How well do we know each other?

An experimental study about the effect of feedback on perspective-taking

Giordano Tuvo

u679980 – 2021705

Master’s Thesis

Communication and Information Sciences

Specialisation: Business Communication & Digital Media

School of Humanities and Digital Sciences

Tilburg University, Tilburg

Supervisor: D.J. Damen MA

Second Reader: Dr. P.J. van der Wijst

July 2019

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 1

Abstract

Previous research showed that individuals often fail to correctly take other people's perspective. This mistake is argued to result from a cognitive biased known as empathy gap. When individuals fall prey of the empathy gap, they find it difficult to understand what a person in a different emotional state is feeling. People encounter this difficulty because they overestimate the similarities between their own perspective and the one of the other person. In other words, they project their own perspective onto the other's perspective. Consequently, they generate inaccurate perspective-taking judgments. The focus of the present research was to investigate whether receiving information about the other's perspective could influence the correctness of perspective takers judgments. An experiment was conducted in which participants were asked to react to 30 fictitious money distributions. Participants were informed that the sums were divided between them and another person. Individuals who took part in the study were divided into three groups: one group was given explicit perspective-taking instructions, one group received feedback about the other's perspective and one group did not receive perspective-taking instructions nor feedback

(control group). It was hypothesised that participants who received feedback about the other person's emotions would make more accurate perspective-taking judgments than participants in the other two conditions. Furthermore, it was expected that explicit perspective-taking instructions would lead to more instances of egocentric projection than the other two instructions types. The findings showed that the type of conditions in which participants were did not have an influence on the accuracy of their judgments about the other's emotional state. Furthermore, participants who received feedback projected their own perspective onto the other more than individuals who received perspective-taking instructions and more than participants in the control condition. We conclude by reflecting on the reasons why the experiment displayed these unexpected results and with suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Perspective-taking, Perspective Getting, Egocentric Projection; Accuracy; Emotions

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 2

Table of contents

Introduction ...... 3

Theoretical framework ...... 5 The Empathy gap...... 5 The Egocentric bias ...... 6 Perspective-taking instructions...... 7

Method ...... 11 Design ...... 11 Participants ...... 11 Pretest ...... 12 Procedure ...... 14 Measures ...... 16

Results ...... 17 Accuracy of judgments ...... 17 Egocentric projection ...... 20

Conclusion and Discussion ...... 23 Accuracy of judgments ...... 24 Egocentric projection ...... 24 Limitations and future research ...... 24

References ...... 27

Appendix...... 32

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 3

Introduction

Since the beginning of human history, everyone’s life is characterised by interactions between individuals (Masten, Morelli, & Eisenberger, 2011). When two or more individuals engage in a communication exchange, an underlying process immediately starts taking place: understanding each other’s mind (Sperber & Wilson, 1986). As a matter of fact, for effective communication, it is deemed necessary that communicators are aware of the mental state of the other party (Sperber &

Wilson, 2002). This is due to the nature of communication, which is not always explicit. In fact, people might not always explicitly state what they mean (Yus, 1999). There might be information which they may be unable or unwilling to disclose or which is not explicitly formulated (Sperber &

Wilson, 2002). Therefore, receivers need to decode and interpret this implicit information themselves (Yus, 1999).

Hence, we can state that understanding the mind and mental state of the person to whom we are talking is a fundamental step for successful communication. Luckily, it is well-known that people have an innate ability to understand and represent others’ mental state (Premack &

Woodruff, 1978). Individuals can try to do so by observing their counterparts’ explicit and implicit behaviour (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). For instance, when we witness people opening their birthday present, we unconsciously evaluate whether or not they genuinely like the item they have just received by observing their words, facial expressions, body language etc. Nevertheless, reading people's minds seems far from being easy and attempts to fully understand our communication partner are, often , not successful (Epley & Gilovich, 2006). For example, we might think that people like the gift they have just received because we are focusing on the words of gratitude they pronounce, but their facial expression might disclose emotions which we are failing to interpret.

The question that arises here is why do these mistakes take place?

An answer to this question can be found in the concept of perspective-taking. Perspective- taking revolves around the idea of “putting yourself in other people’s shoes” and trying to perceive the situation from the other individual’s point of view (Batson & Salvarani, 1997). Although the THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 4 given definition might lead the reader to think that perspective-taking is likely to result in accurate interpersonal understanding, previous research showed that taking the other person perspective is, oftentimes, not successful (Epley, Morewedge, & Keysar, 2004).

One of the reasons why perspective-taking is frequently associated with scarce interpersonal understanding is the fact that people fail to understand the emotional state of someone who is experiencing feelings that differ from their own (Van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren,

2013). This cognitive bias is known as the “empathy gap” (Loewenstein, 1996) and is caused by people’s tendency to assume that their perspective and the one of other individuals are more similar than what they actually are (Ross & Ward, 1996). However, it may happen that these similarities are only in the mind of the perspective taker and this might result in erroneous perspective-taking judgments when the other person's state of mind actually differs from these expectations (Van

Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren, 2013). The erroneous judgments caused by the empathy gap raise the question of if perspective-taking is actually effective when it comes to attempting to understand other people's minds.

Eyal et al. (2018) discussed a different way in which an accurate picture of the counterpart’s mind can be created: perspective getting. This concept can be described as the case in which people whose perspective is being taken disclose insights about their emotional states (Eyal, Steffel, &

Epley, 2018). This information can be seen as a feedback, which is the information given by a person to another about his or her understanding or about a performance (Hattie & Timperley,

2007). Several experimental studies have been conducted to examine the effect of feedback on performance improvement (Balke, Hammond, & Meyer, 1973; Bitchener, 2008; Sheen, 2007).

