Perspective-Taking and Self-Other Overlap: Fostering Social Bonds and Facilitating Social Coordination

The present article offers a conceptual model for how the cognitive processes associated with perspective-taking facilitate social coordination and foster social bonds. We suggest that the benefits of perspective-taking accrue through an increased self-other overlap in cognitive representations and discuss the implications of this perspective-taking induced self-other overlap for stereotyping and prejudice. Whereas perspective-taking decreases stereotyping of others (through application of the self to the other), it increases stereotypicality of one’s own behavior (through inclusion of the other in the self). To promote social bonds, perspective-takers utilize information, including stereotypes, to coordinate…