Mind your perspective: How perspective taking shapes perception of norm-violating actions.

This research investigates the role of perspective taking on judging blatantly wrong actions. We hypothesized that judgments of norm-violating actions would depend on the perspective taken by the perceiver (the injured party or the perpetrator); we expected results to be mediated by causal attribution. Participants read a vignette describing an employee going to work drunk and leaving early without permission. We measured empathy and perspective taking, participants’ causal attributions, and manipulated the perspective participants would take (employee/employee’s supervisor). Individuals taking the perspective of the employee judged more leniently the norm-violating behavior; this relationship was fully mediated by blaming the employee for his actions. Scores on perspective taking and empathy did not influence perception of the behavior, individuals higher in empathy felt closer to the employee than to his supervisor and for this reason blamed less the employee for his actions