Perspective-taking skills are central to the successful navigation of social situations. Children need perspective-taking skills to help them correctly interpret different cues and accurately assess social situations so they can determine how to best respond. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) exhibit marked impairments in this area. In order to develop successful social skills interventions for this population, it is critical that we have a strong understanding of the nature of their deficits. While there is robust evidence that children with ASD experience difficulty making inferences about the beliefs of others, research on their ability to infer emotions has had more mixed results (Baldwin, 1991; Baron-Cohen, 1991; Happe, 1994; Hillier and Allinson, 2002; Kaland et al., 2005; Joliffe & Baron-Cohen, 1999; Serra et al., 2002; Williams & Happe, 2010). This study examined how well children with autism spectrum disorders are able to make emotional inferences using three different measures of emotion attribution. The measures were administered to a clinical sample of participants with high functioning-autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD) and a comparison sample of typically developing participants to determine whether individuals with HF-ASD experienced more difficulty making emotional inferences from different cues than their typically developing peers. The hypotheses that children with HF-ASD make fewer spontaneous emotional inferences and have lower levels of emotional awareness than their typically developing peers were also tested. Finally, performance on these emotional inferencing measures was examined to determine whether they were able to reliably discriminate between participants with different levels of autism-related symptomatology. Participants with autism performed as well as their peers on all measures of emotion attribution in this study. These findings and their implications are explored.

yes / Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore theoretical connections between the cognitive consequences of power on self-perception and the behaviours of leaders. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review was carried out to investigate the psychological consequences of power in terms of self-perception, perspective taking abilities, emotions and behaviours. The literature reviewed is further integrated in a theoretical model, and a series of propositions suggesting a relation between power, perspective taking, self-construal and leadership are introduced. Findings – This paper argues that power creates both temporary and enduring cognitive changes that transform the way individuals assimilate and differentiate their self from others. This transforms the way individuals in power behave as leaders, as well as followers. Individuals’ self-construal and perspective taking seem to play a mediating role in determining the behaviours of powerful and powerless individuals. This relation is moderated by organizational culture and structure, as well as personality traits. Research limitations/implications – Further research is needed to test these propositions, including the existence of cross-cultural differences in the power – self-construal relation, and the consequences of holding different types of power on an individual's self-construal. For employees and consultants working in organizational development and organizational change, understanding the potential consequences of power in terms of self-perception will improve the understanding of promoting individuals to higher positions. The present research also bears implications for scholars interested in understanding cross-cultural and gender differences in leadership. Originality/value – This conceptualization of self-construal as an interface between power and leadership reconcile the individual dynamics of trait theories of leadership and the environmental positions of situational theories of leadership. The paper discusses elements considered critical for design of leadership programs in the workplace, professional development and programs to shape the design of leadership.

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The main aim of this thesis is to investigate how environmental preference for the built environment, either in-situ or based on visual representations (e.g. visualisations of final architectural design), may be affected by three distinct variables. One of them is emotion, operationalised as the mood people are in at the time of the evaluation and the way people feel with regards to the environment. A second variable considers the participants' attention and how they may be influenced by task instructions. The third variable, intrinsically related to the second one, is how environmental preference may be influenced depending on the perspective taken at the time of the evaluation. The main research questions in this thesis are: a) How does emotion influence environmental preference? b) What is the impact of perspective-taking on environmental preference? c) What are the benefits of using emotional reactions to the environment as predictors of preference? These main research questions are addressed using both quantitative and qualitative methods, mainly quantitative, underpinned by a pragmatic approach. The unit of analysis in this thesis is the person who evaluates or judges an environment or a representation of it. Five studies are presented in this thesis. Study 1 (n=10) reports the results from interviews with practising architects in the city of Aberdeen. These results show that when designing architects take two distinct perspectives: a prescriptive inferential perspective and a self, referential perspective. These interviews are used to set the context within which this thesis operates: the presentation of design to people with no expertise in architecture and built environment disciplines. The remaining four studies directly address this thesis' main research questions. In Study 2 (n=133), Study 3 (n=146) and Study 5 (n=64) the effects of perspective-taking on different dependent variables are experimentally tested. The dependent variables are: perceived restorativeness (Study 2), environmental preference as measured via informational variables (Study 3), and the emotional reactions people have to representations of the environment (Study 5). Results of these studies show that perspective-taking carries an interpersonal perception bias whereby taking a perspective other than the self results in different environmental evaluation outcomes, but that this process can also be affected by formal training. The influences of emotion on environmental preference are directly explored in Studies 4 (n=32) and 5 (n=64). The results show that mood can have an influence on environmental preference by influencing the emotional reactions people have to the environment, but that these influences vary over time. Overall the thesis shows that perspective-taking and emotion have a range of influences on environmental preference in a built environment context, that these are important at the point at which architecture and built environment professionals design environments, and that timing of environmental evaluations in longitudinal assessments can make the difference between positive and less positive evaluations. This thesis' results are discussed in light of existing knowledge and some recommendations are made for future research and practitioners in architecture and built environment disciplines.

