INVESTIGATIONS ABOUT FACILITATING CONDITIONS OF PERSPECTIVE-TAKING

According to Piaget (1924), egocentrism is defined as the complementar y process of perspective-taking. The topic of the present research con cerns the investigation of facilitating conditions of perspective-taki ng, Different approaches with respect to such facilitating conditions of perspective-taking in social-developmental and clinical psychology are similarly focusing on one aspect: The inclusion of different persp ectives (an extended perspective) seems generally to facilitate perspe ctive-taking (in contrast to the engagement with one single perspectiv e). in the frame of a systematic approach to perspective-taking (Stein s & Wicklund, 1993, 1996; Wicklund & Steins, 1996) the influence of an extended perspective on perspective-taking/egocentrism is investigate d in conflict-situations. The results of three studies show that persp ective-taking can be facilitated by extending a perspective in contras t to the engagement with one single perspective.