Assessing the evidence of perspective taking on stereotyping and negative evaluations: A p -curve analysis

Abstract

Perspective taking is conceptualized as the ability to consider or adopt the perspective of another individual who is perceived to be in need; it has shown mixed results in stereotype reduction and intergroup attitude change across many social science disciplines. The inconsistent results raise concerns about the robustness of the perspective-taking phenomenon. The present study uses p-curve analysis to examine whether evidential value existed among two sets of published experimental studies where perspective taking was operationalized in two different paradigms. Despite low statistical power, we found that both sets of studies revealed some evidential value of the effects of perspective taking. The theoretical and methodological implications of perspective-taking studies are discussed as well.