participants rated liking and perceived sustainability. Ratings were more favorable for green ads than for control ads, but the functional MRI data suggested an opposite pattern-participants showed greater activation in regions associated with personal value and reward (ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum) in response to control ads relative to green ads. In addition, participants showed greater activity in these regions to the extent that they reported liking control ads, but there was no such trend for green ads. In line with a neuroeconomic account, we suggest that activity in these regions may be indexing a value signal computed during message exposure that may influence downstream purchase decisions, in contrast to self-reported evaluations that may reflect social desirability concerns absent at the point of purchase.

The purpose of this article is to provide practice-based insight into the use of Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) online crowdsourced labor market to conduct survey research with targeted or "special" populations. We begin with an overview of MTurk, followed by a review of the use of MTurk in the social sciences, the multi-stage survey technique that has been implemented in our research, and the considerations that have informed our methodological choices.

The false consensus effect (FCE), the tendency to project our attitudes and opinions on to others, is a pervasive bias in social reasoning with a range of ramifications for individuals and society. Research in social psychology has suggested that numerous factors (anchoring and adjustment, accessibility, motivated projection, etc.) may contribute to the FCE. In this study, we examine the neural correlates of the FCE and provide evidence that motivated projection plays a significant role. Activity in reward regions (ventromedial pFC and bilateral nucleus accumbens) during consensus estimation was positively associated with bias, whereas activity in right ventrolateral pFC (implicated in emotion regulation) was inversely associated with bias. Activity in reward and regulatory regions accounted for half of the total variation in consensus bias across participants (R = .503). This research complements models of the FCE in social psychology, providing a glimpse into the neural mechanisms underlying this important phenomenon.