Perspective-Taking, Self-Consciousness, and Accuracy in Person Perception

Past difficulties in demonstrating a link between accuracy in person perception and "empathy" are reviewed. The advantages of a forced choice accuracy assessment technique, in which observers view target subjects on video tape and then attempt to match targets with three-word self-descriptions, are discussed. Two studies designed to validate the method were performed. In both studies observers' accuracy in matching targets with self-descriptions exceeded chance. The effects on accuracy of observers' perspective-taking ability and targets' self-consciousness were also explored. Study I revealed that subjects scoring high on a measure of perspective-taking (Davis, 1980) were more accurate than low perspective-takers as predicted. Study II showed that target subjects high in private self-consciousness (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975) were more easily matched with their self-descriptions than were targets low in private self-consciousness. Study II also showed that the effects on accuracy of both observers' perspective-taking abilities and targets' self-consciousness were related to the length of time targets were observed. The theoretical connections between perspective-taking and both stereotype and differential accuracy are discussed.