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Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective 1 Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Bortolussi, Marisa Linden, Christopher H. |
| Copyright Year | 2017 |
| Abstract | We present a new framework for the discussion of perspective taking, particularly with reference to the processing of literary narrative. In this framework, adopting a perspective entails matching evaluations with those of the narrative character. This approach predicts that perspectives should be piecemeal rather than holistic, dynamic rather than consistent, effortful rather than automatic, and reactive, in the sense that they are a function of the reader’s on-line processing as it interacts with narrative technique. We describe evidence from an interpolated evaluation method in which readers are periodically interrupted and asked to rate evaluations from a character’s perspective. The results indicate that interpolated evaluations interact with narratorial stance to determine a character’s transparency – that is, the extent to which she is rational and understandable. These results demonstrate that perspective taking depends on the details of a reader’s processing over the course of the story. Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective 3 Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective The ability to take into consideration another person’s point of view is a fundamental requirement of many aspects of social interaction. Thus, it is hardly surprising that perspective taking has become a central concern in a wide variety of different disciplines. Discussions and studies of this ability abound in fields such as business and management, sociology, education, philosophy, literary studies, and several subfields of psychology, including developmental (where it is discussed in the context of theory of mind), social, clinical, and personality. In spite of this wealth of research, our understanding of how perspective taking in literature is related to this ability is still rudimentary. The term “perspective taking” is commonly understood to refer to the adoption of another person’s physical vantage point, that is, the ability to imagine what something looks like from where someone else is standing. However, it can also allude to the ability to understand or consider someone’s psychological viewpoint – their thoughts, feelings, or emotions (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, & Gilovich, 2004; Johnson, 2012). In literary studies, it is typically this understanding of the term that is borrowed. The problem is that this simple interpretation is imprecise and leaves unexplained the textual and cognitive requirements and complexities that underly the process of psychological perspective taking. In this paper, we begin by discussing what seems to us to be a common, implicit account of the nature of perspective taking. Although intuitive, this account has a number of obvious deficiencies. As an alternative, we provide a novel framework for the study of literary perspective taking and how narrative technique affects readers. In particular, we argue that perspective taking involves a process of matching evaluations generated during the course of reading. This view entails that perspectives Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective 4 are reactive in the sense that they are determined by the moment-to-moment dynamics of readers’ processing as it is elicited by the details of narrative technique. We then provide some empirical findings that demonstrate both the reactive nature of perspective taking and the role of narratorial guidance. An Implicit Account of Perspective Taking We argue that empirical investigations of perspective taking are often based on assumptions of homogeneity, consistency, and automaticity. First, the nature of the expression, “to take a perspective,” suggests that there is “a perspective” that is homogenous and complete: At some point during reading, readers’ evaluations align with those of a character, and there would seem to be no possibility of not taking that perspective to any degree. Second, “a perspective” seems to presume that it is consistently aligned with a character, so that it can be identified independent of the dynamics of the reader’s processing over the course of the text. Third, there is typically little discussion of mechanisms, so that perspective taking in fiction would seem to occur naturally without motivated effort or risk of failure. In this sense, it is often associated with identification (Green, Brock, & Kaufman, 2004; Kuiken et al., 2004; Tal-Or & Cohen, 2010). This automaticity assumption seems to exclude the possibility that a perspective will not be taken and minimizes the processing complexities that might be involved. Indications of these assumptions can be found in many examples. In the field of media studies, Tal-Or and Cohen (2010) claim viewers “enter the fictional world and adopt the perspectives of characters” (403-4). Busselle (2009) argues that “identification is purported to be the adopting of the perspective and emotions of a character” (338). Green (2004) indicates that Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective 5 “to identify with a character means seeing the character’s perspective as one’s own, to share his or her existence” (319). Although these (and other) researchers were not explicitly arguing for an account of perspective taking that is homogenous, automatic, and consistent, we argue that such properties are typically unexamined, implicit assumptions. To our knowledge, there is no empirical study that challenges them or presents alternatives. Related issues arise in the discussion of perspective taking in real life. Research in social psychology has often been concerned with the effects of taking someone’s perspective, where it is associated with behaviors related to moral development (Kohlberg, 1969) and altruism (Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). Galinsky (2004), for example, found that asking subjects to take someone’s perspective in an essay-writing task had an effect on out-group prejudice. More generally, Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) assume that “perspective-taking has been shown to lead to a merging of the self and other” (709; cf. Davis, Conklin, Smith, & Luce, 1996). (Whether such a merger is possible, or whether perspective taking rather entails an analogical inference from one’s self to others has been the center of a long-standing debate, e.g., Goldman, 2006). This research is focused on the results of perspective taking. Nevertheless, it would seem to presuppose that perspective taking is straightforward and can be engaged volitionally (by, for example, complying with experimental instruction). Consequently, it neglects the question of what that perspective entails and the nature of the perspective taking process itself. Moreover, the assumptions of homogeneity, consistency, and automaticity are inconsistent both with the properties of good literature and with what we know about perspective Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective 6 taking in real life. To begin with, it is easy to find literary examples in which the possibility of taking a character’s perspective seems to be relatively unlikely: Artistic texts can present their readers with complex characters whose own evaluations and opinions are inconsistent, indeterminate, uncertain, or ambivalent, as, for example, with unreliable or naïve narrators. Presumably, such complexity would inhibit the facile taking of a perspective, and readers might share some aspects of a character’s perspective but not others. Thus, it would be unreasonable to think of perspective taking as homogenous. Instead, a perspective is piecemeal in that a reader’s perspective may match a character’s to some extent but is unlikely to match perfectly in any given situation. Similarly, it seems clear that a readers’ understanding of a complex character must change over the course of a story. Thus, perspectives must be dynamic and developing rather than consistently aligned with a character. Finally, the assumption that literature naturally fosters perspective taking implies that there is something about literature, such as specific textual features or techniques, that safeguards readers from the numerous roadblocks that can thwart individuals’ perspective taking in everyday life. Although some researchers have alluded to the complexity of perspective taking in literature (Harding, 1962; Oatley, 1999; van Peer & Chatman, 2001), empirical work on literary response has generally failed to address the reader processes involved in perspective taking. The idea that perspective taking is simple or automatic is surprising given the wealth of psychological research on perspective taking in real life. This work demonstrates that perspective taking entails “a complex and critical set of cognitive abilities” (Barnes-Holmes, McHugh, & Barnes-Holmes, 2004, p. 18) which are prone to failure (Hoffmann, 2000) due to the many Putting Perspective Taking in Perspective 7 requirements that must be met in order for one to succeed in adopting someone else’s perspective. Some of these include: motivation to understand a target’s mindset (Epley & Caruso, 2012); attention (Wondra & Ellsworth, 2015); the ability to overcome the “egocentric default” (Epley & Caruso, 2012, p. 298) and to bracket out the influence of past experience, cultural schemas, biases, misinformation, and so on; access to adequate information; and the ability to draw sound inferences and to “create a complex and fleshed-out representation of the other person” (2012, p. 281). Even under optimal conditions, factors such as morally ambiguous situations can trump even the most skilled perspective takers (Cervone & Tripathi, 2009). There is no reason to think that these types of complexities would not apply in understanding literature. Perspective Taking as Matching Evaluations To move to a deeper analysis of perspective taking as a process, it is necessary to first define the noun “perspective.” In the popular, intuitive sense of the term, “perspective taking” is equated with a matching, or sharing, of perspectives. Such a match can occur as a result of preexisting similarity ( |
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| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~pdixon/Home/resources/Putting-Perspective-Taking-17-09-13.refs.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
