How We Understand Others: A Theory of How Social Perspective Taking Unfolds

Abstract

Arguably, social perspective taking—the process through which perceivers discern the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of a target—facilitates interpersonal interactions more than any other human capacity. Thus, this capacity is foundational for relationships, mental health and well-being, behaviors, and much more. Despite its importance to the human experience and substantial research into its precursors and outcomes, little is known about the social perspective taking process itself. How does a social perspective taking attempt actually unfold? We pArguably, social perspective taking—the process through which perceivers discern the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of a target—facilitates interpersonal interactions more than any other human capacity. Thus, this capacity is foundational for relationships, mental health and well-being, behaviors, and much more. Despite its importance to the human experience and substantial research into its precursors and outcomes, little is known about the social perspective taking process itself. How does a social perspective taking attempt actually unfold? We propose that perceivers engage in a process consisting of up to four phases: perception of the target, motivation to engage in social perspective taking, strategy selection, and evaluation of their attempt. Scholars have emphasized two primary outcomes of this process—social perspective taking effort and accuracy. We review the literature in support of these phases, noting the relative maturity of each contributing line of research. In doing so we hope to provide a framework for understanding how existing studies relate to one another, prioritize future investigations, and offer preliminary thoughts into which parts of the process might be most promising for research aimed at improving social perspective taking.ropose that perceivers engage in a process consisting of up to four phases: perception of the target, motivation to engage in social perspective taking, strategy selection, and evaluation of their attempt. Scholars have emphasized two primary outcomes of this process—social perspective taking effort and accuracy. We review the literature in support of these phases, noting the relative maturity of each contributing line of research. In doing so we hope to provide a framework for understanding how existing studies relate to one another, prioritize future investigations, and offer preliminary thoughts into which parts of the process might be most promising for research aimed at improving social perspective taking.

Social perspective taking: A professional development induction to improve teacher–student relationships and student learning.

“…Yet, in real-world settings involving ongoing relationships, many features of the situation differ. For example, when participants agree to participate in a laboratory study, their motivation to engage in perspective taking is frequently supplied by the experimenter through incentives to participate in the study (Gehlbach & Mu, 2022). Furthermore, laboratory-based experiments can structure situations that cannot be reproduced in authentic contexts like classrooms, such as fabricating similarities between perceivers and targets (e.g., Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000).…”

“…Notably, laboratory studies that ask participants to engage particular social perspective-taking strategies face key challenges if their findings are to generalize to real-world settings—for example, is the strategy in question usable in the real world (Gehlbach & Mu, 2022)? Getting people to pause their busy lives and write a couple paragraphs about a “day in the life” of a target of interest may be unrealistic in many contexts.…”

“…In the search to improve TSRs, or any relationships for that matter, social perspective taking—the capacity to discern the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of others—is regularly implicated as a promising potential lever. To the extent that two parties might better understand one another, tailor their behaviors to the other party’s needs, or empathize with each other’s feelings, substantial benefits may accrue for their relationship (Gehlbach, 2017; Gehlbach & Mu, 2022).…”

“…In other words, for a given social perspective-taking attempt, perceivers must first be motivated to take the perspective of a particular target and then bring to bear a set of cognitive resources to accomplish that task. Whether perceivers are motivated to take a target’s perspective depends on more malleable factors such as perceivers’ confidence to make accurate inferences about the target and the effort that they put into the perspective-taking attempt, as well as less malleable factors such as perceivers’ propensity to engage in social perspective taking and features of the context (Gehlbach & Mu, 2022). Meanwhile, perceivers’ abilities encompass what approaches they use to gather relevant information (e.g., asking third parties for insights about a perspective-taking target), what sources of information they rely upon to make inferences (e.g., a target’s tone of voice, facial expressions, or choice of words), and what strategies they use to make inferences about the target (e.g., drawing on background information about the target or accounting for the target’s context; Gehlbach & Brinkworth, 2012).…”

“…other's feelings, substantial benefits may accrue for their relationship (Gehlbach, 2017;Gehlbach & Mu, 2022).…”