The present study assesses the effects of extraversion, empathy, and humor style on humor score, while specifically focusing on the introverted sense of humor. 129 participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk took a survey consisting of the extraversion subscale of the Ten Item Short Version of the Big Five Inventory, the Humor Styles Questionnaire, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The study supported previous findings in which extraversion positively relates to humor such that extraverts reported a greater usage of humor than did introverts. More specifically, both extraverts and introverts use adaptive humor styles (i.e. affiliative and self-enhancing humor) more than they use maladaptive humor styles (i.e. aggressive and self-defeating humor). Additionally, empathy and humor style interact such that empathetic individuals favor adaptive humor styles while unempathetic individuals have relatively heightened usage of the maladaptive humor styles while still primarily using the adaptive humor styles, no matter the level of extraversion.

This thesis is concerned with the health-related effects of perspective-taking in response to a narrative health campaign. To begin, the thesis outlines the health promotion strategies currently in use (i.e., statistical vs. narrative), presents research discussing their relative effectiveness, and considers the potential for perspective-taking to influence the impact of narrative health campaigns (Chapter 1). The thesis then defines two types of perspective-taking, cognitive and emotional, and explores the processes underlying these (Chapter 2). Each type of perspective-taking is then considered in the context of the health promotion literature (Chapter 3). It was proposed that, whereas cognitive perspective-taking should have a relatively straightforward and positive effect on the impact of narrative health campaigns, the effects of emotional perspective-taking should be more variable. Seven studies were conducted to test this basic premise and identify mediators and moderators of the observed effects. In Chapter 4, two studies are presented that aim to establish the effects of perspective-taking on health-related outcomes (Studies 1 & 2). A broadly consistent pattern was observed across these studies: encouraging cognitive perspective-taking led to more positive health-related outcomes than did encouraging emotional perspective-taking. Having established the basic effect, two studies are presented in Chapter 5 that explore a potential mediator: perspective-takers’ self-efficacy concerning a health promoting behaviour (chlamydia testing: Studies 3 & 4). These studies found a consistent indirect effect of perspective-taking on intentions to get tested for chlamydia through self-efficacy: encouraging cognitive perspective-taking increased participants’ perceived self-efficacy relative to encouraging emotional perspective-taking, which in turn positively predicted intentions to get tested in the future. The three studies presented in Chapter 6 explore potential moderators of the effects of perspective-taking (Studies 5-7). Specifically, these studies test whether the relative effects of perspective-taking are moderated by features of the relationship between the perspective-taker and a target presented in a narrative health campaign. The broad pattern observed across these studies suggests that the perception of a shared categorisation (or social identity) between the perspective-taker and target moderates the effect of perspective-taking on health-related outcomes. Specifically, the final study, Study 7, demonstrated that encouraging cognitive perspective-taking in response to a narrative health campaign leads to more positive health-related effects than encouraging emotional perspective-taking when perspective-takers’ personal (unshared) identity is made salient; however, these effects are attenuated (and potentially even reversed) when a social (or shared) identity is made salient. Considered as a whole, the research presented in this thesis represents the first empirical examination of the relative health-related effects of different types of perspective-taking in response to a narrative health campaign. The research demonstrates that perspective-taking is an important factor in determining whether or not narrative health promotion campaigns are likely to be effective. However, it also makes clear that the processes through, and conditions under, which cognitive and emotional perspective-taking can help to ensure the effectiveness of narrative health campaigns are not yet fully understood. Nevertheless, the studies presented herein successfully identify several such conditions and mechanisms ready for further study. Theoretical and practical implications, alongside limitations and more specific suggestions for further research are discussed.

Prejudice establishes coercive contingencies that restrict human rights and diminish quality of life. Social media has made the oppression experienced by individuals more apparent. Perspective taking and empathy can change prejudicial behavior by fostering relationships and encouraging self-identification with those who are different from ourselves. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a guided collective shaping program on the occurrence of perspective taking and empathetic responses when viewing social justice media. The effects of the workshop were evaluated using a multiple baseline design across workshop topics. Written responses to video clips were analyzed before, during, and after training. The results of the study were inconclusive. The results of the training, based on the responses measured, indicate an increase in one measure of perspective taking and no changes in the other measures. At the same time, anecdotal observations indicated a change in the way participants talked about the issues over the course of the training. The results are discussed within the context of response form measurement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and potential research directions.