MSL Scale Spotlight: Social Perspective-Taking
By Benjamin P. Correia-Harker, Ph.D.—MSL Co-PI
Recently, I was visiting with family when one of my relatives started talking about the protests related specifically to the murders of several Black folks across the country and more generally to police brutality and systemic racism. She mentioned that the violence against Black people is horrible but that she didn’t agree with blocking off highways and other areas or the destruction of property that was happening concurrently with the protests. Normally, I would let comments like this slide – I prefer not to rock the boat with family. But this time I felt compelled to provide a different perspective, to push back and challenge my relative to see it differently.
I asked what she thought pushes folks to this point – to this type of response? Why are these folks pursuing this course of action? What are these people feeling and how do these feelings influence their actions? I shared that I could understand why Black folks are responding in protest (even with a very small fraction of protesters engaging in property destruction) and tried to imagine with her the frustration, anger, sadness, and other feelings Black folks have as they watch police kill people like them. She was quiet, and I’m hoping she paused for that moment to consider what all of this looks like from Black folks’ perspectives.
Being able to envision a situation or context and infer associated feelings from someone else’s perspective is critical to socially responsible leadership. For college graduates to effectively make positive social change in our society, they must be able to deeply comprehend the perspectives of a range of individuals who compose the diverse communities in which they work and live.
The MSL includes an adapted Davis’s (1983) Perspective-Taking Scale that captures both cognitive and empathetic aspects of social perspective-taking. Student participants are asked to indicate how well the following statements describe them (on a 5-point scale with 1 being ‘does not describe me well’ and 5 being ‘describes me very well’):
I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision
(MSL 2018 average response: 3.94)I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective
(MSL 2018 average response: 4.06)I believe that there are two sides to every question and try to look at them both
(MSL 2018 average response: 4.03)When I’m upset at someone, I usually try to ‘put myself in their shoes’ for a while
(MSL 2018 average response: 3.68)Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place
(MSL 2018 average response: 3.83)
As we navigate times of deep division in our country, how are our students and graduates prepared to understand others’ perspectives? Do we even have a pulse on how well our students can take on the perspective of others? If we’re going to make meaningful shifts that lead to a more equitable and just society, we need citizens who are skilled at social perspective-taking.
Because social perspective-taking is measured by the MSL, educators can use results to understand the degree to which students on their campus embody these behaviors and discern campus experiences that may promote the development of this skill. If you’d like to know what we’re learning about social perspective-taking from a national lens, check out these MSL-based publications: Dugan, Kodama, Correia, & Associates, 2013 and Johnson, Dugan, & Soria, 2017.