New research offers insights into how we see the world from the perspective of others

Role taking is putting oneself in the shoes of another and seeing the world from their perspective. New research from ANU sociologist Dr Jenny Davis and Dr Tony Love from the University of Kentucky reveals insights into the racial differences in role-taking accuracy between women and shows how modest interventions can correct for an evident imbalance.

Imagine you’re at home and you cook a special dinner for a family member who is feeling a little down. Now you’re at the office, a co-worker seems a bit overwhelmed, so you offer to pick up some of the load. Role-taking is all around us, it’s a part of everyday life. From the friends who detect discomfort at a topic of conversation and move on quickly, to the teacher who might notice a student is shy and gives them more opportunities to contribute. Role-taking is a vital part of how we are governed, guiding policy makers to imagine how a decision, or even the way they speak, may be perceived by the electorate. It’s a part of business and technology, as designers and planners predict how users will interact with a new product or service.

Originating as a concept in sociological literature in 1934, role-taking is ubiquitous, and one might imagine it has been thoroughly explored in that time. Yet systemic measurement of role-taking is relatively recent explains study co-author Dr Jenny Davis from the ANU School of Sociology.

“Interest in the topic has been longstanding, but sociologists were treating this process as given. It was assumed, rather than measured. The idea to measure role-taking was floated a few times over the years, but nobody had followed through. My co-author and I noticed this as graduate students and thought the lack of measurement was a big gap in the research. Role-taking is a central concept to the field, and we wanted to know how it worked.”

Davis and her co-author Dr Tony Love from the University of Kentucky followed through on this interest, and their empirical test quickly drew attention.

“When we first published an empirical test of role-taking in 2014, other sociologists took notice and realized it was indeed important to operationalize this key concept. Once people started measuring role-taking, it opened a pandoras box of new research questions about the conditions that affect role-taking, how to improve role-taking, and the different forms role-taking might take.”

While role taking is commonplace in society, our role or status in society can effect to what extent we engage in role-taking.

“Women and people of colour role-take more actively because they have less social status and power in society,” says Dr Davis. “In other words, they have to work harder to gain personal and professional recognition, and are often dependent on people with higher status and power to bestow recognition. So, women and people of colour pay attention to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of those around them, whereas high status white men are less inclined.”

The result born of this inequitable reality is women and marginalised groups develop valuable skills. Skills that are not as prevalent among those with a high status in society, and yet are so vital and valuable to the decision-making forums people with that status inhabit. From the boardroom to the cabinet room, people who enjoy these skills would bring better foresight and intuition.

The extent to which we engage in role-taking is not static, as is becoming clearer it is something born of our circumstances and capable of being reshaped through even moderate interventions. Place women and minority groups into more leadership roles, and men and other high status social groups get better at role taking. Social sensitivity increases across the board.

Davis and Love’s new study, published open-access in the journal Sociological Science and supported by the ANU Futures Scheme, The American Sociological Association, and the National Science Foundation, explores the difference in role-taking between white women and women of colour. Using innovative experimental techniques, they demonstrate the latter are significantly more effective at role-taking in social encounters, but that modest interventions can balance this out.

“This study, which looks at racial differences in role-taking accuracy between women, replicates an experimental design we developed to measure role-taking differences between men and women. We designed the experiments based on theoretical principles (i.e., what does role-taking look like and how will we know when we see it?) and also by pre-testing with the population that would be under study (undergraduate students), ensuring that the stimuli would be relevant for them. One of the biggest challenges was getting people to show up! These studies required two participants for each trial. If either participant didn't make it to the lab, we had to reschedule the whole thing. For this reason, data collection took well over a year,” says Davis.

The findings showed that women of colour are significantly more effective at tole taking, but when women of colour are placed in leadership positions, their white interaction partners improved.

“The implications of this are twofold. First, Black women and other minority groups have a skillset they've developed over a lifetime of social interaction. They are good at role-taking, and this makes them good at leadership. Second, when those with privileged traits are asked to support a minority group member in a collaborative task, they rise to the occasion and improve their role-taking. Putting underrepresented groups in leadership positions explicitly values their social skillsets while creating an environment of greater social sensitivity overall.”

Following on from this study, Davis and Love are now looking at applied settings in which role-taking occurs. Working with a postdoctoral researcher, they are applying these ideas to trauma support professions, to better understand how role taking supports their work, and importantly, what personal toll it may take for instance emotionally. They are also looking at practitioners in the artificial intelligence space, an area where products have demonstrated the real potential to cause social harm, for example, ‘Robodebt’ and hiring algorithms.

“I'm currently working with the Gradient institute to incorporate role-taking into business and policy considerations for AI governance. In addition, Tony Love (my co-author) and I have a grant under review in which we will implement and test role-taking trainings for individuals and groups in the AI sector, centralizing the importance of diverse development teams.”