Perspective-Taking, Conflict, and Press: Drawing an E on Your Forehead

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Abstract
Perspective-taking and its opposite (egocentric perceptions of others) are studied here on the basis of the quality of the relationship between the perceiving person and the target person being perceived. It is assumed that subjectively experienced press (Murray, 1938), defined as participants' feeling impelled to deal with another, will be a central determinant of perspective-taking, in the sense of being positively related to perspective-taking performance. However, if a relationship spells conflict for a person, then press should come to be negatively related to perspective-taking. This set of assumptions was tested in the course of three studies, all implementing the "drawing an E on your forehead" procedure developed 15 years ago by Hass (1979). In Study 1, in which conflict with the other was an inherent aspect of participants' perceiving the other, higher press led to a collapse of perspective-taking. In Study 2 we attempted to eliminate conflict from the setting, and in this case higher press led to an enhancement of perspective-taking performance. Study 3, an experiment, varied participants' felt press to deal with the target person as well as the extent of conflict; we found that press furthered perspective-taking as long as conflict was absent, but given a strong conflict, press led to disrupted perspective-taking. The statistical interaction, combined with the effects of the first two studies, confirms a theoretical model concerning the conditions under which others' unique perspectives are (or are not) acknowledged.

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