Seeing What Other People See

Summary of The Research Plan<br>Rationale: Perspective-taking is an important skill. It requires de-centering, taking the perspective of another. This requires both social sensitivity and, in some cases, spatial ability to "see what another sees." Objective: The aim of this study is to determine whether accessible a collectivistic cultural mindset momentarily improves perspective-taking ability compared to accessible individualistic mindset and whether cued mindset effects carry over from one perspective-taking task to the next and from spatial to social tasks. <br>Sample characteristics: German undergraduate volunteers. Most were education majors, others were psychology majors. Data are anonymous. Participants were randomized to individualistic and collectivistic mindset conditions. <br>Method: There are three studies, each with a between-subjects design. All studies were run on Qualtrics software online (not in a lab setting). Participants were recruited via listserve and in-class presentation and sent a url to the survey. The study began with an autobiographical recall task (Studies 1, 2) or a pronoun circling task (Study 3). Half of the participants engaged in a task that focused on the individual as separate (recall a time you worked alone, circling first-person singular pronouns). Half of the participants engaged in a task that focused on the individual as connected (recall a time you worked together with others, circling first-person plural pronouns). After completing the cultural mindset priming task, participants completed a version of the Piagetian 3-mountains task (3 lego buildings), the R-mental rotation task, and a series of self-reports on their spatial and social abilities efficacy and their self-reported empathy.<br>The final questions are gender, age, major, and native language for use in describing our sample.<br><br>