Thursday, February 10, 2011

Putting Yourself in Another Person's Shoes

Focus Activity
1) What does it mean to "put yourself in another person's shoes"? What personal qualities are necessary to be able to see things as someone else does?

To me, it means to understand situations from another person's perspective, and to look at things differently, from other's point of view. I feel that in order to do so, we need to understand the person as a whole in order to think from his/her perspective. Also, I feel that we need to be critical thinkers before we are able to see things as someone else does. If we do not think critically, we would not be able to know how something can affect that person and consider his/her feelings and thoughts of the event.

2) What makes it possible to adopt a different perspective? What is difficult about the experience?
I feel that it is possible to adopt a different perspective when we understand the situation and analyse it critically. Thinking from different points of views of people who may be affected by the event or decision is how we can adopt a different perspective. For example, as a student, playing is enjoyable, but they may spend too much time on playing. If we look from a parent's perspective, playing too much is not good for the child. This is how we can adopt a different perspective. What is difficult is that some people may not have the maturity or the ability to think in others' shoes. Also, some people are really hard to comprehend. Therefore, putting ourselves in their shoes can be a challenge for many.

That would be all for now. Do look forward for future posts.

4 comments:

  1. Ok, I do agree that we have to think critically to be able to put ourselves in other people's shoes but I also feel that one must be caring and concern for other people. If we do not have these traits, why would people even bother to empathise with other people?

    Also, I agree that " some people may not have the maturity or the ability to think in others' shoes and some people are really hard to comprehend", however in my opinion, I feel that the true problem to understand it is because we were never in the same situation as them, and there fore we are unable to feel what they are feeling no matter how hard we try and analyse or watsoever.

    Anyways, what you wrote was an inciteful post :D Just stating my opinion.

    Nicholas 2i122

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  2. Hello Kee Xuan! I agree with most of your points about putting ourselves in other peopel's shoes, like adopting a different perspective when engaging in critical analysis. However I would like to point out that you do not necessarily need to be able to think critically before putting yourself in another person's shoes. A person can put themselves in another persons' shoes simply by observing them, and asking themselves questions, like "What does he do?" "Why does he do it?" and then draw conclusions, like stress levels or effectiveness in teaching.

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  3. I think that considering another's POV includes considering many things about the person, including his priorities and qualities. Then, you can choose to alter some parts of your behavior when interacting with him. So, considering another's POV is also being sensitive (:

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  4. Hi Kee Xuan,

    I agree with most of your points about putting yourself in other people's shoes like how you need to consider the perspective of the opposite party. However, I also do agree with Daniel's point about how you don't need to be a critical thinker in order to think from another perspective. Besides what Daniel has said, I also feel that we actually become critical thinkers when we think from a different perspective. If we are only limited to one perspective and do not expand our scope of thinking and discussion, we will never be able to adopt a different perspective. Therefore, its through this journey of developing perspectives that we become a critical thinker and not due to being able to think critically, we can put ourselves in other people's shoes. That's just my thoughts and opinions! :)

    Cheers,
    Raphael

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