Altercentrism and a change in perspective on the self: The relationships of visuospatial perspective-taking with rumination and mindfulness

Abstract

Rumination, a dysfunctional way of thinking, can be counteracted by mindfulness. One leading mechanism through which mindfulness works is a change in perspective on the self, i.e., looking at one’s own mental contents from a decentered perspective. Here, we tested whether a change in perspective on the self is grounded in a well-known cognitive capacity, visuospatial perspective-taking (VSPT), allowing individuals to adopt another’s visuospatial viewpoint. We measured rumination and dispositional mindfulness through self-report questionnaires and evaluated VSPT using a task requiring participants (N = 345) to judge the left/right location of an object with which an agent could interact by gazing, grasping, combining the two cues or adopting a still posture. Cluster analysis identified a group of participants (N = 59) systematically judging the object location from the agent’s (altercentric) perspective. In this group, the main results showed that the altercentric responses in the task condition in which the agent gazed towards the object significantly predicted both mindfulness and rumination. The higher was the proportion of the altercentric responses the higher was the mindfulness score and the lower was the rumination one. These findings provide the first evidence that a change in perspective on the self, involved in dispositional traits like rumination and mindfulness, can be grounded in the altercentric perspective-taking.