In 2007 a Palestinian youth named Tareq attended an unusual summer camp. Organized by the foundation Seeds of Peace, the camp is designed to facilitate closeness between Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, who spend a week together canoeing, hiking and—more important—discussing their experiences of the conflict in which their two nations are entrenched. Tareq's reactions were not what he expected, however. In this idyllic setting, hearing his Israeli counterparts bare their thoughts and feelings, he knew he should come to see them as people just like himself. Instead the more he thought of the Israeli teens' point of view, the less he sympathized with them.

Our intuitions—and a great deal of psychological theory—suggest that “perspective taking,” the proverbial walk in someone else's shoes, can cure many of our interpersonal ills. Thinking deeply about another person's experience should reduce prejudice, shrink the aisle separating political factions and even bring an end to violent conflict. The logic is that problems between groups often amount to a misunderstanding. As such, time spent together—a cup of coffee here, a beer summit there—will lead individuals on either side to understand that they are more similar than they imagined, dissolve their misconceptions and begin to erase their divisions.

This logic is usually valid. Decades of research demonstrate that perspective taking often increases people's sense of camaraderie and similarity to others, while fostering prosocial behaviors such as helping and cooperation. It can also encourage generosity, even toward members of groups such as opposing political parties that a person initially disdained. Yet this approach sometimes fails. In fact, a growing number of studies emphasize the ironic, harmful effects that perspective taking can have.

Group Conflicts

Organizations devoted to resolving conflicts often use perspective taking as an antidote to long-standing animosity between ethnic and political groups. Yet Tareq's experience suggests this strategy may be misguided. Two years after his Seeds of Peace summer Tareq sought out—and eventually worked with—neuroscientist Emile Bruneau of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who studies the psychology of intergroup conflicts. According to Bruneau, numerous studies have shown that perspective taking works to improve the attitudes of dominant groups toward stigmatized ones—for example, that thinking about the mind of a homeless person makes us more amenable to helping him—but this method by no means has to translate to groups locking horns with one another.

In fact, Bruneau recently demonstrated that during a conflict, the effects of perspective taking might differ dramatically depending on who is walking in whose shoes. In work carried out across two continents and described in a forthcoming paper, Bruneau found that relatively dominant conflict groups (in his studies, Israelis and white Americans) feel more positively about their nondominant counterparts (Palestinians and Mexican immigrants, respectively) after taking their perspective but that swapping places mentally has no such beneficial effect for lower-status groups. In fact, listening to the point of view of white Americans actually worsened the attitudes of Mexican immigrants toward this group.

One possible reason for this failure is that less powerful individuals already engage in frequent perspective taking, so more of the same will not budge their attitudes. In a study published in 2011 psychologist Michael Kraus, now at the University of Illinois, and his colleagues found that because the well-being of individuals with lower social status is often subject to the changing whims of others, they tend to pay closer attention to others' minds than do more powerful individuals. Another possibility is that nondominant groups or individuals—students, say, or low-ranking employees—may feel as though their own perspective is too often ignored, making it difficult for them to listen to the dominant side's point of view. Indeed, Bruneau found that nondominant people's attitudes about disputes improved not after perspective taking but after “perspective giving”—that is, describing their own experiences to attentive members of higher-ranking groups. As Bruneau describes it, “nondominant groups express a strong desire to be heard or, in their words, to ‘speak truth to power.’”

5 Comments

1. 1. engineer.sci 06:14 PM 6/11/12

   I would suggest that as the technique is directed by egoism not altruism, it never actually does anything save bringing subconscious motivation to the surface.
   
   Now, lets start with "supposed," because actual "weak" and "dominant" -- true or not -- have little to do with the matter. The essential point actually appears to be an underlying (even subconscious) mix of egoistic mix of avoiding pain of guilt and/or pain of fear, and the pleasure of dominance.
   
   When one feels guilty or fearful, there is motivation to truly wish to identify with the source as "being him/her" in a sense relief -- how could I have any sense of guilt or fear regarding myself? As well, pain makes "death" a draw for the ego. As such, what would seem altruistic, temporarily making the other more real at the expensive of my own existence, is really just the balance sheet of pure egoism.
   
