Dr. Higgins has a Japanese foreign exchange student in his class. He understands that typically, foreign students have difficulty writing papers in English. Consequently, he intends to be more lenient when evaluating this student's grammar. Which strategy is Dr. Higgins most likely employing: social decentering, empathy, or predictive adaptation? Justify your answer.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

- More than one answer is possible. A good answer should provide an explanation of the three concepts and apply them to the situation. The emphasis in evaluating the answer should be placed on the justification. A sample answer follows.
* All three of these skills are subsumed under the process of becoming other-oriented.
* Social decentering is a cognitive process in which we take into account another's thoughts, feelings, values, background, and perspective. Clearly, Dr. Higgins is thinking about potential problems he and this student will experience because English is not the student's native language.
# However, he may be looking at this problem more from his own perspective than that of the student. Dr. Higgins may be thinking of the problems this student will create for him and of ways to make his job easier rather than how the student feels or how to make the adjustment to a new culture easier.
* Empathy is an emotional reaction to what others experience and trying to feel what another person is feeling. There is no indication that Dr. Higgins is trying to empathize or sympathize with the student.
* What Dr. Higgins is doing is adapting. He is anticipating a situation before it occurs; therefore, he is predicting what will likely happen and adjusting his behavior accordingly. Of these three choices, predictive adaptation seems to be the strategy Dr. Higgins is employing.