The Power of Perspective: Why Seeing from Another's View is a Health (and Human) Necessity
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”
—Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
In our fast-paced, polarized world, it’s easy to value being right more than being reflective. But in healthcare, relationships, and public discourse, it is not uncommon for clarity and compassion to fall by the wayside when we get too committed to our own point of view.
Rethinking Rightness: What We Miss When We’re Sure
Angela Duckworth and Stephen Dubner explore this idea in their podcast No Stupid Questions, asking what happened to our ability to compromise and why we’re so uncomfortable being wrong (Duckworth & Dubner, 2021). They argue that we’re often driven more by the need to not be wrong than to genuinely be right. This distinction matters: when we’re focused solely on defending our stance, we lose the chance to learn. Duckworth points to Lee Ross’s concept of "naive realism," the belief that our views are based on objective reality and anyone who disagrees must be uninformed, irrational, or biased (Ross, 2018). It's a powerful psychological barrier that gets in the way of real communication. In healthcare settings, this shows up when providers dismiss patients' concerns or patients assume doctors aren't listening. Both feel misunderstood because both are stuck in their own frameworks.
Understanding another perspective doesn’t require agreement. It requires humility. Psychologist Sam Maglio argues that people model this when they admit past mistakes, contradicting earlier positions to align with new insight (Maglio, 2021). In healthcare, this might look like a patient acknowledging they misunderstood a diagnosis, or a provider updating a treatment plan after truly hearing a patient's lived experience. This is especially relevant in what Dubner and Duckworth describe as the "fundamental attribution error" (Duckworth & Dubner, 2021). We tend to assume others' actions are based on personality flaws, while excusing our own behavior based on circumstance. In healthcare, this is the difference between assuming a patient is "non-compliant" versus asking what barriers might be making adherence difficult.
Compromise, then, isn't about giving up core values. It's about acknowledging shared humanity. Even their coffee example (sugar vs. no sugar) becomes a miniature metaphor for choosing curiosity over certainty. Each of them agrees to drink their coffee the other's way for one day, not to surrender taste but to understand it.
For providers and patients alike, perspective-taking could be the very foundation of better outcomes. It allows us to move from confrontation to collaboration. From "Why didn’t you follow my recommendation?" to "What made that plan hard to follow?"
Designing for Dignity: How Environment and Tech Shape Trust
The physical and digital environment in which care takes place also matters. Bellio and Buccoliero (2021) found that environmental factors significantly shape a patient’s sense of satisfaction. A well-organized space, respectful interactions, and even aesthetic details communicate values. The right environment can support or undermine a patient’s sense of safety and dignity. Technology complicates this further. Esmaeilzadeh et al. (2021) found that while patients are open to AI-supported healthcare, they are deeply wary of AI-only approaches. Trust, transparency, and human oversight are non-negotiable. Even in digital settings, human presence is still the anchor of trust. Wolf et al. (2021) add another layer: we must broaden our view from patient experience to human experience—including staff wellbeing, community trust, equity, and transparency. In short, how we design care systems shapes how people feel in them.
The Time Tension: Can Empathy Survive the Clock?
And yet, there is a paradox that deserves our attention. Empathy and perception are aspirational ideals—but they are also constrained by something unavoidable: time. In clinical practice, time is a finite resource. We want to understand deeply, to connect fully, but we are up against 15-minute visits, overbooked schedules, and decision fatigue. How much can we really perceive of another person in such brief encounters? The philosopher Simone Weil suggested that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. But in modern healthcare, attention is rationed.
This limitation raises another question: how do we perceive without stereotyping? When we try to be efficient in our judgments, we may rely on patterns, on assumptions. But empathy isn’t about pattern recognition; it’s about presence. The challenge is to hold space for difference, to take in someone else’s view—while resisting the urge to reduce them to our own shorthand.
We may not always have the luxury of time for deep relational engagement, but we can make room for brief, meaningful moments of clarity. Even in hurried systems, we can choose to ask one thoughtful question. To pause before presuming. To see the human, not the chart. We may not need to fully abandon our beliefs—but we do need to hear someone else’s (Duckworth & Dubner, 2021). True care begins with understanding.
References
Bellio, E., & Buccoliero, L. (2021). Main factors affecting perceived quality in healthcare: A patient perspective approach. The TQM Journal, 33(7), 176–192. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-11-2020-0274
Duckworth, A., & Dubner, S. (2021, February 21). Have we all lost our ability to compromise? [Audio podcast episode]. In No Stupid Questions. Freakonomics Radio Network. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/have-we-all-lost-our-ability-to-compromise/
Esmaeilzadeh, P., Mirzaei, T., & Dharanikota, S. (2021). Patients’ perceptions toward human–artificial intelligence interaction in health care: Experimental study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(11), e25856. https://doi.org/10.2196/25856
Maglio, S. (2021). Admitting mistakes. Character Lab. https://characterlab.org/ideas/admitting-mistakes
Ross, L. (2018). From the fundamental attribution error to the truly fundamental attribution error and beyond: My research journey. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(6), 750–771. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618778860
Wolf, J. A., Niederhauser, V., Marshburn, D., & LaVela, S. L. (2021). Reexamining “Defining Patient Experience”: The human experience in healthcare. Patient Experience Journal, 8(1), 16–29. https://doi.org/10.35680/2372-0247.1594
