Perspective taking

Recently saw a hard hitting film on interpersonal conflict in a family. All were  into their own self centered little world. In my career too often I have seen the self absorbed bosses as well as             subordinates clashing with each other. What was missing here? Perspective taking.

It an ability to perceive a situation  from another’s point of view; putting self in another’s shoes.

We encounter the need for perspective taking almost every day on some issue or the other. Right from trying to understand our family members’ perspectives to our boss’s ideas, to our friends’ inclinations… all require some perspective taking.

There is a lot of psychological research on the concept. While research points out the worst case scenarios of utter lack of perspective taking in some individuals due to both physiological and psychological imbalances in their personalities leading them to become psychopaths or sociopaths, here I would like to discuss things like everyday life experiences and perspective taking

Why is it important?

• It is important to live with others and maintain relationships, It is necessary in order to be able to work with others, build businesses and generally be a sociable human being
• It helps in complex psychological aspects, such as self control, deferring actions, avoiding conflict and thinking things over
• It is very important in developing sympathy and empathy , which are critical for better human interactions
• Indirectly it helps in self perception and self evaluation too, essential for anyone to be firmly on the ground on our two feet!

Perspective taking could come naturally to some humans; but unfortunately it appears that many among us are not inclined towards it, or incapable of it!

What could be the barriers?

• Your self interest; selfish desire to reach a goal, acquire something, get into a better situation
• ego being fragile and hurt easily if you feel you are giving in to others
• Being simply ignorant about the other person’s ideas, needs and desires
• Perceiving our problems and needs as too important to be ignored
• Not inclined to like or appreciate the other person; when we do not like the other person, we certainly would not like to think about his/her perspective
• Sheer cussedness; yes, some individuals  have this tendency to see others suffer
• Having poor social cognition to be able to involve in multidimensional thinking
• The final one and really a dastardly one is that we do not want to take others perspective, since that will entail our behaviour change!

What are the repercussions of not taking others perspectives?

• At a common level, those who live in their own cocoons and refuse to take others’ perspectives, live in isolation, mentally at least, if not physically.
• It is very hard for such persons to make good friends, since they are incapable of reciprocation of goodwill
• In spousal relationships, inability to take the important others’ perspective can be a severe hindrance to conjugal contentment
• In the case of one’s own children, it can become nightmarish… constant conflicts with children is the outcome
• In the case of work place environment it can be nerve racking with constant disagreements, arguments and bad blood all around
• With bosses, it can be suicidal… one may have to leave jobs frequently

Does that mean we have to take others perspective and agree with them always? Certainly  not.

Taking others perspective helps in different ways

• If we do not agree with their perspective,’ agree to disagree’ in a socially acceptable manner. Many examples come to mind, political opinions of others, opinion about commonly known other persons, books, films, music and so on
• Finding out others perspective helps in rethinking our own ideas about people, events, ideals, philosophies, legal system, government, and in general the world at large. We may revise some of our ideas or we many not…but learn to keep an open mind!
• It prevents costly mistakes in life. Many divorces could be avoided which are taken with the reason tagged as ‘irreconcilable differences’. Perspective taking greatly helps prevent such preventable calamities in personal lives
• Perspective taking when seriously considered with regard to conflicts with children, can clearly be a winner all the way. Who among us have not been naughty children? Is it too hard to take the child’s perspective? Many a school counselling session can be avoided if we as parents considered the child’s point of view!
• Perspective taking helps build teams in the job situation, it helps by leveraging diversity, utilising skill sets effectively, pooling ideas and arriving at innovative new solutions
• Boss subordinate relationships can benefit extensively by perspective taking; discussions can become meaningful, tempered with better understanding and accommodating diverse views.
• Overall, perspective taking has psychological benefits for us; builds self control, observation ability, skills in analysis and synthesis of information and gives us broad understanding of human nature.
• We tend to become better human beings overall. When we try to take others perspective, we become better listeners, better at calming our own self gabble, become other – oriented and less self centered.

So many advantages to considering others perspectives!  Can we all try to be better at this skill of perspective taking and a little less self oriented ?