When to Use Your Head and When to Use Your Heart: the Differential Value of Perspective-Taking Versus Empathy in Competitive Interactions

Four studies explored whether perspective-taking and empathy would be differentially effective in mixed-motive competitions depending on whether the critical skills for success were more cognitively or emotionally based. study 1 demonstrated that individual differences in perspective-taking,but not empathy,predicted increased distributive and integrative performance in a multiple-round war game that required a clear understanding of an opponent's strategic intentions. conversely,both measures and manipulations of empathy proved more advantageous than perspective-taking in a relationship-based coalition game that required identifying the strength of interpersonal connections (studies 2-3). study 4 established a key process: perspective-takers were more accurate in cognitive understanding of others,whereas empathy produced stronger accuracy in emotional understanding. perspective-taking and empathy were each useful but in different types of competitive,mixed-motive situations-their success depended on the task-competency match. these results demonstrate when to use your head versus your heart to achieve the best outcomes for oneself. © 2013 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.