Limits of Perspective Taking

If we understand others by pretending to be in their situation and then ‘seeing’ what we would do, feel, or think, we must have some significant capacity to forecast our own reactions to such situations. However, the evidence shows that we often do not know how we would react in situations only slightly different from those we are in. Thus, offline simulation accounts appear to be wrong. Instead, the errors that we make suggest that we typically forecast our reactions by thinking of what it would make sense for us to think, feel, or do.