‘What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?’ Inter-professional perspective-taking in UKHE

Abstract

Inter-professional perspective-taking (the ability to take the perspective of colleagues with whom one is working, but who work in a different context or role type) is an aspect of empathy, with substantial benefits in the workplace, including environments where inter-professional collaboration is required, such as clinicians and administrators. In this article, the focus is on the inter-professional UKHE context–academic and professional staff. Based on the available literature, I hypothesise that a greater understanding of the lived experience of another demographic, may be important in one's ability to take their perspective. A variety of factors or characteristics may influence the level of perspective-taking between academic and professional staff in UK Higher Education (UKHE). There is a dearth of literature on perspective-taking in the workplace (as noted in Sherf and Morrison (2020)) and this paper seeks to add to the literature available in the field. Keywords: The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis 1983) is discussed as a tool for measuring perspective-taking in the workplace. A survey of 272 academic and professional staff currently or recently working in UKHE was conducted. In this study, my findings suggest that in UKHE, inter-professional staff who understand each others' lived experience better, are more likely to take the perspective of another when they get upset.