Leveraging social perspective taking to improve relationships

The detective work of deciphering the complex minds of others

In the wake of COVID, educators and parents appreciate the crucial role of relationships in learning more keenly than ever. Despite broad agreement regarding the import of relationships in schooling, researchers have developed relatively few reliable approaches for improving these social bonds. In this conversational talk, we will explore social perspective taking—the process of discerning the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of others—as a foundational building block of relationships and a promising focal point for interventions. Specifically, we will discuss a hypothesized theory of how the social perspective taking process unfolds with particular attention to the parts of the process which might be amenable to intervention. With this theoretical grounding in place, we will then examine the results of an intervention to encourage teachers to take the perspective of a focal student of their choosing. Ultimately, we will contrast idealized visions of how social perspective taking should work in theory against messy, real-world pragmatics (alongside a healthy appreciation of how scholars’ changing approaches to conducting science complicates matters further). Our aspirational goal is for everyone to leave the conversation with at least one new idea for how to improve social relationships in schools.