33 PERSPECTIVE TAKING
A Relational Frame Approach to Understanding Perspective-Taking in Compassion and Social Justice
Abstract
One important precursor to prosocial behavior is thinking about the suffering of those in need of help, or perspective-taking. Perspective-taking is an essential skill for navigating our social world and a deficit in this area may fuel social conflict, aggression, racial bias, prejudice, and many other social issues. In this chapter, we provide a behavior-analytic description of perspective-taking and its role in establishing compassion skills and utility in social justice. In particular, a relational frame approach to perspective-taking is presented in the first section of the chapter. In the following section, we present a relational frame description of compassion and the role of perspective-taking. In the last section of this chapter, we describe how perspective-taking influences social relations, in particular, social justice.
Keywords
prosocial
Perspective-taking
relational frame
visual perspective
spatial perspective
affective perspective
emotional perspective
cognitive perspective
theory of mind
altruism
stimulus control
stimulus equivalence
relational frame theory
tacting
private events
deictic framing
coordination
inter-personal relations
spatial relations
temporal
relational networks
deictic training protocol
Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure
compassion
rule-governed behavior
self-awareness
opposition frame
outgroup
socially determined values
conditioned reinforcers
natural selection
behavioral selection
cultural selection
interlocking behavior contingencies
aggregate product
culturant
concurrent contingencies
covert
overt
About
Yors Garcia
ph.d.
Yors Garcia is a Board-certified behavior analyst that graduated from Southern Illinois University in 2011 with a Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Services with a specialization in behavior analysis. His prior experience includes roles as a behavior analyst at a private nonprofit program serving individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities, an adjunct and practicum supervisor in the Behavior Analysis program at the University of Nevada, Reno, and on-site and remote supervision in different countries, including Saudi Arabia, Colombia, and the USA. Subsequently, he has been an associate professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) and Konrad Lorenz University in Bogota, Colombia. He is the current president of the Culture & Diversity ABAI SIG and associate editor of The Psychological Record. Yors’ current research work includes supervising doctoral dissertations and conducting studies of acceptance and commitment training, derived relational responding, international supervision, bias, and racism. He is passionate about research, teaching, and dissemination of behavior analysis worldwide. He also has worked with Latin communities in Colombia and USA. He is a founding member of the ABAI chapter in Colombia.
Meredith Andrews
ph.d., BCBA-D
Meredith is a doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D).
She has been using behavior change methods to help people make meaningful differences since 2010. Her passion is teaching and disseminating behavioral science via hands-on learning experiences.
