IP Skill: Perspective Taking
- beckgarya
- Jan 19, 2016
- 2 min read
There are any number of interpersonal communication skills that can be beneficial in our interactions with others. Part of the challenge we each face in our lives is identifying ones that are useful in multiple settings, across many experiences, without losing specificity (e.g., talking).
One of these is perspective-taking, and its cousins empathy and sympathy. This isn't to say that we need to spend our whole day "walking a mile in another shoes." That's simply a lot of walking, and just practically speaking exhausting to constantly relate to everyone's life.
Instead, developing an awareness of other's needs, motivations, and emotional state is a part of another communication concept called "audience analysis." Beyond TV audiences, or media audiences in general, anything you say needs to be tailored to the people are you delivering it to for maximum effectiveness. Consider sharing news about a death in the family with a child, or telling a story about a party this past weekend to either your parent(s) or your partner in crime. The details and delivery will likley be different. I used to have a problem swearing too much around my parents after coming home from undergraduate social experiences...I wasn't code-switching effectively.
While I this is convenient jargon-talk here, the idea is that one of the most useful interpersonal communication skills across all of them in perspective taking. Also known as "practical mindreading" perspective taking involves anticipating anothers thoughts, motivations, needs, and future actions as a resource toward making our own communicative, interactive decisions. Other ways to describe this could certaintly be "assessing another's character," "sizing one up," or "anticipating another's moves."
If you're looking for the psychology tie in, there are numerous studies about the concept of naive reality (i.e., assuming others know what we know), empathic accuracy (i.e., degree of similiarity with one's impression of the other's emotional state and that of the actual other), and even the value of concientiousness (as a positive personality characteristic).
The case example here today is an article about undertanding the plight of the poor. The reader needs no reminder about the "Great Recession" of 2008, that 8 years later many in the nation are still digging out from or just now stabilizing. This situation is exacerbated by the disappearance of the middle class over the past 20 years, and the whole 99% vs. 1% polarization of the wealth in the US (and worldwide) economies.
Thus, as the nation and it's people emerge from dire financial circumstances, like a moth (or butterfly) from its cocoon, it's important to keep a grounded understanding of the plight of some who may not be out of financial hardship for another 8 years or longer. The concequence is an incomplete perspective of the current human experience for many, and missing an opportunity to practice this IP skill in a unique way.
For the article, see:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/09/13/being-poor-changes-your-thinking-about-everything/
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