Ask what a specific other person would do

Step into a named other’s perspective to access approaches you would not generate as yourself.

Why it works

Self-generated approaches are constrained by self-concept — we do not usually consider options that feel incompatible with who we are. Taking the perspective of a named other (a specific artist, a child, a competitor, a historical figure) temporarily suspends those constraints and activates different associative networks. The question is not "what would they literally do" but "what direction does imagining them open that I was not considering?"

How to do it

1. Name a specific person whose approach to this problem would be different from yours.
2. Spend 5–10 minutes generating from their perspective: what would they notice, ignore, or prioritize?
3. Extract the one element of their hypothetical approach that is most useful to your actual work.

Evidence

Perspective-taking research shows that imagining another’s viewpoint increases divergent thinking and reduces cognitive fixation. The creative version of this is the "WWXD" (What Would X Do?) technique, which has anecdotal support across creative disciplines. (mechanistic)

The cited research is on social cognition, not creative tasks specifically; the creative application is a reasonable extension of the cognitive flexibility finding.

Sources

• Galinsky & Moskowitz (2000), perspective-taking: decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — perspective-taking and cognitive flexibility

Common mistake

Choosing a person who thinks similarly to you rather than one whose approach is genuinely strange or orthogonal — the perspective gain is proportional to the difference from your default.