However, little has been done to investigate the role that obtaining this information has on perspective-taking accuracy. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by answering the following research question:

RQ: To what extent does receiving feedback about others’ emotions influence perspective- taking accuracy? THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 5

Theoretical framework

The Empathy Gap

As briefly outlined above, people encounter difficulties when they have to place themselves in other people’s shoes (Quattrone, 1982). These difficulties are caused by the empathy gap

(Loewenstein, 1996). This cognitive bias entails that people struggle in assessing the feelings of a person that is in a different emotional status (Van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren,

2013). In other words, the empathy gap takes place when a person feels certain emotions and tries to understand what other individuals are feeling when they are in an opposite emotional state. For instance, people who are feeling stressed would find it hard to understand the perspective of someone who is relaxed.

The effects that this bias has on interpersonal understanding have been investigated by several scholars (Nordgren, Banas, & MacDonald, 2011; Sayette, Loewenstein, Griffin, & Black,

2008). For instance, Nordgren, Banas, and MacDonald (2011) conducted an experimental study in which participants were either included or excluded from playing a computer videogame.

Afterwards, all participants were asked to evaluate several negative events, among which some of them represented exclusion from social activities. The authors hypothesised that participants who were excluded from the video game would be more accurate in estimating the negativity of these events than participants who played the game. The outcome of their research met their expectations.

In fact, individuals who could play the game made less accurate judgments of the social pain generated by the negative events than individuals who did not play the videogame. These results displayed that being in an emotional situation that differs from the one of the counterpart's has negative consequences on the accuracy of perspective takers’ judgments.

This argument was also supported by a study by Auyeung and Alden (2015). The researchers conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to watch 8 videos. These videos displayed different situations in which a target person was experiencing negative emotions THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 6

(e.g. sadness, feeling of being critically scrutinised). The participants were divided into two groups: the individuals of the first group were aware of being observed by the experimenter while they were watching the videos. On the other hand, the remaining participants were used as a control group and could perform the task in privacy. The authors predicted that individuals in the control condition would be less accurate in predicting the target’s negative emotions than participants who were being observed. The results of the experiment met their expectations, supporting the argument that perspective takers do not accurately judge another person’s perspective when the two individuals are experiencing different feelings.

The Egocentric Bias

These inaccurate interpersonal judgments are due to another cognitive bias known as the egocentric bias. When individuals are egocentrically biased, they tend to overestimate the similarities between themselves and other people (Ross & Ward, 1996). For example, a math teacher might underestimate the difficulty of an exercise because she would, not deliberately, assume the existence of too many similarities between her skills and her students' capacities. In the context of emotional perspective-taking, the egocentric bias causes individuals to believe that other persons experience the same thoughts, feelings and emotions that they are currently experiencing

(Ross & Ward, 1996). In other words, perspective takers who are egocentrically biased project their own perspective onto the one of the perspective-taking addressee (Eyal et al. 2018). For instance, a person who is stressed would unconsciously think that another person is more stressed than he or she actually is.

The reason why people tend to be egocentrically biased lies in the way in which human brain processes situations and events. On this matter, the existing body of research commonly agrees that all human beings base their perspective-taking judgments on information that is immediately available to them (Epley& Gilovich, 2001; Wansink, Kent, & Hoch, 1998; Switzer III

& Sniezek, 1991) because it is less cognitively demanding (Wallin, 2011). In the context of emotional perspective-taking, it can be stated that people's own mental state is the most easily THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 7 accessible information because humans experience life from their own perspective (Epley, Keysar,

Van Boven, & Gilovich 2004). Consequently, individuals use their own viewpoint in an attempt to place themselves in others' shoes.

Van Boven and Loewenstein (2003) provided empirical evidence to this latter argument.

The two researchers conducted a study in which they asked participants to fill in a survey either before or after performing some physical exercises. Participants were asked to read a text in which a scenario was described: three hikers were lost in the woods without any food or beverage.

Individuals who took part in the experiment were asked to estimate whether the hikers were feeling thirstier or hungrier. The authors predicted that participants who completed the questionnaire after performing the physical activities would indicate that the hikers were feeling thirstier rather than hungrier. Results of their study supported this hypothesis. These findings entail that individuals projected their own perspective onto the one of the other people (i.e. the hikers).

Perspective-taking instructions

To investigate how to avoid people from being biased by their feelings and, consequently, generate inaccurate predictions about people with different emotional states, Damen, van der Wijst, van Amelsvoort, and Krahmer (2017) conducted an experimental study. The authors asked the participants of their study to take part in a communication task. Participants were paired up and randomly assigned to either speaker or addressee role. Speakers saw four geometrical figures and had to hide one of them from the addressee. Afterwards, they had to answer one self-focused question (i.e. Which four figures are visible to you?) or one other-oriented question (i.e. Which three figures are visible to your addressee?). Subsequently, they had to describe the target item to the addressee. The researchers expected that people who were explicitly asked to take their experimental partner's perspective would not over-rely on the information that was only available to them (e.g. size, colour). In other words, individuals who received perspective-taking instructions were not expected to use information that was only available from their point of view to describe the hidden item. Contrary to the authors' expectations, the results show that giving perspective- THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 8 taking instructions to participants did not result in individuals not using privileged information to communicate with the other person. As a matter of fact, the results of this study show that individuals in both the self-focused and the other-oriented conditions utilised the information that was hidden from the other person. These findings entail that receiving perspective-taking instruction does not enhance people's ability to take others' perspective.

