Starting a habit, listening to another person, turning experience into better judgment. Explore 67 academic publications in eight fields through questions from everyday work.
What the research found → Connections to your work
Each entry includes the study’s participants, methods and conditions. “Connection to this page” is our editorial interpretation informed by the research.
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Research on “perspective”
11 studies
Meta-analysis2018
Leader autonomy support in the workplace: A meta-analytic review
Perceiving a supervisor as respecting one's perspective and choices was positively associated with autonomous work motivation, basic need satisfaction, positive work behaviors and well-being.
Connection to this page
Provides background for considering work conditions that offer room to think and choose, along with necessary materials and support from others.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Combined 754 correlations from 72 workplace studies, 83 independent samples and 32,870 people, examining autonomy-supportive leadership, motivation, basic needs and work outcomes.
Scope and limitations
Many studies were cross-sectional and used self-reports. Reverse relationships and shared measurement methods are possible. The evidence does not establish that supervisors' behavior causes the outcomes.
Gavin R. Slemp; Margaret L. Kern; Kent J. Patrick; Richard M. Ryan (2018). Leader autonomy support in the workplace: A meta-analytic review
Motivation and Emotion, 42(5), 706–724
DOI: 10.1007/s11031-018-9698-y
Original research (experiment)1994
Facilitating internalization: The self-determination theory perspective
An environment that explained the reason, acknowledged feelings and conveyed choice increased the tendency to accept engagement in the task as one's own.
Connection to this page
Explain the purpose of trying an action and leave room for the person to choose, rather than simply prescribing what to do.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Assigned 192 psychology students to eight combinations of meaningful explanations, acknowledgment of feelings and language conveying choice, then compared subsequent engagement in an uninteresting task.
Scope and limitations
This was a short task experiment with students. It did not directly examine sustained workplace behavior or performance, and it does not show that wording alone is sufficient.
Edward L. Deci; Haleh Eghrari; Brian C. Patrick; Dean R. Leone (1994). Facilitating internalization: The self-determination theory perspective
Journal of Personality, 62(1), 119–142
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1994.tb00797.x
Original research (experiments)1978
Recall of previously unrecallable information following a shift in perspective
After changing perspective, participants recalled additional information important to the new perspective and less information important only to the old one. Perspective affected retrieval as well as the initial reading.
Connection to this page
Provides background for considering how people may retrieve different information as important from the same event. Ask what the other person is attending to when judging, rather than assuming it from their job title.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
In two experiments, university students read a story from a burglar's or prospective homebuyer's perspective, recalled it once, then changed perspective and recalled it again.
Scope and limitations
The study concerns temporarily assigned perspectives and story memory, not comparisons of actual sales, planning and management roles or effects of everyday work experience. It does not justify fixed classifications of how each role perceives things.
Richard C. Anderson; James W. Pichert (1978). Recall of previously unrecallable information following a shift in perspective
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17(1), 1–12
DOI: 10.1016/S0022-5371(78)90485-1
Foundational theory (book chapter)1991
Grounding in communication
Described conversation as joint work: beyond sending an utterance, people use each other's responses to establish whether understanding is shared sufficiently for their purpose.
Connection to this page
View checking as a back-and-forth in which each person's responses help adjust communication and understanding, rather than a one-way effort to extract all the conditions.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Organized examples of face-to-face conversation and prior research into an account of how the purpose and medium of communication change the methods and costs of checking understanding.
Scope and limitations
This is not an experiment measuring a new intervention. Nor does the theory require perfect agreement on everything; the necessary level of understanding depends on purpose and medium.
Herbert H. Clark; Susan E. Brennan (1991). Grounding in communication
Perspectives on socially shared cognition, pp. 127–149 (APA; book chapter)
DOI: 10.1037/10096-006
Original research (experiments)2018
Perspective mistaking: Accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective, not taking perspective
Instructions to imagine another person's perspective did not consistently improve prediction accuracy and sometimes increased confidence alone. Accuracy improved when direct conversation supplied new information.
Connection to this page
Offer a tentative understanding and ask about it, then update it from the answer, rather than deciding someone else's background or criteria for them.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
25 experiments tested whether instructions to imagine another person's perspective improved predictions of emotions, preferences and other states. The final experiment also compared direct conversation.
Scope and limitations
The outcome was accuracy in predicting particular mental states. The research did not directly measure consideration for others in general, long-term collaboration or workplace results.
