Perspective taking 

Psychology defines it as ‘the process by which an individual views a situation from another’s point-of-view’. Simply speaking, ’ putting oneself in the others shoes’ to judge any situation.

We human beings are taught to take the point of view of others before jumping to conclusions on anything.    Right from childhood, conflicts are resolved by parents, teachers and other elders by asking us to think how our behaviour appears to others, to apologise, to mend matters.

In our childhood this was an important lesson in disciplining children. These days it appears that this has come into conflict with exercising one’s own rights; others point of view verses my own rights.  Any number of examples can be seen around us.

• Even a little child shuns listening to reason, taking the parents view , but adamantly wants something at any cost
• Young people are in constant conflict with parents on various things, never stopping to think about their point of view; spending less time and money on things, keeping surroundings neat and clean, investing quality time with family, devoting time for study and so on. Parents on the other hand forget the little pleasures of childhood that they themselves had craved as children!
• Family members have serious arguments based on whose point of view is more important.
• Husband and wife conflicts are most often a problem of not taking the others perspective. This is leading to serious repercussions of desertion and divorce.

This is true of every human relationship. Interpersonal relationships are going from bad to worse because everybody wants the other to take their perspective, but is not willing to accommodate.

Our grandmothers told us that always think of the other person before any dramatic decision is considered. I remember the number of sacrifices my own grandmother made; never in her entire life of 79 years did she put out a stand that defended only herself, always thought about the good that would come of taking a view that benefits all in the family. Such human beings are fast disappearing; now we all want our own perspective to be considered the most important.

Repercussions of such attitudes

• Family relationships are tepid or nonexistent. Brothers and sisters no longer communicate affectionately since all want their perspective to be seen as important
• In laws are seen as people to be used and set aside; most difficult aspect of modern marriages is that interpersonal adjustments between in laws and the bride. She is adamant and so are they!
• Parents are seen as a burden and therefore one sees an increase in elderly homes
• Long term friendships are less likely to sustain; slowly but surely we no longer seem to take our friends viewpoints into consideration.

What could be the reasons? A few are mentioned

• Slowly but surely we are moving towards an ‘individualistic’ inner world. I, me, myself are the most important things in our world. Everyone and everything comes only after that.
• The nature of competitive world out there. In our grandparents’ time, people hardly competed with each other, but now everyone is perceived as a potential threat to ones ascendance in life. In this scenario, it is crucial to hang on to one’s own perspective in life
• Our self esteem is somehow linked to winning every battle in life, be it an argument with your spouse, a neighbour, a fight with a motorist on the street, a classmate in school, a colleague at office, or even your own parent or parents-in- law! How can you take their perspective in such a scenario?
• Taking the others perspective requires a high degree of sense of self worth and inner secure feeling. Very few individuals have such self sufficiency to be able to look at the world out there as good, nonthreatening and worthy of positive attention.
• Taking another’s perspective requires love, trust and respect for humanity.  We are increasingly seeing others as impediments to our progress. Thereby, suspicion,  mistrust, and judgemental assessment of others are becoming the norm rather than exception.

What can be done to improve our perspective taking? Seeing the advantages of it rather than the negatives is the only way.

• When we stop to think of the other persons point of view, our world view changes completely; we stop thinking only about ourselves and gain strength to view world without ‘I’ as the centre piece.
• Perspective taking improves our horizons in understanding human interpersonal relationships
• We consciously or unconsciously end up becoming more empathetic human beings
• We make new friends and improve our family relationships
• We gain better reputation among our circle of people; it is worth having though no certificate of appreciation or a promotion is forthcoming.
• It gives us inner peace…we come back again to our inner self. We start off with an insecure , threatened inner self and by changing our perspective taking skills, we get back to a peaceful, contented inner self.

Worth it, isn’t it? Trying is important…who knows we all may get hooked to taking others perspective and gain invaluable insight into our own strengths.