This conclusion was later supported by an experimental study by Eyal et al. (2018). These authors also provided their participants with perspective-taking instructions. Individuals who took part in the study had to perform an interpersonal understanding task (i.e. identifying a target person's feelings and emotions). More specifically, participants were shown a video or a picture of another person and were asked to envision the feelings of that individual. Answers of participants who were presented with explicit perspective-taking instructions were compared to the answers of a control group. The results of the experiments clearly showed that prompting people to put themselves in the other's shoes does not enhance their ability to adopt their counterpart's perspective. In fact, participants in the perspective-taking conditions were less accurate in predicting the other person's emotions than participants in the control group.

Feedback about emotions

Luckily, solely attempting to place themselves in others’ shoes is not the only approach that individuals can utilise to envision another perspective. Indeed, people can also be exposed to feedback given in the form of information and insights about the perspective they are trying to take

(Balzer, Doherty, & O’ Conner, 1989).

The effects of feedback have been studied in different domains, such as the teaching- learning one (Bitchener, 2008; Sheen, 2007). In the study by Bitchener (2008), for example, participants were asked to produce written texts in three different moments in time (i.e. pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test). Some participants received feedback on their performances, while the other group of subjects did not receive any feedback and was, therefore, used as a control group. The results of this experimental research showed that individuals who were THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 9 exposed to feedback reached higher performances in the task in question compared to individuals who did not receive such feedback.

However, receiving feedback has not only been proven to have a positive influence on the specific mistakes made while performing a task. Indeed, previous research displayed that receiving insights about someone’s perspective can also improve the accuracy of the judgments about that person’s emotional state. Thompson and Deharpport (1994), for instance, provided evidence to this argument by conducting an experimental study in a bargaining context. The participants of the study were asked to engage in several negotiations. After each negotiation, participants in the full- feedback condition received a copy of their counterpart’s interests. Negotiators in the outcome-only condition, on the other hand, were only informed about how well their opponent performed in the negotiation in question. Participants in the control group did not receive any insights on their opponent’s perspective nor about their experimental partner’s outcome. At last, participants in all conditions were asked to make predictions about their experimental partner’s interests. The results of the experiment show that participants in the full-feedback condition outshone the ones in the other condition, making more accurate judgments about their counterpart’s interests. The outcomes of this experiment suggest that receiving insights about another person’s mind can have positive effects on interpersonal understanding.

This argument is also supported by the previously mentioned study by Eyal et al. (2018). In their last experiment of the series, the authors asked their participants to predict how their partner would react to 20 opinion statements (e.g. I am concerned about how much sugar I eat.). One group of participants was given perspective-taking instructions, while participants in another group were given the opportunity to ask their spouse about their opinions on the statements before making a prediction. The researchers referred to this approach as "perspective getting" (Eyal, Steffel and

Epley, 2018). A third group was used as a control group. Therefore, these participants did not receive perspective-taking instructions nor could ask questions to their partners before predicting their answers to the statements. The results of the study displayed that participants who were in the THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 10 perspective getting condition made more accurate judgments of their partner's perspective than participants who were prompted to use the perspective-taking approach (and more than participants in the control group). These outcomes support the argument that receiving insights about someone's feelings can have positive effects on perspective-taking judgments.

Following this line of reasoning the two following hypotheses have been formulated:

H1: Receiving feedback about emotions will lead to more accurate judgments of the other person's mind that receiving explicit perspective-taking instructions or being in the control group.

H2: Receiving perspective-taking instructions would lead to more instances of egocentric projection than receiving feedback about the other's emotions or being in the control group.

Current study

The main purpose of the present research is to assess whether receiving feedback about someone’s emotions influences accuracy in perspective-taking. In order to achieve this goal, an experiment will be conducted. Participants will see different money distributions (i.e. favourable distributions to the participant, equal distributions, unfavourable distributions to the participant) and will be required to adopt the perspective of another person. Previous research on the empathy gap showed that individuals make erroneous judgements about others’ emotions when they try to place themselves in the shoes of someone is experiencing different feelings (Van Boven et al. 2013).

Moreover, past research further showed the positive effects that receiving feedback has on interpersonal accuracy (Thompson & Deharpport, 1994; Eyal et al., 2018). Based on this literature, it is expected that participants who receive feedback will make more accurate judgements about others' emotions than individuals who receive explicit perspective-taking instructions and the ones in the control group (Hypothesis 1). Furthermore, we assume that this inaccuracy in perspective- taking can be a consequence of the egocentric bias, which makes people underestimate the differences between their emotions and the ones of others and project their own perspective onto the other (Ross & Ward, 1996). Consequently, we also hypothesise that receiving explicit perspective- THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 11 taking instructions would lead to more instances of egocentric projection than receiving feedback or being in the control condition (Hypothesis 2).

Method

Design

In order to investigate to what extent receiving feedback about emotions influences perspective-taking accuracy, a 3 (Type of instructions: feedback, explicit perspective-taking, control) x 3 (type of money distribution: favourable to the participant, equal, unfavourable to the participant) design experiment was conducted. In this study, the money distribution variable was assessed within-subjects, while the type of instructions variable was measured between subjects.