Tal Eyal; Mary Steffel; Nicholas Epley (2018). Perspective mistaking: Accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective, not taking perspective
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 114(4), 547–571
DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000115
Original research (individual-difference measures and experiments)2008
Why It Pays to Get Inside the Head of Your Opponent: The Differential Effects of Perspective Taking and Empathy in Negotiations
Cognitively considering the other person's position helped reveal hidden opportunities for agreement and mutually beneficial trade-offs. Results differed from those for emotional empathy.
Connection to this page
Consider the other person's circumstances and priorities alongside your own, and explore options while checking assumptions through actual dialogue.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Three studies compared perspective taking and empathy using individual-difference measures and experimental manipulations, examining agreements and trade-offs across negotiation issues.
Scope and limitations
The findings concern specific negotiation tasks. They do not mean empathy is unnecessary in everyday collaboration or demonstrate an ability to accurately infer another person's feelings.
Adam D. Galinsky; William W. Maddux; Debra Gilin; Judith B. White (2008). Why It Pays to Get Inside the Head of Your Opponent: The Differential Effects of Perspective Taking and Empathy in Negotiations
Psychological Science, 19(4), 378–384
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02096.x
Original research (experiments)1977
Taking different perspectives on a story
Information important from a given perspective was related to whether it was learned and recalled one week later. The findings supported the account that reading perspective helps organize and retrieve information.
Connection to this page
The same material may draw attention to different information depending on why someone reads it. Check the person's purpose and focus rather than assigning a fixed perspective by occupation.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Two experiments with 176 university students examined stories read from an assigned perspective or with no assigned perspective, relating importance ratings to immediate and one-week recall.
Scope and limitations
The research used temporarily assigned perspectives and story memory, not actual occupational differences. An erratum in the same year corrected a table heading and statistical notation in the results; this summary does not quote those statistics.
James W. Pichert; Richard C. Anderson (1977). Taking different perspectives on a story
Journal of Educational Psychology, 69(4), 309–315
DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.69.4.309
Original research (experiments)2000
Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension
Listeners also looked at objects the speaker could not see. Their search for referents was not restricted to mutually visible objects, suggesting a process of correcting interpretations using mutual knowledge.
Connection to this page
Check what each person can see and knows, rather than assuming that materials or circumstances obvious to you are also known to the other person.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Two experiments tracked eye movements while people followed instructions to move objects, examining whether objects visible to both parties and objects hidden from the speaker became candidate referents.
Scope and limitations
The experiments used constrained object arrangements and instructions, with eye movements indicating candidate interpretations. They do not mean people cannot use others' perspectives or that every conversation follows the same sequence of misunderstanding.
Boaz Keysar; Dale J. Barr; Jennifer A. Balin; Jason S. Brauner (2000). Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension
Psychological Science, 11(1), 32–38
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00211
Experimental research (six laboratory and field studies)2008
If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests for Help
Requesters underestimated the likelihood of receiving help and tended to overlook the social discomfort another person may experience when refusing.
Connection to this page
Ask for specific help before carrying a problem alone, while making room for the other person to decline or explain conditions.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Compared requesters' predictions with actual compliance with direct requests for help, investigating prediction biases through manipulations including changes in perspective.
Scope and limitations
The research concerns direct requests and cannot be generalized to all emails or long-term workplace relationships. Compliance should also be distinguished from willing agreement.
Francis J. Flynn, Vanessa K. B. Lake (2008). If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests for Help
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), 128–143
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.128
Original experimental research2014
Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters.
Language adopting a slightly distanced perspective on oneself showed improvements related to psychological distance, coping with stress and behavioral ratings by third parties.
Connection to this page
Relates to reconsidering how you want to proceed before giving an immediate response.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Seven studies involving 585 people compared first-person reflection with reflection using one's name or similar language, including social-stress tasks such as presentations.
Scope and limitations
The evidence mainly concerns short experimental tasks. It does not establish that continuing a particular wording improves long-term work outcomes.
Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324
DOI: 10.1037/a0035173
Integrative research review and theoretical framework2023
The Role of Language in Organizational Sensemaking: An Integrative Theoretical Framework and an Agenda for Future Research.
Describes language as shaping understanding of events by providing cognitive frames and through interpersonal interactions and ideas shared within organizations.
Connection to this page
Provides background for examining how people add meaning to the same words through differences in roles, contexts and interactions.
Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Collected and selected literature on language and organizational sensemaking through June 2022, organizing theoretical perspectives from 224 publications.
Scope and limitations
This review integrates theory and research. It is not an experiment estimating the effects of particular words or ways of speaking.
Whittle, A., Vaara, E., & Maitlis, S. (2023). The Role of Language in Organizational Sensemaking: An Integrative Theoretical Framework and an Agenda for Future Research.