   When the motivation is dominance, its a matter of pleasure and the ego draws towards "life." It certainly does not want to identify with the other -- it wants to eat the other alive! The beginning of hunting is study of your prey like the "sympathetic" tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park who tilted its head to the side in its stare, just before swallowing the object of its "identification" whole.
   
   To this we must understand that at least at the subconscious level, the business people of the second case -- whether from a "dominant" or "weak" company, both were acting to dominate (strengthen the grip or turn the tables, respectively).
   
   Regarding the first case, one must look at the education -- formal and societal -- of a typical Israeli and Palestinian teenager.
   
   The former gets the mixed signal of guilt in terms of Israeli rule over Palestinians in isolation; and fear over terrorism, and potential genocide connected with the Palestinians in the context of the greater Arab and Islamic worlds. So the Israeli teenager is coming from pain of guilt and fear.
   
   The latter gets a signal of Israelis as a conquering enemy in the context of "in the end its going to be either us or them." So the Palestinian teenager is coming from the pleasure of a weak company wishing to dominate/eliminate the strong.
   
   Again, this has nothing necessarily to do with objective reality, even conscious motivations.
   
   In the end, mutual responsibility will be the key to altruism and true happiness. It's not imagining myself as the other and trying to empathize, but rather truly knowing that in this interconnected world, my own happiness/sadness is in that of the other, AS the other.

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2. 2. zghermann in reply to engineer.sci 06:43 PM 6/11/12

   I agree.
   For eliminating the present problems, conflicts in the world we have to start with education, an education that prepares young and "old" generations for the global, integral world we evolved into, concentrating on our interconnectedness, how much we rely, depend on each other, giving people the means to establish a common space above their differences, cultures, traditions, judgements even hatred, from which common, mutual space we can build a new, united Humanity.

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3. 3. MIkki 09:44 PM 6/12/12

   Or maybe the weaker group shouldn't have to listen and try to understand and appreciate the dominant group's position? Should slaves have had to listen to white slave owners talking about how hard their life would be if the slaves were freed? I think it's essentially the same situation in many cases, certainly Israel and Palestine (though I'll admit Indians and settlers might've been a better comparison). Maybe we should educate the dominant group more about what they've done to the subordinate group.

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4. 4. Padgie in reply to MIkki 06:14 AM 6/13/12

   Exactly. Works in one direction and not [sometimes] in the other. Why does this stuff seem so obvious when it is pointed out?

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5. 5. dougcouch 03:09 PM 6/16/12

   As I read through the article, I began to notice that a significant element was absent, which affects or can affect the outcomes one might expect. I would imagine that further exploration which incorporates this element will show a more positively homogenous result.
   
   Particularly when the subject matter of shared perspectives is emotionally intense with at least two distinct sides or versions of, or bases for such emotional intensity, whatever result from sharing perspectives may well be similarly intense. And the degree of disparity between emotional intense perspectives (as opposed to merely being different) may also increase the cumulative response results.
   
   As noted in the article, the direction of increase in the emotional context of two differing perspectives, may become what is (initially) noted as being more divergent. However, the additional element of longer time and more inter-perspective sharing between the parties, especially in a cooperation-fostering environment, can lead in useful directions. One is, both parties getting accustomed to the information and perspective to which they were initially reacting, and some related compromises or even changes in each party's own perspectives. Another is further evaluating the benefit of compromise and tolerance versus the pain or detriment of refusing these.
   
   A common example is when people get married. The two parties each have different perspectives, and early on these begin to be noticed more and more as being different than each party's own and as different than the projected positive blending expected. Given enough time, if the parties are genuine in purpose and willing to find a peaceful and workable path to preserve that which is best between them, greater understanding of each other in terms of perspective differences is found. Greater appreciation for the bases for those differences and greater tolerance or willingness to compromise in meaningful ways are also found. While clearly this is not the case with all marriages, the perspective sharing at least offers each the "opportunity" of reevaluating their own perspective, considering the perspective of another more completely, and weighing these in terms of what they want. Some may fly off center wildly, and some may simply agree to disagree and move on. But in the cases of those with both positive and negative results, these aspects of self and another (or others) are brought to the surface from their formerly hidden space. Overall? A good thing I think...with caution to not allow these to become too explosive.

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