The dependent variables of this study were accuracy of judgments about the other’s emotions and egocentric projection. 1

Participants

In total, 153 participants took part in the study. The sample consisted of 95 females and 57 males. One participant preferred not to specify his or her gender. Participants’ age ranged between

18 and 38 (M = 21.96, SD = 3.30). The lowest educational level obtained by participants was a high school diploma, while the highest one was a Master’s degree.

Participants were recruited via the Human Subject Pool of the School of Humanities and

Digital Sciences. Course credits (0.5) were assigned to the Tilburg University students who took part in the study. Furthermore, the researchers used leaflets and chocolate bars to gather more participants from the university campus.

Being proficient in the language of the experiment and being more than 18 years old were the only two requirements that participants needed to meet in order to take part in the experiment.

1 This research is part of a bigger study which was conducted at Tilburg University (NL). There was one more condition in the experiment: perspective-getting condition.

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 12

The language requirement was necessary for participants to understand the task and perform it successfully. Tilburg University students were considered to be proficient in the English language.

Pre-test

The researchers decided to present participants with fictitious distributions of money to conduct the present study. A pre-test was run to assess how pre-test participants would react to the different money distributions. These scores were then used to create the written feedback to which participants of the actual experiment were exposed.

The platform Qualtrics was used to build up an online survey which was distributed by researchers throughout their personal network. A total number of 26 respondents participated in the pre-test. At the beginning of the questionnaire, participants were asked to imagine that money was divided between them and another participant. Each participant of the pre-test was exposed to the

30 trials in random order. Participants of the actual experiment then got to see the exact same distributions. An example of a money distribution is presented below:

In this round, the amount of money to be divided is:

€6

Of this total amount, you have been allocated:

€5

The other participant has been allocated:

€1

Participants of the pre-test were exposed to 10 distributions in which they received more money than the other person, 10 distributions in which the other person was allocated more money than the participants themselves, and 10 distributions in which the money was distributed evenly between the two parties. This resulted in a total of 30 money distributions. After having been THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 13 presented with one money distribution, the respondent had to answer one question: “How happy are you personally with this division?”. Participants answered this question on a 7-point Likert scale

(1= "extremely unhappy" – 7= "extremely happy"). Subsequently, respondents were asked to describe in their own words how happy they were with each division. Afterwards, the pretest ended.

Results of the pre-test showed that equal distributions made participants feel happier (M =

5.60, SD = 1.00), F(6, 295.45) = 71.19, p = < .05 than distributions in which participants themselves received more money than the other person (M = 4.71, SD = 1.59), F(6, 297.01) = 44.97, p = < .001.

On the other hand, distributions in which participants received less money than the other person made participants feel the most unhappy (M = 2.32, SD = 1.26), F(6, 302.61) = 63.99, p = < .05. We defined a set of criteria that the items had to meet in order to be included in the experiment (i.e. equal distributions 5-7; favourable distributions 3-5 and unfavourable 1-3). All 30 items met the criteria and were, therefore, considered valid for the actual experiment.

These results, together with answers to the final open question asking for further comments, were used as an inspiration to create the written manipulation material for the “feedback” condition of the experiment. An example of feedback for each type of money distributions is presented in

Figure 1:

Figure 1. An example of feedback for each type of money distributions THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 14

Procedure

The experiment was conducted in one of the Tilburg University (UvT) laboratories. Upon arrival at the laboratory, participants were presented with an information letter regarding the goal of the study, the procedure of the experiment, the advantages and the possible risks of participation.

Moreover, participants were informed about the voluntary nature of their participation in the experiment, about the confidentiality of their data and also about the fact that the experiment received ethical approval by the Ethical Review Board of UvT. Afterwards, participants were asked to sign an informed consent form.

Each participant was assigned to a soundproof cabin. Assigning each participant to one cubicle was seen as necessary to make participants believe that another person was participating in the study at the same time. This deception was needed in order to ensure the external validity of the present experimental study. Actually, participants only interacted with the computer present in the cabin. Before beginning the experiment, participants were told to wait a few seconds before beginning the experiment while the experimenter pretended to check on the other participant. In this way, the experimenters deceived the participants and made them believe that there was a real person participating in the experiment with them.

Participants were randomly assigned to one experimental condition. Participants who were in the feedback condition were presented with the following text in the instruction section at the beginning of the experiment:

For each round, the other participant is asked to write down his/her thoughts about the distribution.

After you have answered your question about the distribution, you will be shown the other participant’s response to the same distribution. You'll have to wait a couple of seconds until the response is collected.

On the other hand, participants in the perspective-taking condition were explicitly instructed to try to take the perspective of the other and were exposed to the following text once in the instructions section: THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 15

During this experiment, you will be asked to answer how the other participant is feeling about the money that is distributed between you and him/her. While answering these questions, we ask you to really envision yourself in the other person’s position and imagine what the other person is feeling.

In particular, we ask you to imagine how happy or sad the other participant is with each money distribution.

Participants in the control condition did not receive any explicit perspective-taking instructions nor any feedback about the other person's emotions. These participants were only informed that they were about to see money divisions between them and another person,

At the beginning of the experiment, all participants were asked to provide the researchers with information about their demographics (i.e., age, gender, nationality, education level).

Afterwards, they were asked to first complete a practice trial. Subsequently, the actual experiment started. Participants were shown, in a random order, with the same fictitious money distributions used for the pre-test (i.e. 10 favourable distributions to the participant, 10 equal distributions and 10 distributions unfavourable to the participant).

