A Field Experiment on Perspective-Taking, Helping, and Self-Awareness

Abstract

The present field experiment examines the effect of self-awareness on adult perspective-taking and on prosocial behavior. University students at an Italian university were interviewed briefly on their campus, and for half of them self-awareness was induced by asking them to hold a mirror before their faces. In the same context they then had to choose between a postcard written in Italian and 1 written in English, to be sent to England. This led to a measure of perspective-taking, and their actual readiness to mail the postcard was taken as an index of prosocial or helping behavior. Both perspective-taking and helping behavior were boosted considerably by self-awareness.

Suspicious spirits, flexible minds: When distrust enhances creativity.

“…Perspective taking has been linked to a variety of variables, including empathy and prosocial behavior (e.g., Abbate, Isgrò, Wicklund, & Boca, 2006;Batson et al, 1989;Batson & Moran, 1999;Maner et al, 2002). This seems incompatible with perceived ambiguity about possible malicious motives of a potential deceiver as well as with a general avoidance tendency that accompanies distrust (Mussweiler & Burgmer, 2010).…”

Perspective Taking and Specificity of Sensory Contact in Romantic Relationships

“…Effective social interaction results when people modify their behaviour in social situations as a result of an understanding of the perspective of the other (Feffer & Suchotliff, 1966;Scaffidi Abbate, Isgrò, Wicklund, & Boca, 2006). For instance, Long and Andrews (1990) defined perspective taking as the cognitive tendency to put oneself in another person's place.…”

“…The classical perspective-taking scenario used in experiments on perspective taking involves asking the target person to imagine a situation from a different visual point of view (Piaget, 1924;Steins & Wicklund, 1996) or from a different psychological perspective (see Batson, 2011, for a review). Most importantly, in the classical paradigm, the other person's behaviour-in-concrete-context is always the observer's basis for inferring that actor's perceptions and emotions (Gendolla & Wicklund, 2009;Scaffidi Abbate et al, 2006). For instance, in Steins and Wicklund (1996), participants were located near a target person, positioned 180 degrees vis-à-vis that person.…”

“…In this manner, a perspective-taking response involved writing a letter (or number) that made sense to the target person, as opposed to the target having to read the letter in a backward form (e.g., a B with its loops to the left). Similarly, Scaffidi Abbate et al (2006) conceptualised perspective taking as being attuned to whether another person possessed a given piece of knowledge. This was measured by asking participants to indicate which of two postcards should be sent to the experimenter's grandparents in Great Britain.…”

“…Scaffidi Abbate et al (2006) and Wicklund (2007) hinted that perspective taking would be difficult 'if another person's visual or conceptual perspective was inaccessibleowing perhaps to distance' (Scaffidi Abbate et al, 2006, p. 287). Wicklund (2007) argues that perspective taking and empathy are difficult when the people involved are not together physically.…”