Perspective swap
See a situation through another person's eyes.
Variants
- default
- Cut and fold a standing figure for each perspective — needs scissors
Data fields
The fields a spec's page can set for this component (see switchback show perspective-swap --json):
roles
Grounding
Helps: when you are stuck in your own view of a situation that involves other people: writing it from their side reduces self-centred judgement and, in negotiation studies, surfaced deals people had missed, but it does not make you more accurate about what they think, so close by writing what you would ask them; the self-distanced role gives only a small lift
Backfires: when the other side is a competitor, since considering their view can make people act more selfishly, when you slip into a stereotype of the role, or when the imagined view is read back as their actual view, which can raise confidence without raising accuracy
- BDeliberately writing out a situation from another party's point of view reduces egocentric bias, and brings out considerations the writer would otherwise miss, compared with considering it only from one's own view.Galinsky & Moskowitz (2000), Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin & White (2008), Epley, Caruso & Bazerman (2006), Todd & Galinsky (2014)
- CImagining another person's perspective does not reliably make you more accurate about what they think. Asking them does.Eyal, Steffel & Epley (2018)
- BReflecting on one's own situation from a distanced perspective (third person, or "me in a year") reduces emotional reactivity and supports wiser reasoning, compared with a first-person immersed view.Murdoch, Chapman, Crane & Gucciardi (2023), Kross et al. (2014), Grossmann & Kross (2014), Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk (2015), Powers & LaBar (2019)
- CPhysically placing a figure at, or standing in, another party's position increases adoption of that party's perspective, compared with imagining it.Tversky & Hard (2009), Kessler & Thomson (2010), Paivio & Greenberg (1995), Wagenmakers et al. (2016)