After each money distribution, participants in the perspective-taking condition read the following text:

Envision yourself in the other person’s position and imagine what the other person is feeling about this money distribution.

Participants in the feedback and control conditions did not read this text.

After each item was displayed, participants in all conditions were asked to rate the perceived happiness of their experimental partner with the money division (i.e. How happy do you think the other participant is with this division?) and their own happiness (i.e. How happy are you personally with this division?) to measure the two dependent variables of the study: accuracy of judgments and egocentric projection. 2

2 Participants also answered the question “How confident are you in your prediction of the other participant's happiness?”. This item measured confidence, which was a variable considered in another research forming part of the same study. THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 16

After the 30th trial, participants were asked to fill out a self-reported perspective-taking scale. Participants answered the 6 items (e.g. I found it difficult to imagine how the other participant felt about the money distribution) on a 7-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree – 7= strongly agree). This scale was an adaptation of the one used by Damen, van Amelsvoort, van der Wijst, and

Krahmer (2019). Furthermore, participants were required to fill in an adaptation of the unwillingness to communicate scale (Burgoon, 1976), which was composed of 10 declarative statements (e.g. I have no fears about expressing myself in a group). Answers were collected on a 7- point Liker-scale (1=strongly disagree – 7= strongly agree). Participants were presented with these two scales at the end of the experiment3. These scales are presented in Table 1 (Appendix). At last, participants were debriefed about the study. A more detailed debriefing was sent to participants one month after their participation in the experiment.

Measures

The dependent variables of this study were accuracy of judgments and egocentric projection.

Accuracy of judgments was measured as the absolute mean difference between participants’ predictions of the other person’s happiness for each money distribution and the actual levels of happiness of the other for each money distributions. Other’s actual happiness levels were operationalized as the mean of the answers participants of the pre-test gave to the question "How happy are you personally with this division?". Larger absolute differences between participant’s predictions and actual answers indicate smaller accuracy. An absolute mean score was calculated for each level of the variable type of money distribution to inspect whether the type of money distribution had an effect on accuracy4.

Egocentric projection was measured as the absolute mean difference between participants’ self-reported levels of happiness towards the money distributions, measured with the question “How

3 Answers to the self-reported perspective-taking scale (Damen et al., 2019) and to the unwillingness to communicate scale (Burgoon, 1976) were not included in the present research analysis. 4 In the present research, no hypotheses were formulated on the effect that different types of money distributions could have on accuracy of judgments. Another research forming part of the same study focused on this matter. THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 17 happy are you personally with this division?”, and participants’ predictions of the other person’s happiness, measured with the item “How happy do you think the other participant is with this division?”. An absolute mean score was calculated for each level of the variable type of money distribution to assess whether the type of money distribution influenced egocentric projection.

Larger absolute differences indicate smaller egocentric projection.

Results

We conducted a mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) that included instructions type

(feedback vs explicit perspective-taking vs control) as between-subjects variable and type of money distributions (favourable to the participant, equal, unfavourable to the participant) as within-subjects variable. The dependent variables were accuracy of judgments and egocentric projection. 5

Accuracy of judgments

Exploratory analyses revealed one outlier for the accuracy of judgments variable, whose deviance score diverged from the mean by more than 2.5. This outlier was excluded from the analysis. To assess possible violations of normality, the values of skewness and kurtosis for the three accuracy scores as a function of the experimental condition were checked. These z-scores are listed in Table 2 (Appendix). Equal distributions in the feedback condition (z-score skewness: -2.59, z score kurtosis: -0.45) and explicit perspective-taking condition (z-score skewness: 3.50, z-score kurtosis -0.04) had a significant skewness. Moreover, favourable distributions in the explicit perspective-taking condition also showed a significant skewness (z-score skewness: 2.07, z-score kurtosis 0.10). Lastly, equal distributions in the control condition (z-score skewness: 1.58, z-score kurtosis: -2.09) had a significant kurtosis. To further inspect the normality of the data, a

Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was also performed. Accuracy scores for equal distributions for the feedback, D(50) = 0.162, p < .001, explicit perspective-taking D(51) = 0.223, p < .001, and control

D(51) = 0.181, p < .001 conditions were significant. These values, together with the significant

5 One money distribution was wrongly formulated and was, therefore, excluded from the analysis. Consequently, the analysis was based on 29 items (i.e. 10 favourable money distributions, 10 equal money distributions and 9 unfavourable money distributions). THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 18 skewness and kurtosis values, show that the data were not normally distributed. The ANOVA is a fairly robust test against the violation of this assumption. However, the outcomes of the ANOVA may not be completely reliable and the results need to be interpreted with caution. Levene’s test of homogeneity of variance was also conducted to assess whether the experimental groups had equal variances. Results of the Levene’s test were not significant, indicating that the distributions of the outcomes in each independent group were equal. Mauchly’s test of sphericity indicated that the assumption of sphericity was violated for the main effect of the type of money distributions, χ2(2) =

46.15, p < .001. Therefore, the degrees of freedom were corrected using Huynh-Feldt estimates of sphericity (ε= .81). Descriptive statistics regarding accuracy of judgments as a function of type of instructions are listed in Table 3 (Appendix).

The ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of the type of money distributions on

2 accuracy of judgments F (1.61, 240.31) = 92.10, p < .001, 푝 = .382. A repeated contrast was performed to compare favourable distributions to the participants with the equal ones, and the equal distributions with the ones that were unfavourable to the participants. A smaller absolute difference indicates a higher accuracy of judgments and a larger absolute difference indicates a lower accuracy. Participants made more accurate judgments when they saw favourable money distributions (M = .83, SE = 0.02) than when they saw equal distributions (M = .88, SE = 0.03).

2 However, this difference was not significant F (1, 149) = 2.40, p = .12, 푝 = .016. In turn, equal distributions significantly lead to more accurate judgments than unfavourable distributions (M =

2 1.35, SE = 0.04), F (1, 149) = 81.70, p < .001, 푝 = .354. These results show that participants scored the lowest accuracy scores when they saw unfavourable money distributions. On the other hand, both equal and favourable money divisions were the ones which lead to the highest accuracy scores.

Furthermore, the results of the ANOVA display that participants in the explicit perspective- taking condition (M = .83, SE = 0.04) made more accurate judgments than participants in the THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 19 feedback condition (M= .85, SE = 0.04). In turn, participants who received feedback were more accurate than participants in the control condition (M = .95, SE = 0.04). However, this main effect

2 was not significant F (2, 149) = 2.00, p = 139, 푝 = .026. Therefore, the hypothesis that individuals who receive feedback would make more accurate judgments than participants in the explicit perspective-taking and control conditions was not supported (H1).

Moreover, the ANOVA revealed a significant interaction effect between type of money

2 distribution and instructions type, F (4, 298) = 12.78, p < .001, 푝 = .146. The interaction effect is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Accuracy of judgments ratings as a function of instruction type (feedback vs explicit perspective-taking vs control) and type of money distribution (favourable to the participant, equal, unfavourable to the participant)

For participants in the feedback condition, favourable distributions (M = .96, SE = 0.04) generated more accurate judgments than equal distributions (M = 1.08, SE = 0.06), which generated, THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 20 in turn, more accurate judgments than unfavourable distributions (M = 1.15, SE = 0.07). The same pattern held for participants in the control condition, who made more accurate judgments when they saw favourable distributions (M = .80, SE = 0.04) than when they saw equal distributions (M = .84,

SE = 0.05), which in turn generated higher accuracy scores than unfavourable distributions (M =

1.51, SE = 0.07). Lastly, accuracy score of participants in the explicit perspective taking condition did not differ when they saw favourable distributions (M = .75, SE = 0.04) or equal money distributions (M = .75, SE = 0.06). Unfavourable distributions, in turn, generated less accurate judgments than favourable and equal divisions to the participants (M = 1.51, SE = 0.07).

Egocentric projection

Exploratory analyses revealed two outliers whose deviance score diverged from the mean by more than 2.5 for the variable egocentric projection. These outliers were excluded from the analysis. To assess possible violations of normality, the values of skewness and kurtosis for the egocentric projection scores as a function of type of instructions were checked. These z-scores are listed in Table 2 (Appendix). Equal distributions in the feedback condition (z-score skewness: -5.60, z-score kurtosis 4.98) and explicit perspective-taking condition (z-score skewness: 3.84, z-score kurtosis 4.09) had a significant skewness and kurtosis. Furthermore, equal distributions in the control condition had a significant kurtosis (z-score skewness: -1.33, z-score kurtosis 5.74). Lastly, unfavourable distributions to the participants in the feedback condition (z-score skewness: -2.26, z- score kurtosis: -1.20) and in the explicit perspective-taking condition (z-score skewness: 2-24, z- score kurtosis: 0.57) had a significant skewness. To further inspect the normality of the data, a

Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was also performed. Egocentric projection scores for equal distributions for the feedback, D(49) = 0.126, p < .001, explicit perspective-taking D(51) = 0.110, p < .001, and control D(51) = 0.136, p < .001 conditions were significant. Moreover, egocentric projection scores for favourable distributions in the control condition were also significant D(51) = 0.136, p < .001.

These values, together with the significant skewness and kurtosis scores, show that the data were not normally distributed. ANOVA is fairly robust against the violation of the normality assumption. THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 21

However, the outcomes of the ANOVA may not be completely reliable and the results need to be interpreted with caution.

Levene’s test of homogeneity of variance was also conducted in order to assess whether the experimental groups had equal variances. Results of the Levene’s test were not significant for the egocentric projection scores when participants saw favourable and unfavourable distributions (p =

.98 and p = .24), but it was significant for the equal distributions scores (p= .03). However, since groups sizes were equal, a small departure from the homogeneity of variance assumption is not a threat to ANOVA (Stevens, 2012). Hence, the data were not transformed. Mauchly’s test of sphericity indicated that the assumption of sphericity was violated for the main effect of the type of money distributions, χ2(2) = 34.70, p < .001. Therefore, the degrees of freedom were corrected using Huynh-Feldt estimates of sphericity (ε= .85). Descriptive statistics regarding egocentric projection as a function of the type of instructions are listed in Table 3 (Appendix).

The ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of the type of money distributions on

2 egocentric projection, F (1.69, 250.32) = 596.69, p < .001, 푝 = .80. A repeated contrast was conducted to compare distributions which were favourable to the participants against the equal ones, and the equal distributions against unfavourable distributions. A smaller absolute difference indicates a higher egocentric projection and a larger absolute difference indicates a lower egocentric projection. The contrast showed that participants scored higher in egocentric projection when they saw equal distributions (M = .24, SE = 0.03) than when they saw money distributions which were

2 favourable to them (M = 3.14, SE = 0.13), F (1, 148) = 532.76, p < .001, 푝 = .782. Favourable distributions to the participants lead, in turn, to more instances of egocentric projection than

2 unfavourable distributions (M = 3.56, SE = 0.10), F (1, 148) = 1141.21, p < .001, 푝 = .885. These results showed that participants scored the highest egocentric projection scores when they saw equal money distributions. On the other hand, unfavourable money divisions were the ones which lead to the lowest egocentric projection scores. THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 22

Moreover, there was a significant main effect of instructions type on egocentric projection,

2 F (2, 148) = 5.54, p = .005, 푝 = .070. Participants in the feedback condition scored higher in egocentric projection (M = 1.99, SE = 0.12) than participants in the explicit perspective-taking condition (M = 2.44, SE = 0.12), who in turn scored higher in egocentric projection than participants in the control condition (M = 2.52, SE = 0.12). It follows that participants in the feedback condition (M = 1.99, SE = 0.12) also scored higher in egocentric projection than participants in the control condition (M = 2.52, SE = 0.12). The second hypothesis of this study stated that receiving explicit perspective-taking instructions would lead to more instances of egocentric projection than receiving feedback or than being in the control condition. These results are not in line with hypothesis 2, which cannot be supported.

The ANOVA showed an interaction effect between type of money distributions and

2 instructions type, F (4, 148) = 7.10, p < .001, 푝 = .088. The interaction effect is illustrated in

Figure 3.

Figure 3. Egocentric projection ratings as a function of instruction type (feedback vs explicit perspective- taking vs control) and type of money distribution (favourable to the participant, equal, unfavourable to the participant) THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 23

For participants in the feedback condition, equal distributions (M = .31, SE = 0.06) generated more egocentric projection than favourable distributions (M = 2.80, SE = 0.22), which generated in turn more egocentric projection than unfavourable distributions (M = 2.85, SE = 0.17).

This pattern appeared to hold for participants in the explicit perspective-taking condition as well. As a matter of fact, participants in this condition scored higher in egocentric projection when they saw equal distributions (M = .20, SE = 0.53) then when they saw favourable distributions (M = 3.21, SE

= 0.22), which in turn generated higher egocentric projection than unfavourable distributions to the participant (M = 3.90, SE = 0.16). Finally, participants in the control condition also scored higher in egocentric projection when they saw equal distributions (M = .20, SE = 0.05) than when they saw favourable distributions (M = 3.41, SE = 0.22). Favourable distributions to the participants, in turn, generated higher egocentric projection scores than unfavourable distributions among participants in the control condition (M = 3.94, SE = 0.16).

Conclusion and Discussion

The goal of the present research was to investigate the effect that giving feedback about someone’s emotions has on perspective-taking accuracy. Two hypotheses were formulated with the aim to answer this research question. According to hypothesis 1 (H1), individuals who received feedback would make more accurate judgments about the other emotional state than participants who were in the explicit perspective-taking and control conditions. Results of the experiment indicated that this was not the case. In fact, the type of instructions received by participants did not affect the accuracy of their judgments about the other person's perspective. Hence, H1 was not supported.

Furthermore, according to hypothesis 2 (H2), it was expected that receiving explicit perspective-taking instructions would lead to more instances of egocentric projection than receiving feedback or being in the control group. However, this was not the case. Surprisingly, participants in the feedback conditions projected their own perspective onto the other person more than participants in the other two conditions. Therefore, H2 was also not supported. THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 24

Accuracy of judgments

Based on these results, it can be concluded that receiving feedback does not have an impact on perspective-taking accuracy. The results of our experiment are not in line with the findings by

Thompson and Deharpport (1994) and Eyal et al. (2018) which showed that receiving insights about the mind of the other person can positively influence interpersonal understanding. Our results entail that there must be other factors that affected perspective takers’ predictions about the other person’s emotional state. In fact, our analysis showed that accuracy of judgments scores differed depending on the type of money distribution that participants saw. More specifically, participants were less accurate when they saw unfavourable distributions than when they saw equal and favourable ones.

The results of our pretest displayed that equal and favourable money divisions made participants happier than unfavourable distributions. Therefore, the outcomes of our experiment are not in line with the findings by Converse, Lin, Keysar and Epley (2008). As a matter of fact, the authors investigated the effects of moods on perspective-taking accuracy and found that happy perspective takers made less accurate judgments about the other's emotions than sad perspective takers. To our knowledge, up until now, there is no previous study which reported that being in an unhappy emotional state can enhance perspective-taking accuracy. Therefore, our findings contribute to the present body of research providing new insightful scientific knowledge on emotional perspective- taking. It is our belief that the effects of moods and different types of emotions have on accuracy of perspective-taking judgments are worthy of further investigation.

Egocentric projection

The effects that our manipulation had on accuracy of emotional perspective-taking judgments are not the only surprising findings of this research. Indeed, the results of our experiment showed that individuals in the feedback conditions were the ones who scored the highest scores egocentric projection scores. These results are not in line with previous literature on the empathy gap and on the egocentric bias. As previously discussed, the outcomes of the experimental studies THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 25 by Nordgredn et al (2011), Auyeung and Alden (2015), and Van Boven and Loewenstein (2013) displayed that inaccuracy in perspective-taking can be explained by people projecting their feelings onto the other person while trying to envision the other's perspective. On the other hand, Eyal et al.

