The Role of the Self in Perspective-Taking and Empathy: Ease of Self-Simulation as a Heuristic for Inferring Empathic Feelings

Abstract

When judging their empathic reactions for another person, people may rely on a relatively effortless, self-based heuristic: the ease with which they can imagine themselves in the other person’s position. We present four studies showing that observers are more empathic to the extent that they can easily imagine themselves in the target’s position, across a wide variety of need domains. Furthermore, we find that use of this “ease of self-simulation heuristic” (ESS), like other judgment heuristics, is conditioned by certain predictable factors: when deliberate attempts are made to take the perspective of the target person (Study 1), when the target’s needs are ambiguous (Study 2), and when the observer’s ability to engage in more effortful perspective-taking processes are constrained by performing a cognitively demanding second task (Study 3). In the discussion, we evaluate our findings in light of contemporary theorizing on the role of the self in perspective-taking and empathy.

Keywords: empathy, perspective taking, egocentrism, pro-social behavior