title: When Perspective Taking Creates a Motivational Threat: The Case of Conservatism, Same-Sex Sexual Behavior, and Anti-Gay Attitudes.
abstract: Taking another person's perspective has generally been found to foster positive attitudes. We propose that perspective taking can lead to more negative attitudes when people imagine an experience that threatens their current motivations and goals. We test this idea by examining how taking the perspective of a male same-sex couple influences political conservatives' attitudes. Across four studies, we demonstrate that (a) the extent to which conservatives (but not liberals) imagine same-sex sexual behavior predicts more anti-gay attitudes, (b) this effect is in part attributable to conservatives experiencing greater disgust, and (c) having conservatives reappraise disgust as not necessarily signaling the threat of disease eliminates this effect. These findings indicate that perspective taking can foster negative attitudes when the content of perspective taking threatens current motivations. The proposed ideas provide unique insights toward developing a more comprehensive framework of how perspective taking shapes attitudes.
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA mooijman@usc.edu.
authors.forename: Marlon
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mooijman
authors.affiliation: New York University, New York City, USA.
authors.forename: Chadly
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stern
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D063509:Homophobia; D006716:Homosexuality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011057:Politics; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: anti-gay attitudes; perspective taking; political ideology