(2018) also found that egocentric projection was slightly higher for participants who received feedback than for individuals who belonged to the control condition. Following what was argued by the authors on this matter, it is our belief that our results may have been caused by social influence.

This psychological mechanism entails that feelings, thoughts and emotions of people tend to converge with the ones of other individuals (Kelman, 1958). The findings of our experimental study also show insights on the effects that social influence might have had on individuals. In fact, we found that participants projected their own perspective onto their experimental partner to a larger extent when they saw equal money distributions. If participants of the present study were indeed driven by social influence, it would be plausible that they scored lower egocentric projection scores when they were presented with favourable and unfavourable distributions. In turn, it was presumably less difficult for participants to converge their feelings with the ones of the other person when they saw equal distributions. In conclusion, it is our belief that further empirical investigation is necessary to assess whether social influence did affect the outcome of the present research.

Limitations and future research

The present research was rigorously conducted. Nevertheless, attention should be drawn to some limitations of the study. Firstly, it is our belief that the nature of the feedback received by participants might have influenced the results. Participants of our study had to base their predictions on the indirect description of their experimental partner’s feelings (e.g. I’m rather happy with this distribution. It’s nice to get more money, but it doesn’t seem fair for you). Previous research in the teaching-learning literature displayed that direct feedback has more positive effects on accuracy than indirect feedback (Bitchener, 2008). Therefore, we believe that future researchers could investigate whether this difference occurs in the emotional perspective-taking context as well. For THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 26 instance, our experiment could be replicated and the feedback condition of our study could be split into two sub-conditions: indirect feedback condition and direct feedback condition. In this latter condition, more explicit feedback items should be created. More specifically, the perspective-taking addressees should state what point on the scale they selected when having to rate their own emotions (e.g. I selected 6 on the 7-point scale).

In addition to the nature of feedback, we believe that our results may also be related to our experiment sample. The great majority of the participants in our study were enrolled in a programme of the School of Humanities and Digital Sciences of Tilburg University. Therefore, they might have been aware of the cognitive biases that influence the perspective-taking process. In fact, some participants reported that they understood the goal of the study (e.g. “I think the goal of the study is to examine the influence of egocentrism on perspective-taking”; “I think the goal of the study is to see whether you take into account how you would feel in a certain situation, even if you have to estimate someone else’s feelings”. Consequently, these participants might have put into place some techniques to reduce self-focus. Future researchers are, therefore, advised to conduct future studies utilising a more diverse sample (e.g. a sample composed of students enrolled in different schools) to avoid egocentric projection scores to be influenced by participants’ academic background.

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 27

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THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 32

Appendix

Table 1

Self-reported perspective taking scale and Unwilligness to communicate scale.

Scale Items

Self-reported perspective taking 7-pointscale When I indicated what the other participant felt about the money distribution....

…I mainly took my own feelings about the money distributions into account …I found it difficult to imagine what the other participant felt abou the money distribution …I generally tried to imagine what the other participant felt about the money distribution …I tried to ignore my own feelings about the money distribution as much as possible …I was especially aware of how the money distribution made me feel personally …I was aware that the other participant had different feelings towards the money distributions than I

Unwillingness to communicate 7-point scale I’m afraid to speak up in conversations I talk less because I’m shy I talk a lot because I’m not shy I like to get involved in group discussions I have no fears about expressing myself in a group I am afraid to express myself in a group I avoid group discussions During a conversation, I prefer to talk rather than listen I find it easy to make conversations with strangers

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 33

Table 2

Z-scores for Skewness and Kurtosis for Egocentric projection and Accuracy of judgments, as a

Function of Type of instructions

Feedback Perspective taking Control

Difference score Skewness Kurtosis Skewness Kurtosis Skewness Kurtosis

EgocentricProjecti on_favourale distributions -0.91 -1.28 -1.76 -0.46 -1.72 -1.08

EgocentricProjecti on_equal distributions -5.60 4.98 3.84 4.09 -1.33 5.74

EgocentricProjecti on_unfavourable distributions -2.26 -1.20 2.24 0.57 1.26 -0.71

Accuracy_favoural e distributions -0.88 -1.44 2.07 0.10 1.06 -0.80

Accuracy_equal distributions -2.59 -0.45 3.50 0.58 1.59 -2.09

Accuracy_unfavou rable distributions 1 . 24 -0.70 -0.24 -1.14 -0.58 -1.07

Note: z-scores that were significant are boldface.

THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE-TAKING 34

Table 3 Means and Standard Deviations of Egocentric Projection and Accuracy of judgments per Type of Money distribution, Overall and as a Function of Type of Instructions Feedback Perspective taking Control Overall (n = 51) (n = 51) (n = 51) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Egocentric Projection Favourable Distributions 2.80 (1.40) 3.21 (1.51) 3.41 (1.67) 3.18 (1.53) Egocentric Projection Equal Distributions .31 (.49) .20 (.28) .20 (.35) .27 (.47) Egocentric Projection Unfavourable Distributions 2.85 (1.13) 3.90 (1.13) 3.94 (1.23) 3.58 (1.24) Accuracy Favourable Distributions .96 (.26) .75 (.31) .80 (.32) 0.83 (.31) Accuracy Equal Distributions 1.07 (.31) .63 (.42) .84 (.43) .89 (.41) Accuracy Unfavourable Distributions 1.15 (.46) 1.40 (.48) 1.51 (.52) 1.36 (.51)